Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Soldier

Story: 3rd of march of 2002. 4 years have passed since the war started. I remember when my mom told me we wouldn't separate at the start of the war. I haven't seen her since that day and I doubt that she’s still alive. I don’t even remember how drinkable water tastes like. I can't even count how many people i've killed. But luckily I’m still here, I’m still alive. 3 years ago I had a decent life; I went to school, ate and drank regular water. Every afternoon I would help my father to get water and my mother to purchase food. I didn’t have any friends in the village, but at least I had my 15 year old brother Minguito. Everything was normal, and we barely suffered until they came. It was a sunny day, and I was about to finish my classes and start returning with my brother to my village, which was 7 km away. When we were arriving we started hearing people screaming and running out of the town: the insurgents had arrived. We backed up and started running back our way to school but, unfortunately, one guy saw us. I thought I was dead. I stopped running but Minguito didn’t, the guy didn’t think about it twice and shot him. When he was coming towards me he threw my backpack to the floor and burnt it. Afterwards he pushed me into an enormous truck. I hit my head against something and immediately passed out. 2 The next time I opened my eyes I was completely covered in mud, starving and thirsty as a bone. I waited there for hours until someone came in. He didn't say a word, he just grabbed me by the arm and took me into a bigger room where other kids were waiting. One by one they started taking us out of the room, nobody knew for what. It was my turn, I was scared. When I came out I saw a guy lighting a spoon that had white powder, they took the burnt liquid that came out and inserted it into the syringe. Right after they started injecting the brownish liquid into my body and sent me into another room where a man was waiting for me. At first, when he started talking to me I responded normally, but as the time passed I started feeling a weird sensation. My brain was working slower, my hands were shaking and I was feeling like I was going to die right there. In addition, the insurgent that was talking to me (which seemed to be in an important position in that sect) started touching me and telling me really scary things. During those moments, the only words I heard when I was half conscious were:“death”, “kill”, “war”, “destroy”, “suffering”, etc. Since that day, everything changed. 3 We were trained every day. They gave us guns to shoot maniquies, we were taught how to make people suffer and how to torture, we were taught to lose our fears and we were drugged so that they could manipulate us easily. If one of us broke the rules, he would be killed in front of us. But we wouldn't break them, we loved drugs it was our fuel for the day, we couldn't live a day without them. And every week the dose would increase, making us more dependant and destroying ourselves in a faster way. Our days were all the same, eat, kill, drug, sleep, repeat. Repeat and repeat until one day, the supreme commander arrived to our place. The supreme commander was a huge man, with diverse wounds all over his body and who was never happy. He came once a month to make sure we were being instructed and drugged correctly. However, that day he was different. He wanted something special for us to do. After a few minutes talking with our boss they finally told us they were going to take us to Halem, the closest town that was still in the hands of the government; the closest town that was still secure. When we were told that, I was really confused. The drug treatment and every single word they repeated related with death made me surprisingly glad of my first mission. We were going to kill real people, finally. Nevertheless, there was something inside me that told me I wasn’t doing the correct thing and that I should kill the ones who captured me and assassinated my brother instead. But that voice was really weak. So weak that diminished in a few minutes. 4 And there we were, in the same truck in which I was captured, about to devastate a poor and innocent village. But whatever, I liked killing. We arrived to the town, people were already running, we got out and started shooting everyone,I can't remember how many people I killed, but the more people I killed, the more satisfaction and more torture. I was sexually excited. But suddenly, in the middle of the helix conflict, something happened. I was about to kill a little guy when two enormous men I had never seen before punched me, took off my gun and captured me. In that precise moment, I knew my life was going to have a complete change again. I knew I was on the other side. On the good side again. And here I am now, 4 years have passed since Pedro and Poncho saved me from that horrible sect. I have been treated every single day so that my brain could recover correctly and my mind stopped thinking constantly about those bloody and atrocious things. If I hadn’t been drugged during those war days, I would have committed suicide without any doubt. I wouldn’t be able to live knowing I killed decens of innocent people. Moreover, I’ve been able to reflect about our country’s situation and about all the suffering a war can involve. I’ve been able to realise the unfair torture each of us have suffered during these years, specially us. We are kids and we don’t deserve this. We live in poor conditions, we barely learn things at school and we can’t eat as healthy as we would like to. But apart from this, we go through wars, we get drugged, we lose our parents, we are tortured and we’re converted into soldiers. Into kid soldiers. And since then, my society’s points of view became much more realistic: everything’s about money. 30 years later. One would think that an enormous war like this would never repeat, but I’m writing this for a reason. 30 years have passed since I was rescued and before we start talking about this new conflict, I would like everyone to know what many kids go through unfairly. Yes, history repeats itself, a new conflict, war is starting again. Soldier kids have returned.

