The Hero To Be

The last month had given London rain and cold, leaving Christmas shoppers to hurry out of stores into their cars, trying not to soak themselves. However, one day, a Friday, was different. The sun shone bright across the flats of London and everyone was out and about, except for one person. She had blonde hair, with brown eyes and a sassy attitude that would charm even the most horrible person. She stood at a reasonable five foot four and was never caught not wearing heels. Her name was Rose Carter, a multi millionaire who ran a fashion company, called Spring.
Rose was holed up in her home, trying to piece together the puzzle that had baffled her for days on end.  Samantha Freeman was the chief marketing officer of Spring, and Rose’s best worker and friend. Last Saturday, she hadn’t shown up to work, and had been gone from then on. Rose had tried looking everywhere for her, but she was nowhere to be found. Rose even tried going to the police, and asked everyone she saw on the streets “Have you seen a woman with black hair, usually found in a mini skirt? Five foot seven? Blue eyes?” but no one had any information. Samantha had been acting strange the day before she left, randomly speaking phrases such as “almost ready now,” and saying something about avengement, but Rose had simply passed it off as Samantha being drowsy.
So here Rose was, hobbled over her office desk in her home, when suddenly she heard a knock come from the front door. She walked over to it, and noticed a note on the floor that must’ve been slipped through her mail slot. The note was simple, with one word written on it in black ink: run.  The knock came again, louder this time. Rose curiously peered through the peephole and saw several policemen, with angry looks on their faces. Rose didn’t know why she had to run, but the police seemed to be after her, so she followed the note’s orders.
 She ran out the back door without a second glance back. It was only when she reached the end of the street that she realized how stupid she'd been. She didn’t have a single pound with her, or any other clothes. And she was running in high heels, which she hadn’t taken off after coming home from work early. She knew that she needed to stop or she would end up twisting her ankle and land herself in the hospital.  She slowed to a brisk walk and checked her watch, feeling lucky that she had had it on her wrist when she left. It read 8:17. Realizing that it would be dark soon, Rose decided to find an empty warehouse or something of the like to sleep in. Seeing an abandoned candy factory, she headed inside it.
Rose saw some passerby outside, and shrank farther into the shadows of the old building. It was extremely musty, and smelled like rotting eggs, with the beams on the ceiling looking like they would fall down at any second. She did a walkthrough of the place, checking as she went to make sure there were no rats or other animals in the building. Rose hated rats. The last time she saw one she had screamed and called Samantha to get her to take care of it... Where was Samantha? The note must’ve been from her, since there was no mistaking Samantha’s scribble like scrawl. When or where could she find Samantha though? Rose was so caught up in her thoughts that she very nearly ran into a pillar. Luckily she saw it just in time, but wait, there was another note on the pillar! It was just like the last and stated: Wait here till morning. Rose knew she had to do as the note instructed, in the hopes that Samantha would come in the morning. How could the note have gotten there though? How did Samantha know that she would spend the night here? There were several other places Rose could’ve chosen to stay at.
As Rose lay down that night dozens of thoughts swirled through her mind. She lay awake nervous for morning to come. What awaited her in the morning? And what was exactly happening?  Rose tried her hardest to block all the new questions that kept zooming into her head, and eventually fell asleep.
She woke up just as the sun was starting to rise. Another sunny day, she thought drowsily.  She then remembered what had happened the previous day and woke up completely. What was she supposed to do? Just wait here? She suddenly saw someone approaching her, a woman. Was it Samantha? But no, it couldn’t be, this woman had reddish hair and was wearing all black. But it was her! You couldn't mistake Samantha’s face. Rose ran towards her and they hugged.
“What’s happening?” Rose exclaimed. “Where have you been?”
 “Rose,” Samantha said carefully, “ I’m not Samantha. I had to use a cover name so that I could make sure you were the person we needed.”
“What do you mean?  If you aren’t Samantha then who are you?”
“My name is Natasha Romanoff, and I’m here to talk to you about the Avengers Initiative.”
Epilogue
Rose learned that she had a superpower, the ability to charm people into doing what she wanted them to. That was why she had such a successful fashion business.  She lived a good life with the other Avengers, and became a hero, charming villains into being good people.  From Dr. Banner’s advice, she chose to donate her skeleton to English and science after she died, so that she would be a hero and inspiration even after death.

Sport Versus Survival

A lot of times, when someone reads a book, they see the movie and its completely changed.  Recently, my class read and watched “The Most Dangerous Game.”  The themes, among many other parts of the book and movie, were drastically different.  The main difference of themes between the movie and short story “The Most Dangerous Game” are that the former’s theme is about survival of the fittest, and the latter’s theme is about hunters versus huntees.

In the short story and movie “The Most Dangerous Game” a man named Rainsford ends up on an island starving, without anything but the clothes on his back.  He stays in the house of a man named Zaroff, who he later finds out hunts people for sport, and is forced to play “The most dangerous game” with another person on the island, named Eve, against Zaroff.  The theme of “The Most Dangerous Game” short story is mostly about hunters versus huntees.  For example, Rainsford says in the beginning of the story “This world is made up of two classes - the hunters and the huntees.  Luckily, you and I are hunters.”  However, later in the story, he becomes a huntee when being hunted down by General Zaroff, and acts like a fox would in the means of escaping a hunter, when he “executed a series of intricate loops; he doubled on his train again and again, recalling all the lore of the fox hunt, and all the dodges of the fox.”  This shows that at first, Rainsford believed that one could only be a hunter or a huntee, and not both.  This also shows that he found out what it was like to be the hunted, and realized the fragile line between the two.  This theme, however, is slightly different from the theme in the movie The Most Dangerous Game.

In the movie The Most Dangerous Game, the theme is about “Survival of the fittest,” and how one must outsmart one’s enemies to beat them and survive.  For example, in the movie, Rainsford and Eve try to outsmart Zaroff by laying several traps for him.  They make a trap so that when the general steps on a trigger that is a bough, a giant, dead tree will fall on top of him.  Sadly, the general sees through this trap, and doesn't fall for it, as well as other traps like trying to make him fall off of a cliff.  However, Rainsford bests Zaroff in the end, when Rainsford is attacked by a hunting dog and Zaroff shoots him, but hits the dog instead, which he doesn’t realize.  Rainsford goes back to Zaroff’s house and and wounds Zaroff, who falls out of a window to be eaten by his hunting dogs.  This shows that Rainsford and Zaroff both prove that they are clever enough to beat the other with all of the traps and avoidings of traps when they are hunting each other.  This also shows that Rainsford is smarter and fitter than Zaroff, because he tricks Zaroff into thinking he is dead.  He wins the game because of his cleverness.  In conclusion, the differences between the movie and short story “The Most Dangerous Game” are that the movie’s theme was about survival of the fittest, and the short stories theme was about being a hunter versus a huntee.