Lo que hoy conocemos como la Noche de Brujas o Halloween ( del inglés antiguo “All Hallows Eve”) era celebrado hace más de 3000 años por los Celtas, un pueblo guerrero que habitaba zonas de Irlanda, Inglaterra, Escocia y Francia. Precisamente el 31 de octubre, los Celtas celebraban el fin de año con el Samhain, una fiesta pagana. Con la inmigración europea a los Estados Unidos, llegó la tradición de Halloween al continente americano. Cuando se habla de Halloween o Día de las Brujas se piensa en disfraces, maquillaje, fiesta, dulces y niños.
Nuestros alumnos se han sumado a esta celebración desde distintas materias, con actividades como el concurso de redacción Scary Stories. Hemos recibido este año unas 100 escalofriantes y espeluznantes historias que demuestran el ingenio de sus autores.
Lamentablemente sólo hemos podido escoger a un ganador y un finalista por cada categoría: A : 1º y 2º de la ESO y B : 3º y 4º de ESO.
Los ganadores de la edición de 2017 son:
Categoría A
1er premio: Alba García Ramos
Finalista: Claudia Pardo
Categoría B
1er premio: Selena Palao Ramos
Finalista: Fco Javier Díaz Lozano
Todos ellos visitaron la emisora de radio local para hablar de sus trabajos y donde recibieron su premio. También tendrán la satisfacción de ver su obra publicada en nuestro blog del Programa Bilingüe, con la voz original de nuestra auxiliar americana Megan Hawthorne.
Enhorabuena y muchas gracias por vuestras historias. Os esperamos el próximo año.
HISTORIAS GANADORAS
CATEGORÍA A: 1º Y 2º DE ESO
Three thirty-three
By Alba García Vargas
As usual every five years, a group of friends meet in a country house. But this year will be a bit different…
The one that first arrived was Emily, followed by Simon. The last ones were John, Sophie and Paul. The first night “Something” made them restless, at 3:33 a.m. John was awakened by a noise and went down the stairs, when he got down he found Emily’s bed empty. He went out to the forest to find her, luckily found her lying on the ground with marks on her hands. He took her in his arms and went back to the house. The next morning everything was still normal, and John did not care to tell the story, and they all noticed it a little strange.
That night it was Sophie who screamed, called Simon, saying that she had seen “something” at her window. This awoke everyone and it was then when John told what happened last night, no one wanted to sleep that night. The next morning everything was silent, a glass was broken in the upper part of the house. And all hearing the noise run up the stairs. They found the mirror of the bathroom broken and with a written notice with lipstick towards Paul. This shocked them so much that they decided to make a guard. That night they held out until 3:07 a.m. and at 3:32 a.m. Paul felt the need to go to the bathroom. Once there he washed his hands and suddenly the clock struck 3.33 a.m., the tap closed and the head to look in the mirror in which was previously written his name and sees a shadow behind him. Turning, “something” killed him leaving his body there.
When John woke up and went to the bathroom…he found the body of his friend lying on the floor. John warned them all, but the only who dared to go was Emily.
The day passed slowly, Sophie gave the bad news to Paul’s family and came the night.
Emily couldn’t sleep thinking about Paul’s death, suddenly at 3.30 a.m. “something” causes her to get into coma and at 3.33 a.m. she dies. In the morning, John, Simon and Sophie were having breakfast and they realized the Emily was not coming. Sophie went to call her to her room and seeing that she did not answer, thought she was sleeping and tried to weak her up. They noticed that she was dead and they thought it was because of the impact of his friend’s death. They thought it was time to leave, but they decided to stay one more night. That night a terrifying dream invades Simon’s mind, at 3.15 a.m. he woke up and decided to take a walk around the house to reassure himself. At 3.28 a.m. he notices that “something” is looking at him and he starts to get nervous and three minutes later starts to run followed by “something”. He stands by the side of a tree o get some air, at 3.33 a.m. something hangs him and he squeaks a scream that awakens the others. Sophie and John run out of the house to look for him and two minutes later they find him dead near a tree. They run to call the police.
The police was investigating this event but the case closed because they found nothing.
Eighteen years later, two kids were walking by the scene and “something” makes hem disappear.
CATEGORÍA B: 3º Y 4º DE ESO
A typical night
By Selena Palao Ramos 3º ESO B
Today was my typical Friday night. My plan was to spend the night watching a football game drinking beer. But in a second everything changed, and having trusted the story would still be alive.
