BISL Story Competition Winners

As part of our English Block, we have had a BISL story competition, where students have been encouraged to put pen to paper (well fingers to keyboard) and write a 800 word fictional story, and submit it for judging by out Sixth Form English students. Over 30 stories were submitted across all year groups, it was difficult to narrow down just two winners, but after much discussion and deliberation examining plot, character development, language devices used etc. We are pleased to announce our two winners are Aidan from Year 10 and Maria from Year 9B. We hope you enjoy the stories they wrote as much as we did.

Four explorers stood in the rain at the doorstep of a rundown old mansion.

One was a large, 20 year old man, strong and fast, but not as smart as his companions. He looked at the house with greed of treasure.

Another was an elderly man, his body feeble and weak but his mind sharp as flint. He looked at the house with hopes of discovering something no one else had before.

Another was a teenage girl, both strong and smart. She looked at the house with the hopes of becoming known by the world.

The last was a 12 year old boy, bold and mischievous. He looked at the house with the hope of excitement and adventure.

These explorers were about to enter Villa Jerica, the haunted house on the hill. They had been hired by the village below to search it for ghosts and other supernatural beings, because of old folklore about the house. Lately though, this folklore had become something more, shrieking and wailing coming from the house during the night. This had led to a demand to do something about this house, be it ghost or strange bird.

Without further ado, Jack (the 20 year old man) opened the door-

Creeeeeeeeeak

They entered the house, one after another, switching on their flashlights as they went to illuminate the entry hall. The hall was surprisingly in good shape, with the roof still intact and the floorboards barely creaking. The hall had four doors leading out of it, and at the end of it was a staircase that led up to the second level.

The team decided to split up, in order to more efficiently explore the house. Jack went up the stairs, Rinehart (the elderly man) went through the door on the left, Lucy (the teenage girl) went to the far right, and Timmy (the boy) went through the left.

The rooms they found looked very normal, despite being unnaturally clean despite how long they were deserted. The explorers wondered if the house wasn’t too bad after all. How wrong they were.

Rinehart entered what looked like a dining room, except without any table. This room looked normal, but as soon as he stepped inside, the floor collapsed underneath him, plunging him into a basement he didn’t know existed. A sickening snap and a burst of pain told him that he had just broken his fragile leg in the fall.

Lucy entered an old library, books covered in dust. This room, unlike any others, looked as if it was as old as it really was. Open on a table in the middle of the room was a very old book, it’s pages thin and tattered. Curious, she walked over to look inside…

Timmy entered an old storeroom. Excited, he ruffled through the boxes. Inside was only old records and papers. Disappointed, he turned away, but something caught his eye. The box appeared to have a false bottom, given away by the distance between the bottom of the box and the bottom of the space inside the box. Timmy lifted the false bottom, finding a medallion with a strange symbol on it-

Timmy was just pondering what on earth this symbol could mean when-

WHAM

The door slammed shut. Timmy ran to the door, jiggling the handle, but it seemed to be locked by more than deadbolts. They were stuck in Villa Jerica.

Jack opened the door to find a strange chamber. The room was gloomily lit by dim candles, positioned on the points of a blood-red pentagram in the middle of the room. Jack felt drawn to the strange symbol on the floor, approaching it as if in a trance. He stood in the middle of the pentagram, and someone whispered in his mind, rummaging through his thoughts- no, not someone, something. The house itself was flooding his mind with new ideas, with a new purpose. He was no longer here to de-haunt the house for the villagers. He was no longer here to find treasure. He was now here to do what the house’s previous owners did not finish. He was here to create a portal to the abyss, and to suck this pitiful world into it. He was no longer Jack- he was Villa Jerica.

Lucy slammed the book shut, horrified at what it contained. This was a journal of the house’s previous owners, and their frequent accounts at what seemed to be demon worship and portals to where they resided. According to their entries, they had performed the ritual, but had gotten cold feet at the final moment, deserting the house but leaving a symbol behind to hold the portal at bay. According to the diary, as long as the symbol was undisturbed by the house and was not used to re-open the portal, everything would be fine. As a last precaution, a user could perform an exorcism with the symbol to close the portal again, in case it had been opened. This house seemed to be more than she had bargained for.

