Film week in Vegas was here. Holly
had been looking forward to this all semester. Her school only picked seven
film students a year to fly out to Vegas, to work on a set of a major motion
picture. This year the movie was called The Beautiful Sirens, based on the
Greek mythology creatures the sirens.
All Holly had to do was get through day without to many distractions. Luckily
she had managed to do this. All she had left was the required trip meeting,
which she almost missed because of a nap. Before she knew it, she was on a
plane with six of her friends to Vegas.
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| Las Vegas Strip Bilnkit Travel Journal |
When they got
there, they had about six hours to kill. "Come on lets go explore before
the shoot." Jake said. They all agreed and headed out for the strip. There
weren't a lot of people out and it was rather quiet, which was strange for a
city. So Jamie and Holly decided to throw on their headphones and jammed out to
the playlist they made for the trip. The seven of them couldn't decide which
casino they wanted to go in first. They had past the Bellagio, Planet
Hollywood, MGM Grand Casino, and casino after casino they still didn't go in.
They had been walking for about a hour and once they past the hooters casino
Holly moaned, "Ugh Jake can you just pick one! We have to be on set in
like two hours." he waved her off and they wake about five more until a
striking women with a singing voice like a bird caught their attention. Well
everyone except for Holly and Jamie who were still jamming out to their music.
The group had stopped
so abruptly it caused Jamie and Holly to run into them. "Hey what
gives" Holly said. There was no reply, just blank faces; the group’s
attention was on the woman. An abandon casino rested behind the striking woman
and as soon as she turned away everyone except for Jamie and Holly followed her
inside. "Hey guys, I don’t think this is a good idea." Jamie said
trying to steady her voice. As they walked inside the beautiful melody grew
stronger. They had walked into the center floor of the casino and about three
dozen women with equally beautiful singing voices appeared.
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| Inside an Abandoned Casino Untapped Cities |
“Shh... Relax Holly. Listen to the beautiful
music.” Jamie replied with a breathless voice. Holly sat there for a moment
staring at Jamie. “music…music.. THEIR SIRENS! IT’S THE SINGING.” Right then
she scrolled through her phone to find the most grunge song she owned. She
pulled out her beats pill from her bag. Putting the volume as loud as possible
the grunge music blared through the hall causing the women’s music to stop just
long enough to pull her friends back to reality. “What happened.” Jake said coming out of the
trance. “I’ll explain once we are out of here. Just listen to my music and only
my music.” Holly ordered. With confused looks on there face they began to
follow the horrible sounding music. The women tired to regain the melody but
the music blaring through the speaker changed melodies every measure causing
the women to shriek and fall back deep into the hall.
Finally out side and at least a block away
from the abounded casino they stopped to catch their breath. “I don’t think I
would ever say this but thank the lord for grunge music.” Jake said laughing. “You and me both, you and me both.” Jamie
said. After a long walk back to set in silence and
jumping at any sound of a woman singing they met up with their professor. “So
how did exploring go?” he said. The group gave a little giggle, and Holly said,
“They are right what they say about this place.
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”
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| Las Vegas Sign About Travel |
Authors' Notes
I based this off the last story in the
Odyssey. The story about the sirens. Instead of Odysseus and
his crew on a ship and trying to make it through the sirens with no
damage, I changed it to a trip to vegas and exploring gone wrong. I felt like
this was a new way of showing the sirens trance and the idea that the group of
students already know what sirens are by the film they are about to work on.
Bibliography: Homer's Odyssey Link to text
Wonderful job at modernizing the story of the sirens! I also really enjoyed the fact you put what you loved at the forefront (with the filmmaking). It’s crazy how well you were able to convey certain aspects of the original story into your retelling. I never thought about doing it to my own, I guess I like the world that they created better, which sounds horrible.
ReplyDeletefilm making*
DeleteFormatting notes: Your paragraphs alternated font size/type, which was kind of distracting. There were a few typos, but those should be easy fixes.
ReplyDeleteI really like the formula for the story. It had a very natural ending, which was nice to see because endings are very hard to do when writing a story.
It was interesting that the students were subjected to the modern-day Sirens' enchantment even though they were going to work on a movie about, and thus were probably familiar with, the Sirens from Greek and Roman mythology.
Your dialogue between characters was good! It really helped me find your characters to be more realistic.
I would really like to see some sort of continuation of this story. Why were the Sirens in Las Vegas in the first place? Do they have any relation to the film that they were going to work on? If so, are the film producers somehow aware of their existence?
Keep up the good work!
I have read the Odyssey several times for different classes so I am really familiar with it, so I was interested to see how you were going to twist it. I really liked the way you had the sirens in the abandoned casino. Also, I liked how you made the whole story modernized and current. It made it really fun to read!
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of turning an old story into modern day, and it's not something I've thought of myself. I'll have to try that out in my own stories. I like that you incorporated what you love, film, into this story. It shows a bit of who you are and it was a good read. You did a good job!
ReplyDelete