Our second Wave MAT chain story flying its way across the two counties last week is published here and based on the following picture prompt. Entitled 'The Sphere' this story was written by the amazing student writers at CHES AP, Stansfield AP, River Dart AP and Torlands AP with their English teacher. 

Thank you to the wonderful Wave writers who took part in this project. You are brilliant and we are all so proud of you!

The sphere

OPENING - CHES

"Life is like an ocean." Millie whispered to me that day.

"How?" Martyn whispered back

"You will see..." Millie replied, but little did she realise the significance of those words or what adventure lay ahead as she spoke to her friend that day...

The sky was dark; the sun setting on the vast beach.  It was then that they noticed it...

A crystal clear sphere. It stayed glistening, perfectly still, as the remaining rays of the suns' light beamed upon it. A perfectly formed ball. Ethereal. It sat as though it had been placed by some other worldly creature; a contrast to the brown jagged rock upon which it sat and the waste-land beyond. Here was something so clear and pure. It looked like water; fluid and see through. You could fall right into it. The pair of walkers were drawn closer and closer still.

What is it? Was it? And why was it here? It looked so out of place and its beauty held them tight. For they couldn't look away now. It had them in its grasp, whether they knew it yet, or not.

For this sphere had travelled across the world following these walkers. Waiting for them. And now was the time. It had come for them.

The two friends drew closer towards the sphere. They had been drawn in by its beauty. Their eyes were transfixed.  Their pace quickened as they traversed the rocky ground in order to reach it. Their arms outstretched as though drawn by an invisible force field.

It had them in its power, and it wouldn't let them go. Unable to walk away; unable to let go, Millie touched it...

 DEVELOPMENT – River Dart

“Don’t touch it!”, shouted Martyn.  He had a bad feeling about this thing in front of them.  Millie suddenly vanished as soon as she touched the sphere with a fingertip, yet the mysterious sphere was still there in front of a confused Martyn. 

The sphere morphed like a deadly witch.  Spinning around, it opened up a parallel universe, sucking Millie with it. 

Martyn screamed, dropping to his knees, grazing them on the sand. 

CLIMAX - Stansfield

Martyn jumped up and started running in the opposite direction, he needed to find help. The more he ran the more he felt like he was going nowhere, in fact, he felt like he was being dragged and sucked in the opposite direction; as though a powerful vacuum was drawing him in. Martyn screamed at the top of his lungs for help, his heart racing uncontrollably, as if it was trying to burst its way out of his chest and set itself free from the prison of his body.
 Just then, he was engulfed by what seemed to be a strong cold wind.

There was a defining silence for a moment then, there before him stood two Millies, another Martyn and a weird looking man about 6 feet tall in an iridescent seventies style disco jump suit, with long wavy silvery hair, large purple eyes and a handle bar moustache, which joined neatly groomed sideburns, with the exact same sphere in his hand. Quick no time for formalities the moustached man exclaimed, we must hurry, they cannot find us here.

 Before he had finished speaking the sphere started to wobble, an explosion ensued and out came an army of people dressed from head to toe in shiny black gowns.

RESOLUTION – Torlands

Martyn froze. He stared at the large army of cloaked figures charging towards them. His daze was shattered by a colourful arm, drenched in bracelets, pulling him into the orb once more.

“Phew!” exclaimed the disco man in a high pitched eccentric voice.

Gasping for air, Martyn glanced around him. Within moments, perspiration crept down his legs like tickly fingertips.

“What have you done with my friends?” Martyn demanded frantically. The disco man smiled slyly and calmly pulled out a map. His index finger strolled across the map and he hummed, while panic in Martyn’s chest twisted in a tight knot.

“Who next?” he muttered.

Martyn’s mind raced with questions. Yet his eyes focused on what lay in the disco man’s spindly hands.

A sinister smirk suddenly stretched across the disco man’s face as his eyes locked onto a location on the map. Martyn watched in a mixture of shock and confusion, as the map the man was holding started to twitch in his hands. The paper writhing, crumpling, and twisting as if it was alive, before melting away into the disco man’s skin. In its place, he held another sphere, this one eerily similar to the one Martyn and Millie had found on the beach. The disco man stared into it with a greedy gaze, a maniacal laugh escaping his throat.

The sound sent ripples of fear up Martyn’s spine and the realisation hit him- what if the cloaked figures weren’t evil like he’d assumed? What if it had been the disco man all along?

His suspicions were confirmed when he looked over at the doppelgangers of him and Millie, he couldn’t hear them but read their lips as they moved. “TAKE THE SPHERE, ESCAPE,” They repeated over and over again. Martyn looked over at Millie and she nodded at him, having followed his gaze and also gotten their message.

Without a second thought, both children charged towards the disco man, snatching the sphere from his hands with strength they never knew they possessed. The second they had their grip around it, the floor started to shake and Martyn’s surroundings blurred into a whirlpool of colours. He felt his stomach drop and his legs go wobbly as he got sucked inside.

The next thing Martyn knew, he was being spat out onto a cold, damp surface, his legs aching in protest at the harsh landing. He tried to open his eyes but everything seemed so bright that he quickly shut them again, blinking away the black specks that dotted his vision. After a few attempts though, he got used to the brightness and looked around him. He saw Millie knelt feet away from him and sighed in relief that she was okay.

A dizzy, disorientated feeling took over his body as he pushed himself up, and took in his surroundings. They were back on the beach now. The remaining rays of sunlight beaming upon the sphere that was back in front of them, just like it had been when they found it. Except now it was moving. Like a massive, mesmeric marble, the sphere rolled away from Martyn and Millie and towards the ocean. Growing closer and closer to the water’s edge until a glistening wave crashed into it, washing it away.