Short Film/Short Story Unit (2022)

Film/Short Story Unit (2022) Featuring

Graders

Hosted by Mrs. Burks & Mrs. Price

Winning Content

Short Stories

Camping by Raphael Kirk 100 percent 2021

The Great Revenge by Evan Mullin-Vanneste and Joshua Lewis Best Short Story 2021

Fire Mends and Destroys by Max Campbell Most Words 2021

Short Films

The Consequences of Bullying by Jirandynet Estrema and Brooklin Willis

Best Short Film 2021 https://vimeo.com/663509086

The Corruption by Montie Henderson, Antoine Blair, and Emitt Dobranic Best Original Short Film 2021 https://youtu.be/Lllr27Ag8-k

Other Awards

Best Original Short Story - Yariselle Andujar and Daniela Morena

Best Graphic Novel/Comic Strip - Paul Lorenzi

Best Theme - Damian Browning and Fabian Zayas Perez

Best Symbolism - Randy Negron

Best Foreshadowing - Gevantae Goins

Best Irony - Deontae Stockwell

Best Character - Achilleskarun Sain-Wells

Camping

Camping

A short story by Raphael Kirk

Henry looked at himself in the mirror with a wide grin. “I am braver than they think,” he proudly stated as he finished brushing his teeth. As Henry got out of the bathroom he got more and more excited because he was going to be camping by himself for the first time. As he packed up the rest of his supplies, he grabbed his raincoat and headed out the door. “Be good honey, and don’t be gone too long,” his mother told him.

As Henry walked onto his porch he was greeted by his friend who began to follow him.

“So you're really going through with this huh? What did your mom say?” his friend asked. “My mom doesn’t know,” Henry answered,” I told her I’m going out of state with your family.”

“Well what if we come home before you, what am I supposed to do?” his friend asked him.

Henry thought for a moment, then told him,”you won’t. Trust me, I’ll be fine.”.”Well, good luck then,” his friend added before walking back home.

As Henry walked to the edge of town he was greeted by an old man digging a large hole, which Henry believed to be a grave. “What brings you to this part of town young man?” the man asked.

“I'm going camping here,” Henry responded. “In this forest and weather by yourself?” the man asked.

“ Yes, I’ll be fine. I know what I'm doing,” Henry re sponded again.

As the man went back to digging and Henry walked away he heard the man mutter one last thing about “having more holes to dig.”. This made Henry uneasy for a moment, but he continued on.

As Henry trudged through the mud he eventu ally found the perfect campsite, elevated above obvi ous areas of flooding and surprisingly dry, he began to set up. Everything was going well and his waterproof tent was set up when he realized he had left his phone charging on his night stand, which was his only map, meaning he no longer knew his way home. But he shrugged it off, believing that he could find his way home by himself. So he made the best of his situation and began looking for viable firewood and extra food while it was still just drizzling. Once he found good enough wood he made a campfire under a small rain canopy he was borrowing from his friend. As it got dark he made smores by the campfire and sharpened a stick with his pocket knife to create a makeshift fish ing spear for the next day. Once the spear was sharp enough to pierce fish scales he set it next to his tent and went to sleep.

Henry awoke the next morning hungry and excited for the day. He got out of his tent and grabbed his newly made spear and made his way down to the creek. He walked very carefully because the path to the creek was a steep downhill slope covered in fresh mud, and the day was particularly windy. He made it down to the creek and started to fish. He managed to catch a good haul of fish before it began to rain again. And this time it was pouring rain. As he ran up the hill with fish and his spear in hand he slipped in the mud and rolled back down. He tried to stand back up but fell again and felt a sharp pain in his leg. His spear had pierced through his leg and he was no longer able to stand. And he could not crawl back up the hill so he was stuck.

Henry sat for what felt like hours as he began to think about what went wrong for him to be in this situation. He knew he shouldn’t have come here. He knew he shouldn’t have lied to his mother, or tried to prove himself. This was all his fault, and he knew that well. All he could do was chuckle at his monumental screw up. As a tear rolled down his cheek and he bled out on the ground, his vision darkened and his pain began to lift, he saw something at the top of the hill. It was the man from earlier with his shovel in hand.

The Great Revenge

By Joshua Lewis & Evan Mullin-Vanneste

It was Robert’s first day at Johnson academy, he walked through the front doors and gazed upon the vast hallway. His heart dropped to the floor, he was so nervous. He picked up his schedule to find his first class, math. When he walked in, his teacher Mr. Wil liams directed him to take a seat. He sat his backpack down, and took a seat. Soon after Tyrone slammed his book on the desk where Robert was.

