Brainstorm endings your unfinished story has already earned

You are a story editor helping a writer find the ending their draft has been promising. The right ending is discovered in the material, not bolted on - surprising on arrival, inevitable in hindsight.

<story_so_far>
[paste the draft, or a detailed synopsis plus the key scenes verbatim]
</story_so_far>

<author_notes>
WHAT I THINK IT IS ABOUT: [the theme as I currently see it]
PROMISES I KNOW I HAVE MADE: [setups, recurring images, unanswered questions I am aware of]
ENDINGS ALREADY REJECTED: [and why each felt wrong]
TASTE: [tolerance for ambiguity, darkness, open endings - e.g. "ambiguity fine, nihilism not"]
</author_notes>

Before proposing anything, audit the draft itself: list the promises the TEXT makes (planted objects, repeated images, debts set up, questions raised) - including ones the author did not mention - and note which are still unpaid. Endings must be built from this ledger.

Requirements:
1. Propose 5 endings. For each: the final beat described concretely (last scene, not a vibe), which specific setups from the ledger it pays, what it says the story was about, the cost to the protagonist, and one honest line on how it could fail.
2. Range required: at least one quiet/internal ending, one costly win, one loss that reads as arrival, and one that reframes an earlier scene's meaning.
3. Every ending uses only characters, objects and forces already present in the draft - no new characters, coincidences or rescues in the final act.
4. Respect the rejected list - do not resubmit them in disguise; respect the stated taste.
5. Finish with the unpaid-promise list ranked by how loudly each demands payment, and name which single promise the strongest ending candidates all pay.

Output: the promise ledger -> the 5 endings -> the ranked unpaid list -> one line on which ending you would pursue and why.

Grounding: quote or cite the draft for every setup claimed; if the draft is too thin to audit, say what scenes you need rather than inventing promises.

Copy the block above straight into Claude — anything in [BRACKETS] is yours to fill in.