Happy Thursday!
Welcome to week 3 of our competition blog series, where every Thursday we feature one or two of our winners from Stylefit’s 2021 Student Lockdown Writing Competition!
Emily McLeish is a student at Wentworth College and placed SECOND in the Year 9-10 category with her fantastic story ‘The End’. Emily won two books sponsored by the lovely Matakana Village Books!
“I have just come home from holiday and have seen the prize. I wanted to say thank you for choosing my story and l am so excited to read the books.” ~ Emily McLeish
You can read ‘The End’ and see Emily’s Stylefit result below!
The End
They say the End is supposed to be painful but this is just a human superstition. The darkness welcomes you like an old friend, wrapping around your body in a warm embrace. It leads you into the light and shows you all the wonders you have been missing. The scratchy sheets and the bitter, antiseptic smell fade into distant beautiful memories of the mortal world.
They say the End is supposed to scary but that is just human terror of the unknown. The End isn’t so much of a place, it’s a feeling. It’s the feeling of the breeze brushing through your hair on a hot summer’s day, the feeling of pure childhood joy, the feeling of the ocean hitting your knees, catching that first wave surfing and finishing your exams.
I don’t know why humans worry about what comes at the End. The End is a paradise. It is free from worries, dead-lines, taxes, bills and responsibilities. I have lived in the End my whole life and though I pity the mortals coming to paradise, crying after their families and stumbling like they had just been released from a hug, I envy them. These humans had this life. Meaningless as it may have been but they lived. They saw things, knew things and l am just forever here, in an eternal gorgeous paradise with no-one left. I see people reuniting with their families and I can’t ever do that because no one would ever recognise me with who l am now
They say the End is a prison and l suppose that is the truth. I am sure my family would love to have come for me. I imagine they would have torn me away from the velvet curtain of black and taken me into their arms. Would they know me now? I have grown, even in this immortal place. That is one of the End’s residents worst fears that when their families come to stay, they don’t know who they are seeing anyone. They only see memories and End residents are made of memories and regret.
The humans are terrified of this state that they cannot control. No-one can control what happens at the end, especially not if you are taken too soon.
I remember the exact minute. This woman was pulled into the End and she was crying and screaming about it.
“I don’t want to go!” She was yelling repeatedly. She was a pretty woman, with dark hair and the bluest eyes you would ever see. She fixed those ocean eyes on me and suddenly all these emotions flooded through me as l stared at her.
We were connected. I knew her from the way her eyes fill with adoring unconditional love. As she strode up to me, l knew her from the way her fingers touched my arm hesitantly.. I knew her.
l smiled as she cried.
“My baby,” she sobbed.
“Hi, Mum,” I replied before being pulled into a crushing, warm, beautiful embrace.
The End might be lovely but there is nothing better than that.