E Méndez, E Miranda, J de la Torre, I McCarthy

Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Chloe

CHAPTER 1: Innocence

My name is Chloe, and this is my story.

I was born in downtown Detroit. I had a loving family from the very beginning, I went to kindergarten, I had a lot of friends, everything was going alright. As soon as I turned twelve I started realising what was going on in my family, we were having huge economic issues. Dad worked as postman and mom was unemployed by that time, so we couldn't pay the house rent. Dad had to work double-turn, and quite often I could hear my mom and my dad arguing because sometimes dad came home with lots of money and he did not want to tell mom where he got it from. That was just the beginning. Every single week they argued about the same thing. However, mom was not sure what to do because thanks to whatever dad was doing, the bills where all paid in time. But everything was bound to explode.

We hanged there, in that situation for around two years. Then, mom found out. She found a huge fridge hidden in the basement, behind the stairs. Inside the fridge were several trays of a frozen blue-sky coloured liquid. Dad was not home, it was only mom and me. After looking in the internet what that could be and thinking what dad was doing with it we came to a conclusion. And we were right. Dad was a drug dealer. More specifically, a methamphetamine dealer. And not just that, he was also an addict. We found two little bags of crushed crystal under his bed. Mom thought of leaving him, but she was not sure what to do. One day, drove by anger and fear, she told dad. I was upstairs and I could hear the whole conversation. -You do not get to stick your nose in my f***ing business. If I go down, you all go down with me -dad said. I could hear mom crying loudly and dad was just screaming at her. All of a sudden, I heard the door shut, and everything was silence then. I came down, and there was my mother, sitting and crying, dad had left. I just sat there with her for hours, saying absolutely nothing. I was a kid, I didn't really understand the magnitude of the situation, so I did not know what to say. The following weeks were horrible, and things got way more serious. Dad always came home high and sometimes while arguing I could hear him hit mom. I just couldn’t be at home anymore, so everytime I could, I went out with my friends. However, I didn’t realise they were also part of the problem. They offered me weed every now and then and I just wanted to forget what was happening at home for a moment so I always accepted. After some time, it wasn’t just an every-now-and-then thing, it was an everyday thing. Dad wasn’t the only addict at home. I wasn’t aware of what that would bring to our family. I moved from weed to crack. It was stronger, it made me feel better. I didn’t cry anymore when I heard the arguments, I was just thinking of what else could I smoke to get high.

CHAPTER 2: Experience

I turned 16, and everything was just more of the same. Until one day, the day. The day dad was arrested. It was late at night. I was smoking, as always, when I heard a loud bang at the door. -DEA! - I heard a man say. I quickly hid the drugs, I thought they were looking for me for a moment, but they weren’t. There was no shooting, thank God. I jumped off the bed and I ran to the door. There was dad, handcuffed, on the floor. And I saw two DEA agents charging the fridge into a huge van. I didn't cry, neither did mom. I don’t know if that was because I was high or just because I was actually happy they caught him. I think it was both.

Now, all of that remains just as a vague memory in my mind. I’m an adult now, and I have a daughter. We live in the same neighbourhood that I lived in when I was a child. I went to rehab for more than 8 years, and I’ve been clean ever since. Dad is still in prison by now and mom very now and then comes visit me and Lizzie, just to check if everything is going OK. Mom and I both want Lizzie to do good, and not follow the same path my dad and I took.

