Last month, we launched an exciting short story competition with an October theme. The competition was designed to provide our students with a platform to showcase their talent, gain recognition, and enhance their skills.
We received some fantastic entries from our students, and, after much deliberation, we are delighted to announce that the winner of the competition is year 9 student Dayton. Our runners-up were Amelia in second place and Holly in third place.
Congratulations to our winners, and a huge well done to everyone who took part. We certainly have some budding storytellers here at Holgate.
Finally, we are pleased to share Dayton’s winning entry with you.
Vaelix and the return to Hollow Manor
A year had passed since that fog-drenched night, but Hollow Manor still lingered in Vaelix’s mind, a ghost that refused to fade.
They’d told themself they were done with it. Done with the traps, the whispers, the inventor’s taunting voice. But every time the wind rattled a window or a machine whirred in the dark, Vaelix felt that pulse of curiosity again, that calm, joyful itch that wouldn’t let go.
So, when Halloween came around once more, the swift fox stood once again before the iron gates of the manor. The moonlight was the same sickly silver, the air thick with the scent of rust and rain. But this time, Vaelix wasn’t trespassing. They were hunting.
Vaelix: “Round two,” they said quietly, pushing the gates open. “Let’s see what you’ve learned.”
The manor seemed to recognize them. The chandeliers swayed like they were laughing, and a door creaked open on its own, invitingly. Vaelix stepped inside, tail low, ears flicked forward.
The silence was heavier this time, charged like a wire before a spark. No gears yet. No hiss of traps. Just the echo of their own footsteps through the grand hall.
Then a whisper brushed their ear.
Inventor: “Back so soon?”
The voice was smoother now, less static, more human.
Vaelix turned toward the sound, but the hall shifted before they could. The floor rippled like liquid, turning solid again beneath their paws. A projection of the inventor’s mask appeared on the wall, half shattered, half glowing.
Inventor: “You surprised me once,” the voice said. “That won’t happen again.”
“Good,” Vaelix replied, smiling faintly. “I like surprises.”
The trap came fast. The ceiling cracked open, dropping a web of mechanical tendrils. They struck like snakes, blades on the ends snapping. Vaelix dodged right, spun left, and leapt through a gap, landing on a broken banister. The tendrils lashed after them, scraping the wood into splinters.
Vaelix’s paws gripped the railing as they vaulted to the next level, heart steady, eyes scanning for rhythm, the pattern beneath the chaos. Every invention had one. Even madness had symmetry.
They found it in the hum. Each pulse of electricity preceded an attack. Counting the beats under their breath, Vaelix waited, then dove forward between two arcs of energy, rolling beneath a swinging blade.
They reached a metal door, new since last time, slick and humming. It scanned them as they approached, then hissed open.
The workshop beyond had changed. The tables were cleaner, the walls lined with blueprints of creatures half-animal, half-machine. And in the center stood the inventor, unmasked.
A pale face marked with soot, eyes too bright for the dark. They smiled faintly.
Inventor: “You came back.”
Vaelix circled, tail flicking. “You left the door open.”
“I left it for you.” The inventor stepped closer, their right arm clicking as gears turned under the skin. “You fascinate me. You break my designs, outthink my logic… You’re everything I can’t calculate.”
“That’s what makes it fun,” Vaelix said, calm and cool. But their pulse quickened.
The inventor gestured to the walls, where metal beasts stirred, wolves made of steel, eyes glowing like furnaces.
Inventor: “Then play with my new toys.”
They lunged.
Vaelix ducked under one, kicked off the wall, and landed atop another, claws scraping sparks. They twisted, using the machine’s own weight to crush another against the floor. A third lunged, but Vaelix pulled a lever on its back, and it collapsed, gears spilling out like mechanical entrails.
The inventor clapped slowly, almost admiringly.
Inventor: “You keep escaping. But what if I don’t want to catch you?”
That gave Vaelix pause. “Then why the traps?”
“Because,” the inventor said softly, “you’re the only one who ever came back.”
The silence between them stretched, eerie, almost sad.
Then, the hum in the walls changed pitch. Sparks flew from the machines. The manor itself began to wake up, its heartbeat rising.
“Too late,” the inventor whispered. “It’s not my house anymore.”
The floor split open. Cables erupted like vines, wrapping around both of them. Vaelix fought, slicing with a sharp shard of metal, breaking free just as the inventor was pulled into the machinery.
Their eyes met one last time through the coils of steel, a look of defiance, and something like gratitude.
Vaelix didn’t wait. They ran, through collapsing corridors, through the hall that twisted like a living thing, until the front doors burst open. The manor roared behind them, swallowing itself in sparks and smoke.
When it was over, only ruins remained, quiet, cold, and still.
Vaelix stood in the ash, panting, fur streaked with soot. They looked back once, then smirked. “Guess that’s checkmate.”
The wind howled through the wreckage, carrying the faintest echo, a mechanical laugh, fading into the night.
Vaelix turned away, pulling their hood up as dawn began to creep across the horizon. Calm. Joyful. Untouched by fear.
“Happy Halloween,” they whispered again, this time with a note of melancholy.
And with that, the swift fox disappeared into the morning fog, the hunter who became legend.
