Alsop High School’s latest fabulous house initiative was a Summer Mini Saga which invited all of the pupils in the school to compete against each other in a writing competition. The rules were simple: A tantalizing selection of story starters were provided and in just 100 words, pupils had to create a Mini Saga. Suffice to say, it is easier said than done!

The competition standings were as follows:

1st place - Alyssa Harvey (Attenborough)

2nd Place – Hollie Marooth (Franklin)

3rd place - Dameon Rixon (Turing)

The house leaders were blown away, not just by the amount of entries to the competition, but also by the quality and the talent which was on display. More is the pity that there could only be three winners because we could have easily selected many more.

The winner of the competition went to Alyssa Harvey who’s chilling masterpiece was based upon The Dark Forest Hypothesis and also included some unique structural features – A copy of the winning entry can be found below:

The message

“Be quiet, they’ll hear you”. We stared down at the message. Months, it had taken to decode the alien lettering. Months, to be given the warning.

“Be quiet, they’ll hear you”. We’d spent years studying, years working to get this job. We’d felt so lucky to get our hands on it.

“Be quiet, they’ll hear you”. We were the top scientists in our fields.

We were frozen.

“Be quiet, they’ll hear you”. A warning? A threat? A plea?

“Be quiet, they’ll hear you” And when we, like Icarus with melting wax wings, stumbled into the night we saw twice as many lights.

We blinked, and they blinked back.