I can’t keep an eye on Lizzie every single moment of each day, and there is a lot of drug dealing here in Detroit. In addition, I’ve never liked Lizzie’s friends, because they are just like my friends were.

One day, I came home from work earlier than expected, I found out that Lizzie wasn’t home. I thought that she would be at school studying or just hanging out with her friends. I started cleaning the house. I went to her room and noticed that her bed was not made. Just when I picked up the sheets and started making the bed, I found a few little bags of what it certainly was crystal. I picked up everything and placed it in the house entrance.

Around and hour later, Lizzie came. She was surprised that I was already home but she didn’t have time to even ask because she saw all of the drugs I placed right there. She looked at me terrified and started crying. I was, however, very calmed.

I told her to stop crying and listen. Lizzie didn’t know why his grandpa was in prison, I never told her, until now. I explained her everything that happened. The drugs, the fridge, dad, the fights… and in the end I showed her my rehab chip.

She didn’t even try to excuse herself. She is a smart girl and she understood the gravity of the situation.

Since then I am certain that she is clean, she is safe now. And all thanks to what happened to me, I’m glad I could take something good out of that horrible nightmare.

S López, A Castaño, M Zulueta

Songs of Innocence and of Experience: A memoir of hate

A MEMOIR OF HATE

I am 5 years old. I walk down the street with my mother, happy, as kids are supposed to be. The hot summer sun melts the ice cream I’m eating and I unsuccessfully try to stop the drops from sliding down my hand. As I’m trying to wipe my dirty, sticky hands on my brand new shorts, I feel someone strongly pulling my arm, leading me towards the other side of the street. At first I feel confused and disoriented, but then I look up and realise that it is just my mother. I’m just about ready to forget about the whole situation and go back to eating my delicious ice cream before it melts when I start to wonder something. What on earth made my mother change sidewalks so suddenly? Was there some sort of danger awaiting us on the other side? To clear up my doubts, I look back to my initial position. However, what I see only confuses me further. There is only a happy-looking family of dark skinned people. Before I can find an answer to my questions, my attention is caught by a passing butterfly, and the issue is almost instantly erased from my mind.

I am 10 years old. I’m having a lovely dinner meal with my family, telling them all about my first day of fifth grade. When we’re finished, my mother tries to get up and go to the bathroom, but my father doesn’t let her. Just as she’s leaving he grabs her by the arm and starts shouting at her, telling her that she can’t go before she’s finished doing all the dishes. My mother weakly argues that she will come back in a moment, but my father isn’t having any of it. Taking us by surprise, he slaps my mother across the face, leaving her cheek burning red. He goes to his room and slams the door. My mother looks at me, fighting the tears that are threatening to fall from her watery eyes, and smiles. But I know something’s not entirely right as I see her walk into the kitchen and hear her start crying a few seconds later. Soon after that, she starts doing the dishes as my dad requested, and he comes back, sits down in front of the TV and puts on a football game. Is this supposed to happen everyday?

I am 15 years old. It’s the middle of the school year, grade 10. A new kid’s arriving today. This usually never happens, no one is allowed to start coming to class so late but, just this once, they made an exception. When the bell rings, signaling the beginning of the first period, we all walk into class and sit in our usual places. A few minutes later, the teacher arrives. She announces that there’s a new student, and asks him to get up and introduce himself. We all turn around to look for him, and when we finally find him, a few gasps are heard across the classroom. It takes me a second to get it, but I’m growing up, and I finally start to understand. The new boy is wearing a turban. As the boy is telling us about himself, I can notice a slight Arabic accent, and I assume my classmates do too since they start giggling. Some of them even say some out of place comments. But I don’t. I don’t laugh, I wonder. I wonder why this happens. I assume they’re going to keep bullying him all day, but I’m so wrong. What happens is so much worse. They completely ignore him and refuse to include him in their groups. At lunch, he sits by himself. And I think about going there and talking to him, I swear I do. Everything in me is telling me to do so, but something stops me. I look at all my friends. I’m safer here. He probably doesn’t even need me, he’ll get by. I stay put.