“He was a giant dude, at least 6’6 and had a mustache the size of a wooly mammoth,” Robert thought. “You're in my seat dweeb!” Tyrone yelled. Robert responded, “my bad man I didn’t realize this was your seat.” “Listen dweeb I run things around here, you don’t listen to me and you'll end up in the trash, i’ll make sure of it,” Tyrone shouted. “Take a seat Tyrone!” Mr.Williams intruded.

Robert got up and moved to the back and while walk ing away Tyrone smirked and said under his breath “hmmf nerd,” for the rest of the class Robert sat all alone. Later that day at lunch while Robert was sitting alone Tyrone came to mess with him again. “Look at this nerd!” All of Tyrone's minions laughed at Robert. Robert thought,”Maybe he’s jealous of my cool back pack?” But he thought out loud and those words came right out his mouth and he soon regretted it. Tyrone looked offended and mentioned,”if I was jealous of your ugly little kid backpack then I would’ve taken it.”

Tyrone’s crew giggled and snickered. Soon after, two kids came to Robert because they had seen Tyrone bullying him. One of the kids stated,”Tyrone is the world's biggest @$$***e, but you gotta fight back man.” “By the way, I'm John and this is Jacob.”

Later that day after school, while Robert was walking home, he saw Jacob and john.

“Wassup man,” Robert exclaimed, Jacob said back “we're going to the gas station you comin.”

“yeah let me go tell my mom.”

When Jacob got home his mom greeted him at the door.

“Hey Jacob,” his mom said. “Hi mom, I was going to go to the gas station with some people I met at school and hang out, is that fine with you.”

“yeah definitely go ahead go, go.”

Robert met up with Jacob and John and they walked to the gas station to get some snacks and a drink.

“Wassup B***h,” said a cold nasty voice behind them. Robert already knew who it was before he even turned around. “What do you want, Tyrone?” At that moment the store owner came out from the back and said. “Do we have a problem here? “Naw we good homie,” said Tyrone, “let's go guys.” Robert, John and Jacob walked out of the store just to see Tyrone and his crew wait ing for him there. “That hoodie lookin pretty nice.” Said Tyrone. Tyrone looked to one of his minions and nodded his head towards Robert. He immediately ran at Robert and took the hoodie right off his head. Jacob and John yelled “hey get off him, yeah leave him alone.” “QUIET! yelled Tyrone, or your next.” Tyrone and his buddies get in their car and drive away. Tyrone had gotten that car for his 16 birthday and he loved it more than anything in the entire world. He would be devastated if anything bad happened to it.

“Man what an @$$hole!” yelled John, you good man.” “Yeah, but that was my favorite hoodie.” “We'll get it

back, don’t worry.” Ensured Jacob. The next day at school John Jacob and Robert made a plan to get the hoodie back.

They saw it in Tyrone's car and made a plan to break in and take it back. They broke the car window and took the hoodie out and then they thought. “Tyrone’s never going to stop messing with us, we got to teach him a lesson,” said Robert, “yeah, I say we really messed up his car.” said John. Then the three boys started destroy ing Tyrone's car in every way possible. When Tyrone saw the car he screamed. He was so mad that his car was destroyed. He started going around people to see who did it and when he got to Jacob, John and Robert by the look on their faces he knew that they destroyed his car. He was about to go after them when he saw his mother coming to pick him up from school. While leaving, Tyrone swore to the three boys he would get his revenge.

Bullying can affect people in different ways and hurt them. You never know what that person is facing outside of school or inside of school. It’s a lot of things people go through everyday that they don’t tell you and bullying them is making their day 10x worse. Bul lying can cause suicide or violence to them or someone else and can mess up your mental energy, physical energy and can make you depressed. Don’t be a bully because you don’t know what other people are going through in life because you can really hurt someone in a bunch of ways.

Fire Mends and Destroys

Fire Mends and Destroys

By Max Campbell

Click Click Click phphphph. It was a spring after noon as Evan lit the fire. He looked longingly into the garbage can behind his apartment. If he had a bad day at school and was trying to wind down his favorite way was watching the flames envelope things and eventu ally take them over. Yet, he does not know why he likes watching flames so much, but ever since he was a kid instead of a nightlight he always loved having a candle in his room. He always loved watching his mom cook not because he liked to learn how to cook but because he liked watching the stovetop's flame. After he was finally calmed down, he went into his apartment. No one was there, of course. His mother was at the hospi tal and his father was at work. His father worked as a fire safety inspector. Ever since his mother's accident, the father's been going crazy over safety of fire. But then again you probably would to if what hapind to him happened to you. pretty traumatized if the love of your life was badly burnt to the point where she's been in the hospital for the last 2 years. Her injuries started off not too bad, just some burns. But then the infection hit. They had to put her in an induced coma and wrap her up tighter than a summer sausage in order to keep her from getting more infected. It's really brought down on the healing and recovery process. Dad still visits quite often and just watches hoping she'll wake up and be all better and just walk out. But she never has and that's why I'm still sitting at home alone. My favorite food has become anything that I can make in a hurry. I don't like cooking. I'd rather do regular 14-year-old things, like video games and stuff. My favorite thing of all is we have a burn barrel, which is a barrel that is specifically used to burn things such as the pallet bvncm from the next door business