Timmy walked out of the room, carrying his new treasure. He figured he could just get Jack to break down the door, then they could all go home, when…

“Speak of the devil” Timmy said as Jack approached. “Hey, could you break down this-”

Jack ran down the stairs, a wooden baseball bat in his hand. He had an insane, murderous look in his eye as he clubbed Jimmy over his head twice, then took the medallion from his unconscious hand.

“venit ergo daemones ab undis!”

He screamed to the ceiling, and threw his head back, laughing as the symbol began to glow red.

Rinehart created a splint from the broken wood from the collapsing floor, and now was hobbling across the basement floor.

“I'm getting too old for this nonsense” Rinehart thought as he looked for stairs to get out of the house when-

All of a sudden, the cracks in the tiles beneath his feet began to glow with red light. He opened the door, finding stairs, and tried hobbling up them as fast as he could, but he was too late. The floor collapsed beneath him, and he tumbled into the churning mass of chaotic energy that was the abyss.

Lucy ran out of the room, finding Jimmy unconscious on the floor. She looked around, seeing Jack with the medallion in his hand. He turned to her, the fiery light of the abyss glowing in his eyes. When he spoke, it seemed it was not him talking, but the entire house saying what he said from every angle.

“It is too late. The portal has been opened and your world will soon be swallowed by the chaotic depths of the abyss.”

The floor collapsed in the rooms on the left, showering them all in red light. Jack turned around and started walking up the stairs when-

Crack

Lucy swung the baseball bat at Jack’s head, causing him to drop the medallion. Lucy leapt for it as the floor collapsed behind her.

Jimmy, unconscious on the floor, could not jump out of the way when the floor underneath him was sucked into the abyss. He tumbled into the endless mass of chaotic energy, not realizing when he crossed the barrier of life and death.

Lucy held the medallion in her hand, trying to remember the incantation to stop the portal. Jack howled with pain and anger, and swung the baseball bat at Lucy's head. Lucy ducked and rolled to the side. Jack’s momentum from the attack threw him off balance. Jack fell forward into the portal to the abyss that he created.

Lucy waited a couple seconds, but the portal did not stop consuming the house. The only thing that would stop it was the medallion. Lucy held it in her hand, and yelled the incantation to the abyss-

abierunt daemones abyssi!

Immediately, the portal closed, taking all it had consumed with it. The house collapsed into the hole underneath it, it’s basement completely gone and it’s ground floor halfway consumed. Lucy stumbled and fell, dropping the medallion into the hole. Exhausted, she dragged herself out of the now-unlocked door, and promptly lost consciousness.

He was running. His feet were moving faster than he could ever have imagined. He couldn’t feel them, they were numb. He kept looking back, someone was following him. He didn’t see the stone wall in front of him; he bashed right into it. He picked himself off the floor and prickled up his ears. Listening. Looking. Waiting for something to happen. The thing that was following him was no longer there. It was like the ground swallowed it. He looked around himself, he couldn’t see anything. His breathing was deep and shaky. He felt a slight pain in the side of his stomach from running. He heard something. He suddenly looked around himself. He couldn’t see anything but it wasn’t silence either. He slowly looked up. The creature was sitting on top of the huge walls. As soon as he noticed it, he started running again. It was dark and he could barely see anything but the woman’s voice told him where to go. That voice was the only thing keeping him alive. How come she didn’t tell him about the wall? He took sudden turns, left and right. She told him to. He knew he had a specific destination, he just didn’t know where it was, what it was, or why he was running towards it.

He stopped the annoying alarm on his phone and got out of bed. He sat on his bed for a little while and thought back to the bream. It was the same dream every night but each night one little thing changes. This night it was the weather again. He got out of bed and went to the bathroom.

