Category: Humanities

Fact to Fiction Reflection

In the beginning of the school year we began to take experiences from our summer and compose them into a creative writing piece. The story would start as a fact and transition into fiction however you want. It could start out as fact and slowly become fiction or it could abruptly stop from fact and become fiction at any point. I am very proud of my piece because it has a lot of detail. I worked extremely hard on it. At first I just wanted to get it over with but as I started to write I really got attached to the piece. I felt like it was my job to finish it and refine it perfection. Here it is.

 

The Company

By

Oliver Eig

I am at camp on a field trip to a freezing cold river with extremely big rocks on the sides. They are small cliffs. Our counselor started to call us one by one to jump off into the water. He points at me and I say “Me?” “Yes, you.” he says as though it is the most obvious thing in the world. I am a little nervous not about the jump but more about the temperature of the water. I walk briskly towards the edge and I stop. I turn around to make sure nobody is gonna push me. I take a deep breath, then I close my eyes, and I jump down into the dark depths of the river. The water is as cold as a penguins bottom in the winter. I feel like I am having a seizure underneath the surface of the water. Finally I come to my senses and open my eyes in the water. It is dark and murky. I am a master of holding my breath so I decide to explore the dark mass of water. The river pool is 15 feet deep. At the bottom there are many rocks and holes. One of the holes is triangle shaped and is darker than the rest of the holes and crevices. I swim down like a frog and see that the hole is actually bigger than it looked before. I swim into the hole and fall down dead on my face on a cold cobblestone floor.

 

I open my eyes, dazed and hazy. I am sitting in a chair wearing one of those old hospital gowns. In front of me I see a wooden table with another chair on the other end. When I try to stand up I feel a jolt in my skull and then my brain tells my muscles to sit back down. I begin to freak out. I try to scream and yell for help except no words come out. I feel a dull pain in my mouth which is weird because I never remember anything happening to my mouth before I dove into the hole. It appears as though I am in a stone room with no exits. That is bad. I can’t find any way to escape. Suddenly a blindfold is wrapped around my eyes so tight it hurts. I hear footsteps and then nothing. The blindfold is then removed from my face and now I can see a man sitting in front of me. He is wearing a navy blue blazer with a blood red tie. His deep blue eyes look sharp and attentive. His hair is combed over like he is some kind of politician. He has a cruel smile on his face. I am guessing by his physical appearance that he is in his mid thirties. He looks dangerous, very dangerous. “I have been watching you, Oliver.” He said eerily. I try to respond but my mouth doesn’t open so I hum in my mouth. “I have temporarily deactivated your mouth muscles due to classified reasons. Anyway, you are a talented young man. Our organization will help train you to use that skill to our advantage so we were forced to lure you into our underground facility.” To me that meant he kidnapped me so he could use my so called ‘talent’. I have no idea what talent he is talking about so I am worried he will just kill me because I am useless to him. This day is getting worse and worse. I am thinking about jumping on him and making a run for it. I am about to spring but before I can move a limb he says “By the way, before you try to attack me you might want to get rid of your remote control taser headband.” He holds up a device that I’m assuming is the remote control device and presses a button. Immediately I feel a static jolt in my head again and I fall back in my chair limp. “Although, getting rid of it is impossible unless you have this remote.” He says confidently. Right now I really want to punch him in the face. I just want to break out of this place and figure out what the heck is going on. The man was about to say something but an explosion interrupted him. The stone wall behind him shattered to pieces. The force of the unexpected explosion flew the man out of his chair and sprawled across the table. His lip is bleeding a dark crimson. He then said in a rasp “You… You are dangerous.” I felt hands on my shoulder and I tried to pry them off and the second I got the hands off of my shoulder I turned around in my chair and saw two men in tuxedos getting thrown against the wall. They sported aviator sunglasses and an earpiece. I take out the earpieces and turn around. The wall that exploded appears to lead into a tunnel. I walk through the tunnel that is as dark as coal. I begin to worry. What are my parents doing right now? Do they even know where I am? What power was the man talking about? Was my power why the wall exploded and why the other two people fell? It is all very confusing. I round a corner in the muddy tunnel and see a small light ahead. As I grow nearer the light begins to expand. The light becomes so bright my eyes hurt. I finally reach the end of the tunnel and outside there is a meadow. I sprint far into the meadow and fall down laughing. It is good to be free. Now all I have to do is find my way to civilization. I’ll do that tomorrow. I think my ‘powers’ have drained the energy from me. I slowly drift away into the depths of my mind and I fall asleep, curled in the tall grass of the meadow.

