this idea has just popped into my head. I don’t no if I should write more.

London, 1940

Air raid sirens rung harshly in Emily's ears. The sirens had started quite distantly when she had first heard them, five minutes ago whilst amusing her friends in a cornfield on the edge of town. Now she was sprinting through the maze of London streets, long brown plaits bouncing over her shoulders. Rain splattered down onto her pale skin. The roads were bare. No one was around her. Unexpectedly her breath became shallow and she held a stitch in her stomach. The nearest shelter was no more then two streets away but Emily was tiring.

She stopped and leant heavily aganist the red brick wall of a terraced house. She was shivering now, partly from the speed she had run and partly because of the rain drenched clothes clinging to her. She staggered forwards. The first bombs were falling and Emily could hear them. She raised her head, took a gulp of air and jogged further down the road.

"I won't be hit by the bombs," she whispered with a determined frown, tumbling into one of the side roads.

It was at this point Emily made a terrible mistake. The street she had thought to be the second was actually the third, Penny Street. The shelter was now behind her. The bombs were dropping closer, so close that the next one shook the rough ground and Emily toppled onto the wet cobbled floor. A bomb exploded only one street away and the smell hit her nose seconds later. Emily cried out and leapt to her feet, adrenaline now pumping through her once more. Bare knees cut and arms scraped she scrabbled over the damp ground and began to find a place to protect her.

A fire was building itself higher near the end of the road. A trickle of blood was dribbling down her cheek from her forehead. The whistle of another heavy object was quite close above. Emily screamed and dived under a hole in the old wall. She knew it was a silly idea. The bomb landed and flattened the houses instantly. The blow knocked Emily out and sent her rolling a short distance into the grass stretch beyond.

She woke up to complete silence. Her nose was throbbing and she could taste drying blood on her lips and chin indicating it was probably broken. Emily’s head was pounding. She whimpered and sat up then noticed with some relief, the air raid sirens weren’t whirring. Hunkered down on her hands and knees Emily crawled to the wall. She lay flat on her stomach and looked out. The houses were just a smouldering pile of rubble and dust now. Massive cracks fanned out in all directions from the floor like rays of sunshine, almost as if they were imitating the low sunset shining in the horizon. Usually when houses were destroyed people would be swarming around them. Some would be comforting the families where as others would be poking about trying to steal anything left. The houses forty eight to fifty six on Penny street were still completely deserted.

“That’s strange It must have been at least a couple of hours since the explosion,” Emily said quietly to herself.

Like the brave soliders in the war, Emily carefully pulled herself back through the hole by her elbows. One of her brown leather shoes had disappeared so she had to step slowly over the rubble and across the road.

Smoke billowed in clouds out of number fifty. Emily took off her black cardigan, that had once belonged to her sister, and used it to waft away some of the smoke. The smell was different. A more metallic stench then the remains of wooden furniture. This should have scared Emily but the peculiar trance seemed to have taken over her and enveloped her senses and she walked into the heart of the smoke. There it was, the source of the stench buried underneath the remains of a table. Emily stumbled over the rubble and bent down to retrieve it. The strange metal oval scorched her skin as she held it close to her face. It spoke to her, whispered in her ear in its strange language. Emily held it closer not noticing the severe burns to the fingers on her left hand. It was telling her it come away with it. Slowly Emily nodded her head. The metal glowed hotter and expanded. At that moment the trance broke. Emily screamed at the excruciating pain. The oval welded her hands to itself and in an explosion of black smoke she disappeared.

A boy of around twelve, on his way back home, turned the corner of Penny Street and dodge around the outside of the blaze in the main road. He had just heard the terrified screaming. He thought it must be a trapped survivor. From the demolished houses he caught a glimpse of a girl silhouetted in the smoke. The boy gawped open mouthed and gazed at the same spot to take in what he had seen. The girl had disappeared. Evaporated. Completely gone.

He finally took a few tentative steps towards the houses. He groped the smoke and held his breath. He definitely hadn’t imaged it. In the ash was the imprint of a shoe and a foot.

“She was only wearing one shoe,” he muttered to himself.

The boy inhaled the smoke quickly. He reeled back over the bricks and threw up on the other side of the road. He didn’t have a gas mask with him. Terrified of what he assumed to be posinous gas from the enemy he jumped over the wall and sprinted across the grass holding his breath. He would have got further if it wasn’t for a bump on the floor he tripped over. The boy fell face first in the damp grass. He turned round. A brown shoe was lying behind him. The boy seized it and looked at the sole. It had the same checked pattern on it as the imprint. With a shuddering sigh the boy put the small shoe in his scrap bag and stood up.

“What have you got yourself into David,” The boy asked himself.

What ever was going on was starting to scare him.

Emily, meanwhile, was still hurtling through a colourful nothingness firmly stuck to the hot metal. Her eyes were streaming with cold tears and streaking into her loose hair. She wasn’t sure which way was up anymore. Everything was blurred. Emily felt dizzy. She was going to faint again. With a small sigh Emily’s head flopped down between her arms and without her knowing the oval began to hurtle downwards at an incredible speed.