Jackson was a normal seventeen-year-old. You know, he has the perfect life, great parents and two younger sisters whom he loves dearly, he’s building a career for himself in sports, perfect grades and the popular girl is his girlfriend. But there’s a catch, five years ago Jackson and his parents were in a major car accident. His mother was pregnant with his baby sisters at the time. They all survived but his father was unresponsive ever since, so his mother, Monica, had to raise three children on her own. Jackson helped her out a lot but it still wasn’t easy for any of them. Ever since the accident, Jackson has only dreamt of the maze.

It was Saturday. Jackson got out of the bathroom and went downstairs. “JJ you up?” his mother asked before he got into the kitchen. He didn’t answer. It was morning, anyone who is completely awake after ten minutes is a sociopath. The moment he got downstairs he smelled food. He stopped a second then rushed into the kitchen. “No mum, we discussed this, you can’t cook, so please don’t,” he said. He lightly pushed her aside and took over the pan. He added some salt and herbs. He kept looking at the food as though it wasn’t from this world. “Are Remy and Jess up?” He asked, looking up from the creature his mother created, only to find Monica eating little marshmallows she took from the cabinet labelled ‘sweets’. “Mum!” He exclaimed in laughter. “Remy and Jess!” Monica apologised then went upstairs to wake up the twins.

Monica was never the same after the car accident. It was like Jackson was the only adult in the house. That particular day was a Monday. Jackson drove the twins to their kindergarten every day, that day was no different. After the pitstop at the kindergarten, Jackson drove to school.

He parked his BMW, turned off his engine, and sat in his car. Thinking. He liked the silence, he thought it was peaceful. He took his keys and opened the trunk to take out his bag. He pushed open the front doors to the big school building and rushed inside. He was a little late. On the way to his first lesson, history, he was stopped by a guy who he has never seen before. He was tall, had short curly dark brown hair and an amnios rather strange-looking bag around his shoulder. He introduced himself as Shane Keep, the new psychologist around. “It’s nice to meet you Mr. Keep,” Jackson said. They shook hands. Keep agreed. His eyes were a deep dark sapphire which resembled Jackson’s mothers. He wore quite earthy colours, he had a white-collar shirt, a dark green cardigan over it and dark brown jeans. Jackson pointed towards the history classroom and said he had to go. “Yes, of course, I’m so sorry. I will email your teacher that you were late because of me.” Keep answered.

In the classroom everyone was silent, the only one talking was Mrs. Hiller, the teacher. Jackson awkwardly entered. He looked around himself, everything was exactly the same, it always was. He apologised then sat down in his seat next to a girl called Holly. Holly was the kind of person that never stopped talking. Her chewing gum could be seen in her mouth as she talked, not only because she was blowing bubbles every 2 seconds but also because she had the biggest piece in her mouth anyone’s ever seen. Next to Holly was a dude called Bobbie, he always played on his phone under the tables. Jackson opened his books and started writing down the things he saw on the board. He felt sickly. He heard a voice. “Yo, may I borrow a pen?” It said “Sorry?” He asked, “May I borrow a pen?” The voice repeated. Jackson gave him a pen. The person who asked was the dude sitting in front of him. People called him Nick, no one was fully sure what his real name was, they called him by an abbreviation of his last name, Nickens. Nick is the type of guy that did whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. He is 6 feet tall, has rich brown shoulder-length hair which he kept to one side. His hands clearly indicated that he’s a musician, both were strong yet elegant. Ragged but clean. The fingers were long and skinny, playing piano for nearly 7 years does that to you. On his index finger on the right hand, the nail has outgrown the others to assist him whilst playing guitar. He usually wore black ripped jeans with a band t-shirt of some sort and a black baggy hoodie which barely held together of how old it was. He only has one pair of shoes, a scrappy pair of Combat Boots.

Jackson couldn’t focus on anything, he felt so sick and tired. Where did the feeling come from? He didn’t feel like that this morning. What’s happening?

After the first period, Jackson ran to the bathroom. He threw his bag on the floor and rushed over to one of the sinks to wash his face. He sighed loudly and looked in the mirror. He saw a dark shadow standing behind him. He looked to his left and-nothing. He was knocked out. He woke up, he couldn’t see anything. His eyes were wide open but he couldn’t see anything. His arms were tied up to a chair. He tried moving but…