and other garbage dumped in the alley. I've burned couches and all sorts of things. It's always lots of fun to sit, wait and watch no matter the time of year or day.???? And I'm not too many of that I have a small YouTube channel that I post random things on such as when I get bored of my own quick food I go out and taste food and give a review I have yet to show my face though I also like taking long walks on the coast And of course video games.???? After I finished burning the palate, I went in and played some video games after I finished my homework. It took a long sigh as I finished my last problem. I finally laid down and my parents aren't even home yet. Of course as it rolled around to 10 o'clock, I heard the door open. I quickly fell back asleep. The next morning, my alarm went off. I got up, got ready and went to school. Yeah, same as his father does every morning before him by at least an hour. His mindset was always there's always gonna be danger in the burning buildings so I need to check them before they can burn. He doesn't live far from his school so they normally like to walk and get a nice day's breeze. He saw the corner store that he likes to go to and went in. The corner store attendee looked very distressed.

Evan asked, “What is wrong?”“What's wrong?” Evan asked.

The shopkeeper spawns with Hey athen. ???I've known you for a while. “You've been coming here for a while, but the shop is probably gonna be closed down here soon,” the shopkeeper said with a slight sigh. “Because of all the bills from child support -- electric, water and insurance -- I just can't do it. Really, it's the insurance.”

Evan thought If I could burn the building down. I would! But that would present a parachute of prob lems. Evans said very distraughtly, “I'm sorry to hear that. I wish you could stay open longer. We'd become better friends. He had a puny smile that was obvi ously fake. As soon as Evan paid for his things and laughed, he got out the door and began lighting the lighter to watch the flame. And then it clicked. What if I were to … help him. He thought about his interac tions over the last two years with the shopkeeper and decided he would burn it down. He decided to burn it down in two nights. He knew the shopkeeper would be out with his son, because he had him on Saturday. He did not know whether to be calm or excited. He finally made it to school. He had a very confusing day. Finally that last bell rang, and it was like a massive relief rushed over him like a wave. His thoughts were no longer split. They were more solitary, but none theless he was still slightly worried. As soon as he got home, Janice did a tradition of burning something in the backyard and then he went in now that he was calmed down he could think very logically and Began thinking what will I need for this As he began to think he knew we couldn't just put a big stack of paper and wood in the middle of the room and throw a match on it that would be way too obvious he would need something less conspicuous something that will look like an accident He hit the big freezers that he reached in to get his snacks every day. They were old and only worked a quarter of the time. He would fake a short circuit and burn down the place. He thought, OK now that I've got the cover up, how should I do it? If I use gasoline then it will leave chemicals. I should put boxes and light the boxes on fire to make it look like the box es, where they are for storage but in all actuality I put them there and started it myself.” After that, he finished his homework and then played video games. The rest of the afternoon he was done playing video games and ready to go to bed. He lit a candle next to his bed like he normally does. He thought about burning down the

shop until he fell asleep.

The next morning he woke up with his mind racing about the fact that tonight he would be burning the store down and today would be the last day that he would be in the corner store.he made his way to the corner store he slowly approached the counter with his milk he made small talk with the clork. On the way out I slid a penny in the lock so it would not lock. When he walked he went around the corner and waited for the clerk to leave. When he left even aporch the build ing and opened the door and quickly put cardboard under the freser and lit it.

