He was not about to start now.
Forward
One of my most common requests was people asking me about the essay Gavin wrote in high school (referred to obliquely in Fearscape).
I didn't include it in the original for several reasons. 1) I wanted people to use their imagination; 2) I'm lazy, and am secretly using reason #1 to rationalize it; and 3) hey, you guys read for fun. I didn't think you'd want me to put pseudo-schoolwork in here! This isn't literary analysis 101.
But you insisted, and I believe in the maxim “Give the people what they want.” So here it is, by popular request—Gavin's Essay.
Gavin's Essay
The Most Dangerous Game , by Richard Connell, asks a question many wonder but few dare vocalize: “In a fight of man versus man—who would win? And would morality ultimately triumph over our more bestial instincts, or would we succumb to our bloodlust?”
Connell seems to think, no, we cannot. We cannot escape the beast within us. The leitmotif of predator and prey, of hunter and hunted, of man versus nature —his nature—is evidence of this. Heavy symbolism shows what happens when human beings—homo sapiens—are put into situations so frightful that they defy all convention.
And what do people do? They regress. Not in the Freudian sense: this is a far more ancient regression. Evolutionary, rather than developmental.
In times of acute stress humans revert not to children, but to animals.
Predators.
Prey.
While a work of fiction, there are many parallels between The Most Dangerous Game and real life. What is fiction, if not a warped mirror image of reality? Connell distorts and deceives, and the antagonist is duly vanquished to give one a concrete sense of ending, but his short story is, at heart, a portrayal of man's animal instinct and its unending battle for control of the dichotomy.
Like any other animal, human beings can be both dominant and submissive, and sometimes act in ways more befitting of animals.
Take the school shootings that one occasionally hears about on the evening news. Our society acts so shocked when its youth perpetuates acts of violence, but one grows quite weary of being the hunted. It is a tedious role to play; eventually, the strain becomes too much, and the persecuted individual becomes, like Count Zaroff, a hunter of men.
What does an animal do when cornered? It fights back.
The cheerleaders would probably be the first to perish, because, despite their natural athleticism, they have never known what it is like to truly need to run.
The brawnier athletes, overconfident in their limited physical prowess, would also be quick to die. Their rigid adherence to social norms, and superciliousness, would render them unable to be innovative. Scientific studies have even shown that dominant animals grow depressed and inert when placed in subordinate roles.
The social trend-setters, with their adept mimicry, will be quick to conform. But theirs is a superficial ability, and will not have been honed by any real skill. A flame engulfed by its own sense of splendor.
Indeed, the most likely individuals to survive would be the quiet intellectuals, cunning and vindictive. Their apparent weakness would cause many to write them off in the initial sweep: a mistake one would not live to regret.
Acknowledgments
Well, this is it, folks! My first completed trilogy! I can't even begin to tell you how great it feels.
• Louisa—my cover designer, and a total peach. She's just an all around amazing person and I heart her so much.
• My fans from Fictionpress. They supported me when I was just a little sixteen-year-old with a humble dream, and I was surprised and elated when so many of them found me again after I went the route of self-publishing.
• The PH whoars, and my partners in crime.
• My family, for their wary encouragement.
Table of Contents
Copyright
DEDICATION
Prologue
Chapter One Meadowsweet
Chapter Two Love-Lies-Bleeding
Chapter Three Peony
Chapter Four Lobelia
Chapter Five Viscaria
Chapter Six Iris
Chapter Seven Moschatel
Chapter Eight Checkered Fritillary
Chapter Nine Gladiolus
Chapter Ten Tiger Lily
Chapter Eleven Hyacinth
Chapter Twelve Columbine
Chapter Thirteen Belladonna
Chapter Fourteen Tuberose
Chapter Fifteen Rhododendron
Chapter Sixteen Lime Blossom
Chapter Seventeen Begonia
Chapter Eighteen Dahlia
Chapter Nineteen Cypress
Chapter Twenty Butterfly Weed
Chapter Twenty-One Rainflower
Chapter Twenty-Two Hemlock
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Terrorscape Page 25