Short Story - The Hero's Journey - The Others, Pt. 2

In yesterday's post, I mentioned how my script for The Others that I turned in for my theatre course was then expanded upon in my creative writing class when we had to write a short story that followed the hero's journey.

The story was very similar, but let's go over this version. This won't make sense unless you've read my last post.

Warning: torture, death, and firearms are mentioned (with little detail) in this summary

The opening scene is of Jason running from an onslaught of Others, leading them to an abandoned church that's been wired to explode, which resulted in a really fun action scene that fleshed out Jason's personality.

When Jason returns to the rebel base, he's informed about Sadie Miller, who is instead at a psychiatric center (that's run by the rebellion) rather than a hideout. Jason is told that Sadie was able to sneak inside the Others' ship, but was mentally tortured. Lincoln, the rebels' tech expert, suggests bringing her in, which Jason initially resists. However, he does agree when Lincoln suggests Jason be the one to talk with her to get her consent to bring her in, given that they're the same age, which is 19. Jason was 24 in the previous draft, but I de-aged him here.

A character called Sebastian was in the previous draft as Jason's best friend, but I changed his role to be the operator of the psychiatric center, although he and Jason are implied to be friends.

I significantly prefer the scene where Jason and Sadie talk and Sadie agrees to go with Jason. It gives her more agency and Jason more of a character to try to emotionally connect with her and even tries to convince her not to go. It's a nice scene and I like my descriptions.

At the base, it's revealed that Sadie suffered damage to Broca's area when she was tortured by the Others, which results in a type of aphasia where she can think clearly with some comprehension issues, but the most struggle is producing words. I did some mild research on the condition since this was just a class project, but whenever I get back to this, I will of course do more.

I prefer this portrayal of Sadie because it gives her a tangible condition instead of a vague "her mental patterns match the Others now" because I didn't think that made enough sense. I also will admit that unfortunately my freshman self gave Sadie a more "innocent" portrayal instead of a respectful portrayal of those with disabilities, which I'm glad my senior year self was able to fix, and I will put in more work to bring justice to Sadie's portrayal whenever I get back to this idea.

Jason talks to Sadie and gets her to answer a few questions. Struggling to explain herself, Sadie instead writes down a computer code for a virus that she planned to set off in the Others' mothership. Lincoln's team of computer hackers assemble with Jason's firing squad, and they all go to the mothership to plant the virus. Unfortunately, during the assualt, Lincoln and his team are taken captive.

Back at the base, Sadie apologizes for what happened with Lincoln, and Jason reveals to her that Lincoln was essentially his father, who took him and his older sister in when he found them orphaned. In the previous draft, they had no such connection, and Jessie was Jason's younger sister, but I found the dynamic more interesting for her to raise him for a while before Lincoln basically adopted them. Jessie was a teenaged prodigy with computers, and was taught by Lincoln to hack, but snuck out one night to the Others' mothership and never came out--no one knew what she'd discovered.

The leader of the rebels, Starling, ends up giving Jason a call as Sadie told Jason that spies for the Others were in the base. Her previous reaction to him combined with Sadie's reaction to him calling Jason allows Jason to figure out that Starling is the spy. Starling tells Jason that Lincoln was able to send a signal that contained the instructions to set off the virus, and orders Jason to lead another squad into the mothership. After the call, he asks Sadie to clarify what she knows about Starling. Sadie explains that the Others are from another dimension and are part of a shared mind, who captured certain people they believe can benefit their mind, and reconfigure their brains to join it. Sadie was one of these people, but a glitch in their system caused her to escape, although it left her brain permanently damaged. She was left with some of the knowledge from the Others, however.

And yes, this is a very similar idea to the Borg from Star Trek.

Sadie checks out the rebels' computer and discovers that Lincoln did not send a message, so she and Jason go to the mothership to plant the virus. While they're there, Starling gives the classic villain monologue where he reveals that the shared mind of the Others is just his mind. During this, Sadie ends up being grabbed away from the console where she was uploading the virus by an Other with a weapon at her head. Jason turns to fire on her, but realizes upon closer look that the Other is his sister Jessie. Similar to the last draft, Jason hesitates, but realizes that this is not his sister--she's dead--and fires on the Other, which due to their shared mind, causes Starling enough pain for Jason to shoot and kill him, too, which causes all of the Others in the mothership to be heard crying out in immense pain.

Sadie uploads the virus, and she and Jason find Lincoln and his team captured in tubes meant to integrate them into the shared mind, but Sadie manages to shut it down properly, allowing everyone to escape unharmed.

That's where my short story ends and I think it's pretty epic. I'm proud of what I have, and I can't wait to extend on it once again to make it even better. I don't think I'll be able to extend it to a full novel, but I think this is a good idea for a novella. And who knows where the story will go with more embellishment?

This assignment actually didn't have a word limit, but instead a page limit. I made sure it was single-spaced with the smallest possible margins and indentions with a size 10 font, which made this over 8 thousand words. The previous draft, the script, was about 5.7 thousand words, for comparison. I could easily make this a novella.

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