I am 20 years old. Today we have a Campus Pool Party. All me and my friends can think about is tonight’s event. Summer is finally here and I am definitely ready for it. We arrive and everyone is playing volleyball in the pool, dancing and drinking. After a couple of drinks, I see a girl arriving at the party. I’ve seen her before, she’s in one of my classes, but I don’t know her name. I notice that even though it’s a pool party she’s fully clothed and trying to cover herself, the group of girls approaching her must have noticed too. From where I’m standing, I can’t really hear what they’re saying, but what’s going on is crystal clear. I feel bad for her. The poor girl doesn’t want to take off her clothes and go into the pool because she doesn’t feel comfortable in a swimsuit, but the others have different plans. While they’re laughing, they push her around, rip her clothes off her against her will and mercilessly throw her into the pool and laugh at her as if she was some sort of circus attraction.
When they’re done, they simply walk away without a trace of remorse showing on their faces. Before I’m able to react, the girl swims out of the pool and runs inside the house. Without a second thought, I go after her. After looking through every room, I finally find her. She’s in a bathroom. I walk in to find her cuddled against the wall, crying uncontrollably. I sit by her side and try to calm her down. I hold her in my arms and squeeze her. I tell her that everything’s going to be ok, but I’m not even sure I believe that myself. As her weeping stops, I feel a silent tear of anger slowly rolling down my cheek.

I am 70 years old. I’ve had a good life. As I’m sitting on my favorite couch in my beautiful house I hear the phone ring. I pick up. It’s my daughter, telling me that I’m going to have a grandson. As she tells me I feel a rush of happiness run through my body. I am overjoyed. After I finish talking to her I sit back on my couch and wonder, once again. Have I been good in my life? I close my eyes and try to remember it all. I see my mom pulling my arm, the black family and the butterfly. I see my dad and my mom, and hear her crying. I can feel the confusion all over again but this time I seem to understand all these things I have seen all my life but never realized entirely they were wrong. I see the boy with the turban sitting across the school cafeteria. He definitely needed me. Finally, I see the girl at the party, hopeless and broken. A nauseating feeling sets in my gut as I realise that after all, I still don’t know her name. I should have done so much more.

V Frassa, S Kennedy, A Herrero, C Pérez

Songs of Innocence and of Experience

In this creative writing project, students had to write about an issue that affects children from a innocent, naive point of view, and from a cynical, experienced point of view.

This is one of the stories they wrote:

INNOCENCE


Once upon a time there were two children, Me and Jeff. We were brothers that helped each other with different tasks. Once in a while they could hear they parents fight, arguing about their financial situation and their marriage. Their marriage wasn't in the best moment, as you could presume by now, because of serious problems they were having.

I remember being 9 years old, people would always tell me that I was a great guy, that I always helped people with things they needed. I wasn't in the best shape, which meant that I was a bullying target at school. At school people would make fun of me, because of my weight, but that didn’t really bother me.

My brother, Jeff, always had big dreams, he always aimed high but as our parents were not as rich as the other parents Jeff could not be what he wanted to be in school. Many boys in his school played football but as he was not as good as the other boys he could not play with them and he lost his interest in football.

Steve and Alex, our parents, were great parents, until Steve stopped going to work. They had reached a point in their marriage where they couldn’t stand each other, because of issues they were having, so they would always fight, scream each other and never reach an agreement. This would not only affect their lives, but also their children's lives.

One day, me and Jeff were on our way to school and I was thinking that, I liked going to school as I felt that there everyone liked me as I would help my friends, making them laugh in the process. Jeff wasn’t so happy doing so, since he couldn't do or be what he wanted to.
That day my friends decided to play a game called “Run for help’, this game consisted of running the fasted as you could to help others, but in this case, no one needed to be helped, my “friends” were only making me run around and since I was fat, they thought it was funny as I thought that it was funny as well.

At one point during the game one of my friends asked me if I liked playing the game, I answered that I liked it as I felt as a great part of a big group of friends
that gave me attention, more than anyone else then.