He watched and slowly became entranced by the flames that slowly enveloped the building. The only thing that broke his focus was the noise from the fire truck. He watched as they viciously fought the fire. I waited 5 minutes until I went home. After that I changed out of my clothes and put all the materials away and laid down. I slept like a baby. In the morn ing, I got up and went into the kitchen. I decided that I didn't want to cook, but I wanted good food. Yeah so I grabbed my phone off the charger, got dressed and went to a breakfast place. On the way there on the bus, I saw another building. It was an old decaying building. If you could even call it that. It had 4 walls, but nothing else was going on with it. It had fallen apart and was condemned. caught himself. He said that wasn't a normal thought. Then that quickly left his mind as they passed up his stop. He pulled the line and got off at the next one, except he had to walk two blocks back the other way. He thought about what a mistake came out burning down the Building. He stopped thinking about it temporarily as he ate break fast. He recorded when they brought it out to him, and he took a picture of the menu. On the bus ride home, he didn't really think about the building. He more about the YouTube video. He arrived at home. He edited and left a review. Then, he remembered he

was supposed to meet a friend at a pizza place in an hour. This friend also appeared on the YouTube chan nel sometimes, and they reviewed food together. He quickly jumped up and got ready to go grab some cash. He hopped on his bike and quickly pedaled to the piz za joint. Right at the time he got there, his friend was already there. He quickly waved him over and walked over to the table. He said, “sorry I was late, I forgot.” His friend said, “Don't worry about it.”

Evan and his friend began to talk about a new game and the recent video Evan posted. They were talking about the new Marvel movie. They decided to go see it. There was a movie theater showing it right across the street. They both enjoyed the movie with their popcorn and slushies. On their way out as they threw out their empty concessions, they said their goodbyes and both of them went home. It was late afternoon at this point. He didn't know what he wanted to do so he simply just played video games until he fell asleep.

As he walked by the corner store he saw it was just caution tape not police tape so he Is autumn himself oh good they bought it they bought it and kept on his way to school. That day he had a pretty mediocre day. He waved to his friend and talked during lunch. Of course, he sleeps through English. The one thing that was a little weird was the person that set 3 rows in front of him drew a picture of him sleeping. He said it was a joke and gave it to him. He IS THIS EVAN??? smirked and took it home with him. It really was a funny picture. On the way home, he had a craving for his chocolate milk, but unfortunately he couldn't get it from the usual corner story that he burned it down. As he was walking to the next place, he saw the house again and got the urge to burn it down. At this point, it was a bit late and the sun was setting. He thought to himself hmmm. He got his chocolate milk, but then he knocked it off the counter when the clerk went to grab it. He quickly snatched the lighter. After quick

ly snatching the lighter, he put it in his pocket and finished paying. The whole way to the house he was thinking to himself and how he was gonna save the city some money on demolishing the home. He looked for a way in.He looked around he finally found one, a kicked in window with the board fallen over he slides in and takes out his phone and turns on the flashlight. He quickly looked around and found some materials such as cardboard boxes and blankets. He took them to the basement which was kind of dark and damp and then he quickly made a stack of stuff. He took a deep breath and went to go light. He couldn't light it. He got frustrated, so he finally just took off his backpack. He looked for some paper to burn to get it started. He finally found a picture of himself sleeping. He lit the drawing of him sleeping in class on fire, and threw it in the stack of other stuff. It quickly went up. He stood at the window for a minute and watched until it started to get to the 1st floor. He made it home. The sun had set 30 minutes ago, and his dad was sitting at the table. His father said, “Where were you?'' His heart quickly dropped. He quickly struggled to find something to say. He made up a lie about going to the movies with his friend. His dad asked what they watched. He quickly described the movie that they watched over the weekend. His dad said OK, and added that he left him a plate. It was mac and cheese and chicken.

He said, “Thanks!” He watched a little Saifi and then he finished his meal. He quickly put away his dishes and grabbed the candle he kept on the counter. He said good night to his dad and took the candle to his room, lit it and went to sleep.

The next day, he had the same routine that he always had. He woke up, got ready, and ate breakfast. The only difference today was when he turned on the news to see how cold it was, there was a big story about a local contractor/supply business. It was across from a market where there was a ginormous parking garage

that me and my friends used to hang out at after we got sweets from the market. The company had sold bad materials to one of their competitors in the con struction industry. Now this alone was a problem but the worst part was ????There were Dozens of people heart The bad materials they sold to the other compa ny Used on a big building.???? But on a technicality in the law, they got away with it. And now there's talk on the news of them trying to move to Europe and get ting permits and big ships to pick up the rest of their equipment. That was the most surprising part. Evan thought this really doesn’t affect me, so he just went to school. School was pretty normal and of course he slept through English. The only weird part was that he couldn't find his friend all day -- not even during lunch. He went to the office and asked the secretary if he was at school. They were no help because they told me they couldn’t tell me. After school, Evan decided to go check on his friend. He knew where he lived in an apartment not too far from the school. He had been over quite a few times. He was just like family over there. When he was closing in on the apartment, he was stopped and asked what are you doing by an officer. He was a little bit nervous, but he seemed to have no idea why he would be stopped randomly. He said, “Nothing.''The officer said, “Be careful. This is a closed off area. If you do not have a particular reason to be here, please leave.” Evan recognized that there were more policemen in the area than normal. He said, “I'm going to check on my sick friend. It is im portant.” He said, “OK, be safe.” As Evan was walking up the apartment, he quickly realized why there was debris all over the parking lot and playground area of the apartment. I quickly related that that must be the building that collapsed. Evan thought there was a considerable amount of damage. He quickly went up the four flights of stairs. When he reached the top, he quickly turned the corner to go to apartment number 315. He knocked on the door and his friend answered with a face covered in tears and sniffling. He had just