Hero Essay

Heroes are people who convey loyalty when threatened and scared, who are hopeful when all is lost, and show selflessness when they themselves are desperate. Heroes are people who, despite all the chaos and conflict around them, still remain strong. Ulysses, the ancient Greek hero is actually quite similar to Anne Frank, the Jewish-German hero. They both fought in the darkness, which was caused by people repressing them physically and mentally. Ulysses and Anne Frank both demonstrated very deep and heroic qualities in their lives. A hero will always demonstrate those qualities, no matter how tough the scenario.

 

Ulysses was a hero because even when he was desperate, he was still selfless. While a normal human would be selfish when scared, Ulysses always shared his resources when he had little to nothing. On page 96-99 of The Adventures Of Ulysses by Bernard Evslin, Ulysses and his men were starving on an island that had a scarcity in food. Ulysses shared the food that he had gathered and never stashed any away. That is amazing. That made me truly believe that he was a hero because he cared for his men even when he was in hard times too. Sharing when you are in need was my deciding point in Ulysses being a hero.

 

Anne Frank was a hero that worked really hard without much feedback, but she always kept her qualities of compassion and selflessness in hard times. She was an extremely compassionate person throughout her life, no matter what she faced. Anne expressed her compassion deeply when she comforted her dying, sick sister in the rough nazi concentration camp. It was when Anne was hopeful that everything would get better with her and her sister in the camp that I realized how powerful and heroic of a human being Anne really was. That is why Anne Frank is a hero. She was always positive even though everything around her was negative and she never gave up.

 

These two people were very powerful in their ability of hopefulness and selflessness. It is amazing how they could give and share even in the worst of situations. They both never gave up. That to me is very inspiring. If everyone was like that then there would be less poverty since then everyone would share, no matter how bad their own life was. If everyone was hopeful then even when life is bad, everyone would stay on the bright side and never give up. That is paradise. That is a hero.

 

Olivers Fiction Story

ROGUE

By

Oliver Eig

 

 

Venice

Los Angeles

 

 

The Simpson family arrived at the Erwin Hotel in their limousine. “Are you sure it’s safe to be here?” Billy’s mother asked in a worried tone.

“It’ll be fine, Rebecca,” Billy’s billionaire dad Alex Simpson assured. They walked down the corridor of the hotel with an air of authority and clout.

 

Billy was nervous about the arrogance of his parents, especially his dad. It could get them in trouble someday. They checked into the hotel and settled into room 13. They started to watch their favorite TV show Arrow. Mainly because the main character is a billionaire and Alex likes to look at the stupidity of others.

 

“Oliver Queen is so stupid!” when Alex exclaimed this, it took all of Billy’s might to not yell out hypocrite. They finished their show and fell asleep with haste from their long journey. Billy woke up to the aroma of perfectly cooked bacon and hipster music playing from his dads ipad micro 10+ (being a billionaire has its perks). “Well, son, I think that you and me should go to the Venice boardwalk to get some good father-son time in on this trip.”

 

“Ok dad,” Billy said simply. He wished his parents would stop giving him so much attention. It made him feel different from other kids. He and his dad get into the car and Billy looks out the window and sees a black cat on the sidewalk staring at him with irregular piercing green eyes. He thinks that this might be some sort of message of bad luck. His dad starts the car and begins to drive to the boardwalk. “Bla bla bla dla bla bla bla,” is all Billy heard from his dad on the car ride to the board walk. They are both anxious to get to the shops to buy stuff and sell stuff.

 

“Here we are,” Billy’s dad said, exhausted. They got out of the car and walked to the water. They passed people with nose piercings and tattoos, one guy looked like he was reading a story on his arm. As they passed the locals, people started to look at them, wide eyed. “This is what happens with fame and money,” Billy mumbled. They turned to get to the boardwalk, ignoring all of the people as they go. “Let’s go to the west side, it’s more quiet there,” Billy whispered into his dad’s ear. He nodded and soon enough they found themselves jogging to the west part of the busy boardwalk.

 

It was quiet at the west side, all right. There was a pawn shop and a candy vendor. Billy thought it was very peaceful. “I like this. Ok, I’m going into the pawn shop to give up my best gold finger ring. Stay put, Alright?” said Billy’s dad in a worried tone. “Sure,” Billy said with a weak smile. His dad walked into the pawn shop with his ring in his hand, a devious smile fixed on his face. Billy’s stomach growled. He looked around and saw a lone candy vendor. He walked up to him and put $4 on the counter. The guy handed him a wrapper of M&M’s. He started eating them.