Jeff, on the other hand, had a completely normal and boring day; he couldn't do want he would like to, which was play and practice football with his friends, he felt excluded from his group of friends, because he wasn't able to be like then, which made him upset, this scared him as he knew from personal experience what hate could do.

Inside the classroom we didn't have a problem, we were great students and were fine with people around us. My teacher thought I was a great, intelligent boy. Jeff’s teacher thought he was a great student but a little quiet. Both were able to socialise and even make friends, at least that was what I thought I was doing... meanwhile Jeff was having fun with their actual friends. They we were both great students after all, we had good grades, helped others, were always up to date with their studies and most important their we were happy, well at least I was. But everything changed at home.

My parents stayed at home. Alex, our mother, because she wasn’t allowed to have a job, and Steve, that was looking for a job. They would never stop arguing, and sometimes Steve would even threaten Alex. But that wasn’t the worst, this hate between the parents caused us children to fight each other, because while I supported my mom, Jeff was in a way induced to support his dad, once Steve was very persuasive and was able to manipulate Jeff’s opinion, but dad couldn't do it with me, I was too innocent to understand, so instead I decided to support my mother, because I thought it was the right thing to do.

Back to that day, that night was different, we were all peacefully eating dinner, laughing together with mom, but that night dad; dad was quiet, always looking down, that was when I suspected that bad things were going to happen. We continued eating, and all the sudden, dad stood up, and just started walking to the dishwasher, putting his dishes in and went upstairs to his room. Even though nothing happened my mom looked scared, at the time I wasn’t able to understand what scared my mother, we washed our dishes and went to bed, at one point during that night I woke up, could hear my father crying on the master bedroom, I went there and mom was dead on the ground with a knife stuck on her chest, I went to dad and asked him what happened to mom he just answered, I spared your mom from doing the paperwork.

P Barrada, P Yavarfar, G Russo

Halloween story: The Spot

T H E   S P O T

We were waiting at  a cold small and dark room, I started looking at the walls and realized that the pictures that were hanging were photos of people in our school, but before I could even think about what was going on the door opened and a small old little man came in, everything was so weird, I suddenly remembered why we came and how the day started just like any other one.

It was a Friday like any other, as always we were hanging out during recess at our spot, the left corner of the playground. Just like every other day, the boys were playing football and suddenly one of them, Anibal, kicked the ball so hard that it ended up in the neighbor's garden. 

They asked us to look and check if we could see it, but to our amazement, when we looked through the little holes in the wall we saw an eye staring at us. I could not believe what was happening, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I told all my fiends but they just laughed at me and no one believed me. I felt terrified and alone, but my curiosity was too overwhelming to think straight. That afternoon, when school finished, Anibal asked me to go with him to get the ball back and I felt like I couldn’t say no.

When we got there, we found out that there wasn't a bell at the door so we just knocked on it. An old lady let us in and after we explained why we were there, she told us to wait at a strange little room for her husband to arrive. I could tell that she was looking at us with a weird look in her eyes, she made me feel a bit suspicious but my thoughts vanished when that creepy little man asked us what we were doing there, and here we are now sitting in this old grubby sofa.

We told him why we were there, but he seemed not to have heard and instead he invited us to have some drinks with him. We were very confused about the whole situation but we agreed, since we really needed to get our ball back.

He led us to the kitchen. Everything in this house was out of ordinary-the little sofa room, the pictures hanging on the walls… when we arrived to the kitchen, we found a massive walk-in fridge, we went in to take something to eat but suddenly the door closed. We tried to open it but it was locked.

Already 2 hours had gone by, I was stressing out so badly. It seemed like we were in the worst of our bad dreams. The room that was supposedly a big fridge was dark and quiet, we were freezing, and I felt like we weren’t alone.

Anibal started crying like crazy, I tried to tell him that everything was going to be okay, that it all had a logical explanation, but it really didn’t, I really thought we were being victims of some kind of crazy psychopath and that we weren’t likely to survive.