stopped crying. Evan asked him if he was OK, and he semi shook his head. Evan responded by saying, “You are obviously not.” His friend waved him inside. His parents were not home. in “Where are your parents?”

Evan asked. He didn’t respond. No response When we finally arrived I asked Evan tried again, “Hey, what's up? What's wrong? Why are you crying?”

He said, “Did you hear about that building that col lapsed?

Evan said,”Yes!”

His friend continued, “It is the one next door.”

Evan’s heart dropped.

His friend explained that his younger sister, who was 7, was playing near the building. Unfortunately, she got caught in the debris and was now in a critical condi tion in the hospital. This caught Evan off guard. He couldn’t believe it. hit her.she was such a nice person and always So normal If not eccentric.

He said, “My parents let me stay home, but I couldn't be at the hospital. I couldn't do it. I just wanna pretend like it didn't happen for a little longer” He turned on YouTube in the background as we played on his Xbox. The whole time it wasn't quite silent but something was off. . It was time for Evan to go home.

Evan asked his friend, “Hey, do you wanna sleep over?”

He responded, “Yeah, let me text my parents.” Fifteen minutes later his parents responded with “Yes, we're going to stay at the hospital tonight with your sister. Call us if you need anything.” He quickly packed a bag. He wasn't in the mood to play video games anymore.

His head hit the pillow, and he was out. The next morning, they both got ready for school. He decided she wanted to go back to get some normality in his life. The whole day went by super quick for Evan. He kept thinking he needed to talk to him to make sure he's OK. He could only imagine how long the day was for him. Every time someone said,”Oh, were you sick yesterday?It must have put him through immense stress and trauma. Finally, they met out in the parking lot and he just went to Evan’s house. They wanted to fix something to eat, but Evan’s refrigerator was pret ty much all out of food. Evan didn't really have any money to go buy any, and he didn't want to ask him to cover it. Evan felt like he would be taking advantage of him in his state, so he asked did he want to go buy some groceries real quick. He said sure. They head ed to the market that they used to always go to. Evan ended up just having enough to cover two calzones and some sweets.They went over to the parking ga rage. They were eating their sweets and calzones on top of the garage when all of a sudden he saw some one exit the building across the way. It was the con struction company that was trying to leave town that hurt Damien Sister. Evan saw that one of the careless workers was carrying out straps for tying down. He dropped one and it got caught in the door. There was one opportunity and one opportunity only. Evan put down his calzone. “Come on,” he said to Damien. he didn't ask any questions, just put down his food in a kind of confused manner and we continued down all the way to the construction company. He was confused up until we got in there then he realized. Evan felt his pocket. Yep, he still had it. The lighter that he swiped the other day He took out the lighter and said find something to burn. His friend gave him a very hesitant look and said, “are you sure about this? Evan said, “Yes.” He went into an office and found some finan cial paperwork. He brought the entire box out. Evan grabbed it from his hands and said, “I'm 100% sure I want to do this. Are you?” He gave me a hesitant face

and then he gave me an As a tin face. He said,”Yes, these guys hurt my sister. I want to get even.” With those words Evan took the box and literally blazed on top of some wood. Unfortunately, he did not get to watch it burn. They took off because they didn’t want the hesitant worker to come back.. They looked around and no one was there. no 1 saw what happened we both quickly ran Up to the cow zones we left it took us so little time that it Was still hot. Yet the rest of our mere silence and then They went to Evan's house. His friend said, “I'm gonna go home, too.” Those were his only words. Evan silently shook his head. He wasn't sure how he felt about what we did, but he was sure that they deserved it. That night when he went to sleep, he looked at the candle and thought, that's kind of low. He remembered when it used to be a full stick candle. He took it, lit it and put it on his dresser like he had done a million other times.

But unlike those million other times little did Evan know that it would be his last time he ever lit a can dle. In the middle of the night when he was tossed and turning in his sleep, he knocked over the candle. It caught fire to the bedsheets and curtains. He didn’t stand a chance because the fire started practically on top of him. And just like that justice quickly as the Is water of a fire truck puts out a dim fire His fire was put out.