Wet Floor — producer pitch

Based on the novel Wet Floor (101 Ways to Die in a Hostel, Book 4) by Jonathan Anderson. Published by Impact Narrative Media, an imprint of King Legend, Inc. Spoilers follow; for producers only.

One-page synopsis

Shiv Byrne knows every bone that breaks in a fall. She found her grandfather dead on a wet bathroom floor when she was eleven, and she has been doing the maths on floors ever since. Her therapist’s exposure ladder ends with a barefoot public shower, so she flies to Reykjavík in February with three pairs of shower shoes, a tub of bleach wipes and a sheet of daisy-shaped bath treads, to a fish plant turned hostel whose black basalt megashower is the most filmed bathroom in the North Atlantic.

She makes the first friends of her adult life: Joost, a Dutch triplet surviving a Lisbon building collapse by knocking on concrete; Amara, a med student here for her nana’s northern lights; two walrus-hatted Polish sisters; a manager who believes in elves a normal amount. And Lukas, a barefoot wellness star, sunny, sincere and an idiot, who shakes her hand with the floor still on his, and later makes her a laughing stock in front of three million people, without meaning a moment of harm.

The floor is wrong. Since FreeToWander’s Partner Hub arrived, the plant’s old well is running again, and every morning there’s a skin of silica on the tiles. The Hub cuts to cold, to scalding, tilts a lens at her when she opens it. The owners send a sticker and a mint. Friday is the Polar Plunge and Aurora Night, cannot be disabled.

Shiv stays. She gets in the sea and the sky opens over her. Then the ramp’s heat cuts out, a friend breaks her wrist on black ice, and everyone is already running for the shower. In whiteout steam, under a green crown of aurora, Lukas soaps the soles of his feet and takes one long step. He slides the length of the room, ringing three poles like bells, and the old drain throws him at the only hard corner in the building. Then the door locks and the water starts to climb.

With nineteen daisies, a jar lid and a broken UV wand, Shiv lays a path across a lake of milk and takes a door off its hinges, while Joost, who has never gone anywhere alone, blows a whistle until forty people have crossed. When he slips, she tears off her glove and takes his hand. Skin on skin. It holds.

FreeToWander says the guest did not follow posted safety signage. Back in Galway, Shiv teaches old men to get out of baths, does rung ten, and sends her friend off to Kathmandu with one line of advice. Someone polite has the last word: floor was wet. sign was posted. risk accepted.

Long synopsis (3 pages)

Cold open. At 3:14 a.m. on a Tuesday in February, night receptionist Ragnar is sent by an app to turn off a running shower in the Steam Room, the old gutting floor of a Reykjavík freezing plant: twenty metres of polished black basalt sloping to a round drain the old hands call the Throat. The floor warms, a milky film wells up, the wall sensor goes from blue to amber, all twelve heads come on. He slides, catches a pole, DING, hangs over an open drain and is locked in until the cycle completes. On the lobby TV a polite account leaves a review: floor tested. result: optimal. polar plunge & aurora night is fully booked. risk accepted.

Arrival. On Valentine’s morning Shiv Byrne, a final-year physio with contamination anxiety, lands in the dark. She meets Joost on the Flybus: she is weird about hands, he is weird about buildings. She touches the door handle and he sets a timer for her breakdown. She diagnoses Ragnar’s coccyx on sight. Hekla the manager explains the elves; Amara eats fermented shark for science and her nana; the Kowalczyk sisters arrive in walrus hats. In the Steam Room Lukas Brandt, standing on one leg, tells her shoes are coffins and takes her hand. His soap shoots across the floor and the drain swallows it. Bjarni, who gutted herring here, says the floor has eaten one a winter for seventy years.

The week. Rung by rung: a doughnut, a hot dog, a shower in front of a tiny terrifying attendant who declares her clean. Mam has bought her the app’s insurance; Lukas clicked no and made a video of it. In a rooftop hot pot Joost tells them about Lisbon. An account comments “she is covered” under a video of her lunch, and Joost has seen it before. Shiv cleans the sensor and finds a label, PROPERTY OF AGM RISK SERVICES. The lens looks at her.

At 1:22 a.m. Joost’s whistle wakes her. She walks the whiteout room from memory, reciting the bones of the foot, and brings him out with a grounding trick: “What’s it made of?” She tells Amara about her grandfather. Bjarni shows her the silica, the old bore, and the corner of the gutting table, and tells her the floor is only a road. The Hub’s owners enrol the hostel in an Enhanced Steam Experience that cannot be disabled. Hekla fights a chatbot and a man named Mads, who calls Shiv a bit much and sends a sticker and a mint. The mint slides the length of a dry floor on its own and the Throat takes it. Lukas films Shiv testing daisy treads and it goes viral. She confronts him; he tells her about his actuary father, dead on a sofa; if the floor takes him, it takes him dancing. Her therapist asks if it’s a fear or a warning. “Both.” She stays.