As a typical Friday 13th of October, my co-workers had gotten bored with their fear stories, I had not stopped telling the damn stories, I had not stopped telling the ghost story of my house, as if I had not heard it when I decided to buy it. But for me they can tell what they want, because I don’t believe in those stories. So when I enter my house I don’t feel anything stranger than normal, since I live in a very old house of a floor and a basement, which was built in 1894. It has the paint peeling and the windows are half hanging, and I separate 5km from the nearest neighbor. You could say that I live away from everyone. Also, no one has ever come to visit me because they are afraid of the ghost story of my house, whenever they want to see me they meet me everywhere else. Apparently, all the homeowners who have lived there have been murdered in this house, but I have lived here for over 10 years and nothing has happened to me. I haven’t seen anything paranormal. I just hear the noises that an old house can make.
So today I’m going to spend a good Friday, and no one is going to disturb me. As I enter the door, I leave the briefcase in the chair of the hall and I go to the kitchen. In the kitchen there is a foul smell, because the sink is stuck, so I quickly come crashing into two chairs and I open the refrigerator. I take the pack of 6 bottles of beer that I kept specially for tonight, and I run out. Once in the living room I sit in the armchair and watch the football game. The night has begun.
I wake up startled with the sound of a radio, I head for towards the fireplace on which the radio is, and I find it strange to see it there, since it was stored in a basement box. But anyway I turn it off and I’m going to switch the lights on, but they don’t turn on. I turn to the TV and it doesn’t work either, “there must be a power cut” I think. So I decide to find out what is going on. I take a flashlight to the side of the stairs, and I go down to the basement where the electrical panel is. The basement is only lit by a light bulb hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room, but there isn’t electricity so I don’t light it. As I flash the lantern on the floor, I can see a rat standing by my feet running towards a hole in the wall, and with a grimace of disgust I head toward the panel on the far wall. “I’ll have to deal with the rats later”. I open the electrical panel and the cables are cut, I turned round to see if I can see who has cut them, but there is nobody there. Then I look at my wristwatch and it indicates it is 12 o’clock at night. I try to ignore the fact that the wires are cut off because I’ll take care of it tomorrow. And I’m going upstairs to my bedroom. Once I’m upstairs I go to my bed and fall asleep.
I wake up startled by the blow of a door closing. I sit up in bed and I turn on the digital clock on my nightstand. It indicates that it is 3 o’clock in the morning, but one thing doesn’t fit, because at 12 there wasn’t electricity since the cables had been cut. So I go down to the basement with the flashlight. There I go to the electricity panel and halfway I notice an itch in the nape, as if someone is breathing on top of me. I quickly turn but there is no one. “I figured it out”, I think. Therefore, I continue with my task. When I open the panel and the light focuses on the wires I hear a laugh behind me. The cables are fine. I take the flashlight and it is broken, so I run up to the middle of the room and pull the rope to turn on the light bulb. As soon as it lights up I see a person in front of me. I shout but when I blink he disappears. I run away from the room upstairs.
So once I’m in the lobby I try to reach the door to leave, but the latch and the key turn and close the door right under my nose. I start to really scare myself, I begin to remember the stories my co-workers had told me. I go to the kitchen to arm myself with a knife. But again I notice a presence behind me. With the knife in my hand I pretend to defend myself by attacking my opponent but again there is no one. Then, I begin to smell the metallic scent of blood and I feel like a liquid falling down my left leg. I look at my leg and I find out a cut of about 15 centimeters. It looks like a claw would have caused the wound. And at that moment I realize that as I don’t leave the house right now, I will leave it feet first.
I almost fly to the door and open it. I have the knob in my hand when I feel the cold blade of the knife that was in my hand leaning on my throat. I turn slowly and hands up and I see a version of myself completely dressed in black and with a hood over his head. Out of his eyes was an uncontrollable anger and just then I feel how I am on the floor and I see how my life escapes from me.
Now I know that I should have trusted the ghost stories my co-workers told me, for this was the only year I was truly convinced that nothing was going to happen to me. And I also understand why they never met the assassins of the homeowners, because some supernatural strength forces you to take your life by yourself and makes you imagine that a version of yourself has done it. I know it because I felt the wet knife with my blood escaping from my hand.