Suddenly, a smell started filling the room and before I could react I passed out, someone was trying to knock us out, to hurt us, to kill us.

I woke up to Anibal shouting my name. I opened my eyes and I saw him staring at me with the most terrified look. I realized there was light in the room, someone had turned the lights on. I got up and looked around me, I couldn’t believe what I was looking at, it was the most horrific, disgusting and creepy scene: there were around 20 dead bodies laid all across the floor. None of them had eyes, they had dry dripping blood all over them.

I just didn’t know how to react, I really didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know how much time had gone by, I didn’t have my phone on me and Anibal was having an anxiety attack so I couldn’t express my worries to him because he would get worse. 

I don’t know how much time had already gone but the door suddenly opened and the old man came in. He stared at us for seconds that felt like hours. When we could react, we both ran out of the house as fast as we could until we got to my house. 

It was already ten o’clock at night. When we opened the door, we found my parents talking to the police. My mom had  watery eyes and my dad seemed out of this world, he had a lost look.

When they saw me they busted into tears and hugged us. I couldn't even talk, I was paralyzed. My parents and the police kept asking questions. They didn’t know where we had been all this time and felt so frustrated that I couldn’t answer that I kept crying. Anibal’s parents came to pick him up. I still couldn’t talk.

I couldn’t talk for the next few weeks, I would spend the whole day in bed just thinking and thinking about what had happened  until one day I woke up crying and calling my mom. She came to my room as fast as possible and hugged me until I stopped crying. I then started to tell her the whole story. She then called the police, and they asked me a ton of questions about what happened.

We received no information for them for months until one day they called and told my mom to go the the police station. When she came home she was pale as a paper, she came into my room and said something I will never forget: “We are going to have to take you to the doctor’s, sweetheart. Something isn’t right.”

A. Herrero and A. Oller

Halloween story: The Figure

The Figure

So there I was, it was almost dark outside, and there I was, alone at school. At first, I was sure that there would be someone else there, like the guard or someone in reception, but I was wrong. How did I end up alone at school?

The first thing I tried to do was (of course) going to the kitchen to get some food for the night. The only thing I found was bread and some cheese. I could work something out with that. Next thing I did was to go and check in secretary and see if there was anyone there. And there was no one there, I was completely alone.

Around an hour later, I realised it was completely dark outside so what I tried to do next was to find a place to sleep. I was kind of scared, which was normal, and I chose the kitchen. There, I could use the heat of the hob to keep me warm during the night and, just in case, to use the knives if I needed them.

It was almost midnight and I couldn't sleep, obviously, so I started walking around to try to relax. Hours before I had tried to talk to my parents, but none of them answered my texts and phone calls. They must have been so worried by that time…

At least, I was perfectly fine, I managed to stay warm, I ate, and found myself a place to lie down. After around half an hour of walking around the kitchen, I finally felt tired enough to sleep. I made a blanket out of the aprons that were lying there and I used piled trash bags as a pillow. When I was just about to fall asleep, I heard a noise. At first I had no idea of what it was, but after 10 seconds I recognised it clearly. A telephone. I thought about the place where I could find a telephone in school, so I went to reception again.

There it was, the ringing phone, and I picked it up. “Hello?” I said. But no one replied, the only thing I heard was a buzzing noise in the background. “Listen, I’m here by myself and I don’t know what to do,” I explained. But again, no one replied, just the buzz. So, kind of scared, I hung up. I stared at the phone, hoping that it didn’t ring again. And in fact, it didn’t. But there was something else, I spotted a small piece of paper just underneath the phone, I unfolded it and it said; “Look outside”. Terrified, I went to the door and looked to the car park. I couldn't believe what I saw. There was a car with its lights on and in front of it was a figure, it was a human-like figure, but it wasn’t human. It was like 3 meters tall but very very thin, and I could tell that it was smiling at me. Then, he raised his arms and all of the car lights turned on, the school lights too and all the cars started beeping.

Then, I woke up. Thank God, it was only a nightmare. I was still at school though, that was real. I looked at the time and it was 4:13 am. I realised that was the same exact time when the telephone rang in my nightmare. But I managed to calm down, and went to sleep again.

