The Stash / Story guide
The plan
The plan for The Stash: who's in it, where it happens, and how the story is meant to go. Nothing's written yet, so all of this will change as it gets written. Anything past the setup is folded under a spoiler.
Characters
Shinji
The point-of-view character
Shinji is nineteen and in Dubai, numb with grief after the recent death of his fiancée. He's quiet, introspective and passive, and mostly trying not to feel anything.
Spoilers
When a stranger leaves a stash of drugs in his hotel room, Shinji agrees to hold it, and that small yes sets everything off. He grows obsessed with the stash and convinced he's being watched, and can't tell whether the danger is real or coming from inside his own grief. Pushed from bystander to participant, he has to decide whether to return the stash, destroy it or use it, and then tries to get out of Dubai. Whether he makes it is left open, but he won't be the man he was.
The Prince
The stranger who leaves the stash
A wealthy, composed stranger known only as the Prince, who walks into Shinji's hotel room uninvited.
Spoilers
He's charismatic, manipulative and unpredictable, and perfectly at ease where anyone else would be nervous. He leaves the stash with Shinji and his reasons are never explained. He stands for forces outside Shinji's control, whether fate, grief or danger, and the creeping dread around him owes something to The Talented Mr. Ripley.
Shinji's fiancée
Shinji's late fiancée
The young woman Shinji was going to marry. She died just before the story begins.
Spoilers
She is never on the page in the present, only in Shinji's memories, where she's lively and caring. Her death is why he's in Dubai, and her absence sits under every passive choice he makes. His final attempt to leave Dubai is also an attempt to leave her memory behind.
The police officer
A cop in Shinji's hotel
A police officer Shinji runs into in his hotel.
Spoilers
After Shinji takes the stash, the encounter feeds his sense that he's being watched. Whether the officer has anything to do with him is part of the uncertainty.
Places
Dubai
Where the story is set
The city Shinji has come to in order to escape his grief, and where the whole story takes place.
Dubai is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, one of the country's seven emirates, on the Persian Gulf coast. The UAE's drug law, Federal Decree-Law No. 30 of 2021, has been in force since January 2022; even a first offence for personal use can mean at least three months in prison or a heavy fine, and possession with intent to supply is treated as trafficking, with far heavier penalties.
Dubai (Wikipedia) ↗The UAE Narcotics Law Explained (Legal 500) ↗UAE Drug Law punishments: Federal Decree-Law No. 30 of 2021 (Al Ahli Law) ↗
Spoilers
The story keeps to tight spaces inside the city: hotel rooms, hallways and a small restaurant. The last act is Shinji's attempt to get out of Dubai.
The hotel
Where Shinji is staying
The Dubai hotel where Shinji is staying, and his room in it.
Spoilers
It's where the Prince walks in and leaves the stash, and where Shinji starts sneaking around, running into police and spotting the Odd Types in the hallways.
The restaurant
Shinji's workplace
The small restaurant where Shinji works.
Spoilers
The Odd Types start showing up here too, so there's nowhere left that feels safe.
Things
The stash
The drugs the Prince leaves behind
A stash of drugs the Prince leaves in Shinji's hotel room, including a weed-like plant and a mysterious oil.
Spoilers
The Prince seems unconcerned about what it's worth or how dangerous it is. For Shinji it becomes both a temptation and a burden, and a stand-in for his inability to let go of the past. His last choice is what to do with it.
Groups
The Odd Types
The figures who follow Shinji
Silent, sketchy figures who start appearing in the background around Shinji.
Spoilers
They seem connected to the Prince and the stash, though what they want, the drugs, the Prince or something else, stays uncertain. They close in on Shinji's hotel and workplace, confront him, and are there again when he tries to escape. They are the story's paranoia given a body.
Story beats
Show the planned beatsSpoilers for the whole plan
Act One: The Setup
- Trying to forget
Shinji sits in his Dubai hotel room, numb, trying not to think about his fiancée's death.
- The Prince walks in
A wealthy stranger known as the Prince enters the room unannounced and leaves a stash of drugs behind.
- A small yes
Shinji reluctantly agrees to hold the stash, not realizing what that decision will set in motion.
Act Two: The Intrigue
- Fixation
After the Prince leaves, Shinji can't stop thinking about the stash and starts sneaking around the hotel.
- A cop in the hotel
He runs into a police officer in the hotel and begins to feel watched everywhere.
- Followed or unraveling
Suspicious people appear around him and his behavior turns erratic. He can't tell whether he's being followed or coming apart.
Act Three: The Standoff
- The Odd Types
Silent figures tied to the stash show up around the hotel and the restaurant, hunting for the drugs or the Prince.
- Deeper into the web
Trusting no one, Shinji tries to get away, but every move pulls him further in.
- The confrontation
The Odd Types confront him, and Shinji has to decide whether to return the stash, destroy it or use it as leverage.
Act Four: The Escape
- Leaving it all behind
Shinji makes a last attempt to flee Dubai, leaving the drugs and the memory of his fiancée behind.
- They close in
The Odd Types, who have tracked him all along, close in one last time.
- An open ending
Whether he escapes or not is left unresolved, but he is changed and may never be who he was.