The Night. A metal gig. Sixty-four guests; the TV says 63 covered. Midnight. The clouds go. Shiv gets in the sea, and the aurora comes; Lukas, cameras down for once, tells her he knew. Magda wins the duel, the ramp’s heating cuts out, black ice, FOOSH, and Shiv splints her to Aga’s clipboard. Then she sees the empty sea: they have all gone back. In the Steam Room, Hekla’s free shots clear twenty; the rest are singing. At the far end, Lukas soaps his soles. The flood comes. He steps out, and the floor takes him, past three poles, three bells, onto the open Throat, up on a geyser and across the room, under a green crown. One small sound. Amara closes his eyes.

Deep Clean. The extinguisher slides, the door shuts, the water climbs toward sixty. Bjarni is locked in the sauna at a hundred and ten. Hekla can’t break the valve. Shiv unpacks the Kit: she dries each tile, sticks a daisy, thumbs down for thirty seconds, across the lowest part of the floor. Three hinges, a wand, a lid, and Aga’s hands. Joost stands on the first daisy and blows his whistle, and forty cross, through the sauna, down the old corridor, out the one door the Hub can’t lock. Then he freezes, then decides, then runs the path, and the last daisy peels. She takes his hand bare. Snow. Hekla walks out with a bass guitar and a dead white motor stuck on it. “It didn’t want to turn off. So I turned it off.”

After. Þórunn, the police officer: “People smile at the edge of things.” Everyone else had a policy; Lukas’s phone says declined. Coincidence, probably. The statement says he did not follow posted safety signage. Hekla holds up the sticker. Johanna, his sister, finds unworn shoes at the bottom of his locker, a Christmas gift: For the ice. Please. A van takes the Hubs; the logs are gone; the motor stays in the safe. Three claims open themselves, in a row. At Keflavík Shiv makes Amara buy cover for every trip, and can’t say why.

Epilogue. April in Galway. Falls prevention; “the tap’s screwed into a prayer.” Rung nine. Rung ten: bare feet on blue tile. “Mind yourself, pet. That floor’s wet.” “I know it is.” Amara has matched in Kathmandu, a little hostel with gas heaters, so cosy. Crack a window. Under Johanna’s review: three grey dots, then floor was wet. sign was posted. risk accepted. ☠

Character one-liners

• Shiv: a physio who has broken every bone in her head and must trust the one thing fear taught her, which is how to notice.
• Joost: one third of a person learning to be a whole one, one whistle at a time.
• Amara: a future trauma surgeon who eats a crime for her nana.
• Lukas: the nicest man who ever ruined your week.
• Hekla: the manager, a normal amount.
• Ragnar: the first victim of a floor, on a blue ring for the rest of the film.
• Bjarni: one more week since 2019.
• Aga and Magda: two walruses and one clipboard.
• Mads: Head of Guest Joy.
• @HostelReaper: polite.

Series page

101 Ways to Die in a Hostel is a 103-book series about the world’s friendliest booking app and the hostels that trust it. Each book is one way to die, one city, one lead. Prague (Book 1), Goa (2), Lisbon (3) have film packages. Wet Floor is Book 4; Joost crosses over from Lisbon and Amara goes on to Kathmandu in Book 5, so each film can hand to the next. Recurring threads for a franchise: the Hub, AGM Risk Services, the Reaper’s lowercase voice, and a Reddit moderator named Bea who keeps the list.

60-second trailer script

BLACK. A slow glug. A single clear DING.

CARD: “There are 206 bones in the adult human body.”

SHIV (V.O.): “I know which ones break first.”

Plane. Lava. A door handle. “Ten minutes.” “What happens in ten minutes?” “I’m allowed to have a breakdown.” “Okay. I will set a timer.”

HEKLA: “Do you believe in elves? A normal amount.”

Music in: “Wet Floor” (punk-pop). Soap shooting across the black tiles. Doughnut. Walrus hats. Hot dog. Guðrún: “Good. Clean.”

Music thins. Amber. LUKAS: “If the floor takes me, it takes me dancing.”

MADS: “I think maybe you’re being a bit much?”

A sticker. A mint. The mint gliding by itself. It’s gone.

TV, white on teal: “64 guests. 63 covered.”

Everyone running in teal under stars. Green sky. Black ice. The glass door swinging shut. A line of daisies. Steam. The whistle.

SHIV: “What’s it made of?”

JOOST: “Basalt.”

A yellow glove comes off in her teeth.

CUT TO BLACK. Three descending notes.

TITLE: WET FLOOR.

@HostelReaper types: “walk, don’t wander.” Nothing else. A chord that doesn’t arrive.