After a few minutes he started to see funny. He felt woozy. He turned around just in time to see the bag being thrown over his head.

 

 

5 minutes later…

 

 

Alex walked out of the pawn shop. “So, Billy, I was thinking we could go to the east side to go get some -” He looked around and saw that Billy was gone, not a trace. Except for the fact that the candy vendor left. His jaw dropped. “Oh dear God.” He said, terrified. “What have I done?”

 

 

END OF PART 1

 

 

BILLY

Billy woke up in a haze. The darkness was terrifying him. When he blinked, his eyelashes hit the painted canvas with a scratchy noise. His palms were sweating furiously. He tried to move his hands around but they were bound together by something plastic as far as he could feel. He was moving, bumping and tossing around in solitary confinement. Suddenly, the bag was pulled off of little Billy’s head and he was staring into the face of the candy vendor. He was skinny with tattoos covering his body, he also had dirty blonde hair with a sunburnt face. “Where are your parents?” he said forcefully.

“I don’t know.” I replied coolly. SMACK. He slapped Billy so hard it stung. “I said, where are they?”

 

 

ALEX

 

“Honey, we have a situation. Billy has been taken.” Alex Simpson reported into his iphone 20.  “Should we tell the police?” Rebecca replied, alarmed. “No, I bet this lowlife wants a ransom. If the police get involved, he’ll probably kill Billy.” He growled. “Stay at home, I will find this guy and bring him back, dead or alive.”

 

BILLY

 

“I honestly do not know where my parents are!” Billy cried, frightened. “But, if it helps, their phone number is 917-494-6882” He panted desperately. The candyman punched in the numbers on his smartphone. It rang and he picked it up. He took a 9 millimeter pistol out of his pocket and pointed it at Billy, gesturing that he should answer. “Hello, this is sort of a bad time for spam because I have just had a family crisis,” Alex Simpson said through the telephone doubtfully. “It’s me, Billy,” He said, choking over his words. “Oh my god where are you? Can you come back home, I thought you were taken!” Billy’s dad raved. The candyman took the phone and said into it, eyes staring directly at Billy. “I have your son, and if you want him back alive, transfer 4.5 billion dollars into my account on paypal. Don’t even think about tracking me down because after you transfer the money I will pick it up at the bank, delete my account and give you your spoiled brat of a son back,” The vendor hung up and announced, “Now, we wait.”

 

ALEX

 

So many thoughts jammed into Billy’s dad’s head that he could hardly see straight. He paced back and forth and finally found a plan. Now it was his turn to laugh. His son’s kidnapper had underestimated his physical capabilities. He took out his phone and activated his kid tracker app. When Billy first got his cell phone, he installed an undeletable app onto it that would track him if he ever ran away or got lost. It was located at 212, Speedway Avenue. He ran all the way there with an afraid dad pace. He stopped to catch his breath outside of the building 212, and he took out his throwing knives and whispered to himself, “Lets do this…”

 

BILLY

 

Billy took this awkward waiting silence to his advantage. He looked around to examine his surroundings. His captor must not of thought that he could get away from him because he did not stop him from looking. Billy seemed to be in a narrow tenement with a bed, a computer with paypal set up, and a table with some sort of blueprint on it. He looked up and saw a lamp and a vent. There was no chance that he could get up there and climb through the vent without the vendor grabbing him first, he thought glumly.

 

ALEX

 

Alex ran up to the wall and start chipping into the brick with his razor sharp knives. He locked his feet into the ledges that he created with his blades. Then he kept on climbing until he reached a window. He put one hand on the sill and used the other to put away the knives. Then he opened the window and heaved himself inside with a mighty grunt. He looked around and saw a vent in the wall so he took one of his knives and cut into it to make a circle big enough for him to squeeze into. He hoped that it would lead him to Billy, since he heard moving downstairs. Alex pushed himself in and started to squirm.

 

BILLY

Billy kept on staring at the vent, trying to figure out a way out without alerting the man until he heard a THUMP, THUMP, THUMP. This caught his captors eye and he started to look up. “Oh, its probably just a big rat or something like -” As the vendor was saying this a knife shot through the vent and caught itself into his neck with a sickening thud. His dad slid out of the vent gracefully and said, “Boy, what a creep.” “DADDY!!” I hollered as I embraced him with glee. “I missed you so much.” “Billy, there’s something I need to tell you,” He said in a serious voice. “What is it?” Billy replied. “I am part of a secret organization called The League Of Assassins.

 

 

END OF STORY 1