Highly commended
The Valleys
Felix Addenbrooke
Year 8 Elizabeth College
In the vast valleys of Wales, where the mist stoops low and eerily lurks, mysterious events started happening out of the blue. Every so often, there would be a mighty rumbling noise, and the ground would start to shake. Some people said that it was giants’ stomachs rumbling whilst others believed that it was the snoring of a powerful dragon. Few people claim that they have seen a dragon with crimson, scaly skin, shiny emerald eyes, and blinding, golden wings that shine like the sun. But other people say that they have seen giant, unexplainable footprints along the side of the towering valleys that made their spines shiver as they imagined how colossal and great the giants would be. Some say that whenever this ear-splitting rumble occurs, the paths in between the valleys open up, and if you are one of the unlucky few who are on the paths, you will end up plunging into the depths of the earth, never to be seen again. One day, when the rumble occurred, an old, wise man with a long, bedraggled beard claimed that he saw a sudden flash in the skies above and saw the glint of a dragon’s eye and the shimmer of a dragon’s wings. Rumour spread that this man was a human form of the dragon, but lots of people laughed at this rumour and thought that it was obviously fake. However, as days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months, this man was becoming more and more strange. This alerted the townspeople, and they started to panic as the man would say things like, “The town is growing old, and so am I, but I love to see through this emerald dragon’s eye.” Nowadays, apparently, he is still lurking around, hunting for prey.