I couldn't sleep, that nightmare had freaked me out. I went to reception again, just to check everything was OK. No phone ringing and no 3-meter-tall figures. But I spotted a tiny note again. I was scared by that time but I had to open it. I unfolded it and it said: “Here we go again”. Then, the telephone rang.

S. LÓPEZ and M. ZULUETA

Halloween story: Friday 13th

It was a mysterious Friday 13, in December, when our first character was in school specifically in Algebra 1.

“God, I hate Maths,” Allende said. She looked at her right and she realized that Cris wasn’t there. She hadn’t shown up in two weeks and she was missing. The  bell rang.

When Allende got home, she started to do her French homework. In the last exercise, she found some strange sentences that she had to conjugate, like: ‘She will never come back from home’ or ‘She was scared’, but the last one really creeped her out- ‘You will never see her again’. It was at this moment when she started to look into Cris’s disappearance.

She spent her whole weekend reading police reports from her father, who was an important policeman in town, and also talking with Cris’s parents, but she only found that she had disappeared. Allende was getting frustrated because nobody knew what had happened to Cris. The following Monday, Allende was searching through the whole school and she got told that Sirhu the handyman was also missing, so she went to the cabin to meet the new handyman. When she got there, she knocked three times and no one responded so she decided to enter and check it out. When she got in she found a lot of PS4’s, an enormous TV and a box saying “Sirhu’s personal belongings”.

When she opened the box she found a old note with a strange message in Spanish “seis - tres - cinco - nueve - dos”. 20 minutes later she had to go back to French class. As she was leaving, she noticed a weird presence.

In French class they had to to an oral presentation but the teacher didn’t show up so as the law says, if the teacher doesn´t show up in the first ten minutes, you can leave.

5 minutes later, she went to the cabin again with an enormous desire of knowing what happened to her best friend. She was looking for any kind of safe with the code “6 - 3 - 5 - 9 - 2”, but nothing was there and suddenly the door closed really hard, and a voice said, “ if you continue, you will get killed by…” and it disappeared with a big BOOM and a safe box appeared with a 5-digit-code.                     

When she opened it with the code, she found a note and Cris´s phone, which shocked her. The note was a page from Sirhu’s diary saying the following- “29th of november. Today, I found a girl's phone which was unlocked and my curiosity made me look in the photo gallery and then I saw it, the most evil thing I’ve ever seen and after a few seconds I recognized her face wit…” and the note was unfinished with a big bloodstain. Suddenly a teacher passed by and said “What are you doing here, Allende? You are not supposed to be here! come with me, I’ll take you to your classroom”.

When they arrived nobody except Roxanne was there. The next 30 minutes were extremely awkward and creepy. She started asking all these weird questions, like if she was ok after Cris’s death, and also her relationship with Cris. Allende knew that something was up so she decided to leave the classroom, but when she was turning the doorknob she noticed it was locked so instantly she looked at Roxanne and she told her sharply, “Don’t get into things that don’t concern you,” and the door opened as if by magic.

When Allende got home, she grabbed her earphones and played the video on her phone. It was basically Cris running from something, and just before it ended she heard a strange and creepy but familiar voice. Even though she had heard it before, she didn’t know whose voice it could be. Later that night, she had a nightmare about the exact same voice, and at the end of the dream she could see that it was Dina’s voice, the English teacher. Just then she woke up, and she had no idea of what could do.

In the morning, she grabbed a stake which she was going to use to kill Dina. She waited for hours until she had Dina where she wanted to. She was really nervous because she hadn’t hit or killed anything before, but she remembered what she had done to Cris and as soon she started walking along the corridor, she put the stake through her heart.

Right after this, she felt something in her back, and whatever it was said “ You got the wrong person!!!” and the real vampire, Roxanne, ended eating Allende until there was no more to eat than her soul.

During the following 100 years, the death of these poor guys, which has always been a mystery, was forgotten, but on the 27th of November someone else died at the same school.

A. Castaño and N. Alzugaray