Extended writing 2026 – Ниво C1
Веселина Момчева
Chapter 1:
Anima was alone most of her life. But it wasn’t always like that.
Back when she was barely ten she lived with her parents and twin brother. In her eyes, everything seemed perfect. Until one day Anima heard gunshots and people screaming outside her house. Anima turned sharply to see her parents. She saw them urgently packing their bags with clothes. Before she could ask what was going on, her mother picked her up and ran off to the car. She put the girl in the backseat, next to her equally confused brother.
She remembered travelling for a long time. Her parents neither told her nor her brother where they were going.
When the car finally stopped in front of an apartment building, Anima didn’t know where she was nor how long the whole drive was. A friendly couple met them and welcomed them into their apartment.
Anima stayed there for about two weeks. One day, while she was walking around the apartment bored out of her mind, she overheard the lady talking on the phone.
“… yeah, about that trafficker…”
Silence.
“Yeah, he’s here with his kids…”
More silence.
“Don’t worry about them. Me and my husband will take care of them.”
Anima didn’t know what the lady was talking about. Until it happened.
Anima was looking through the window, actively waiting for her parents to come back from shopping. She saw them walking around the corner, but before she could wave at them a few black cars blocked her from her parents. A dozen masked men jumped out of the cars and gathered together around the parents. Anima heard a gunshot. One of the guys dropped on their knees. That caused a lot more gunshots and soon enough the men left. Anima, with horror filling in her eyes, saw her parents laying in a red puddle, motionless. She started screaming. She pointed at the couple that had just entered the room.
“YOU DID THIS,” she yelled at the woman.
The couple looked unfazed. Her brother, who had just walked in, looked startled by the commotion, but it seemed like he didn’t know what had happened.
Before Anima could do anything the man grabbed her brother into a tight hug and left the room.
That was the last time Anima saw her family.
Chapter 2:
It had been almost a month since Anima had been admitted to a mental hospital after a psychotic episode and was a risk to herself and everyone around her.
She was put in a room with two other girls, but she didn’t speak to them. There was a voice that told her to not trust anyone, especially the doctors and nurses.
Anima soon realised that the doctors were putting something in the water they gave patients. The water looked too clear, too smooth, and had a slight bitter taste. She stopped accepting what the doctors gave her. Her vision suddenly cleared and she knew the doctors were trying to drug her. She came up with a plan. She would expose the doctors no matter what.
She stormed in the common room. Everyone’s gaze was on her.
“They are poisoning us!” She said with a raised voice.
A few staff members started walking closer to her.
“It’s the water!” Anima said louder.
The guards took hold of her upper arms. Anima tried to kick them to let herself free.
“THEY WANT TO TEST ON US!” she started shaking. “TO BE ABLE TO TEST ON US THEY NEED TO DRUG US FIRST!” she yelled as the guards took her away.
She heard the faint voices of the nurses talking with the other patients. The guards were silent the whole time they escorted her to the seclusion room.
“We will check up on you when you feel calmer,” one of the guards said before closing the door.
Chapter 3:
There was a melody Anima’s brother had written before they were separated. He used to play it to her whenever she was feeling down.
As Anima was disassociating she heard the melody being hummed by something in the far corner. She snapped out of her thoughts and looked intensely at the corner. The humming grew louder and she felt her chest tighten. She remembered how much she had missed her brother. She knew that the doctors would stop her if she tried to escape. She urgently needed to think of something.
When the staff checked up on her a few hours later, they found her sitting on the edge of the bed, deep in thought. All she needed was to act like she didn’t mean it and then she would run. That’s exactly what she did. She apologised profusely for her behaviour and the staff members guided her back to her room. As the last guard was leaving the room, Anima slipped through and started running.
The melody grew louder with each step, making her even more determined to get to her brother. She heard shouting in the distance, but all she could focus on was which door would lead her to her freedom.
She entered a long hallway and stopped abruptly. Each door had an “EXIT” sign above it. She walked closer to the nearest door and hesitated before opening it. She saw a flashback of her and her brother when they were kids. He was playing the melody he had just created on the piano. Suddenly the head of the younger version of Anima snapped all the way around until her face, now distorted, was staring at her older self. Her eyes turned black and she smiled unnaturally wide.
The older version of Anima quickly closed the door. She ran to the opposite door and opened it, hoping to find the exit this time. The door lead to a black void. Anima heard a woman’s voice on the phone.
“We don’t need her… You can have her…”
The voice abruptly turned sharper and deeper.
“She’s spying on me again, isn’t she?”
The voice grew louder and Anima hurriedly shut the door. She was slightly panting. She needed to escape this nightmare.
She got closer to the third door but before she could reach to the handle she heard gunshots. She knew not to open that door.
Anima started running through that seemingly endless hallway. Each door she opened was something awful that had happened to her in the past. She tried to run faster, to outrun those suffocating memories.
The doors started opening up by themselves, flooding her mind with thoughts and emotions she desperately tried to forget.
All of the sudden, Anima saw a bright blue door. When she entered she realised she was in the bathroom. Each voice started chanting. She found herself before the mirror, but she didn’t see herself in the reflection. She saw a gnarled creature staring back at her. The voices grew so loud she couldn’t take it anymore. With a scream she hit the mirror, shattering it in pieces. Her knuckles started bleeding, but she didn’t feel pain. She grabbed the biggest shard she could find and stabbed herself in the stomach.
The world quietened. The voices stopped. Anima fell on her knees and let the world fade into black.
Chapter 4:
Anima woke up in a hospital bed. She felt her head heavy, but still managed to lift it up to see her surroundings. She saw a familiar man sitting on the chair next to the bed. When he saw that Anima had awoken he stood up and walked closer.
“Do I know you?” whispered Anima.
“You do. All you need to know for now is that we will find each other very soon. Don’t lose hope.”
The man had her exact features — same dark eyes, same black hair. Anima suddenly understood who she was talking to, but before she could say his name he disappeared.
Anima wasn’t feeling anxious anymore. Her brother’s brief presence brought her hope. For the first time she wanted to get better, because she knew that they would reunite.
After she was healed physically she started working on herself and this time she didn’t push the help away. Even though she was back in the mental hospital she felt calmer and more at peace, knowing her brother was out there, waiting for her.
Бояна андонова
Anonymous Eponymous
Tobias Forge was born on the 3rd of March 1981 in Linköping, Sweden. He grew up in a predominantly Christian environment where he was exposed to extensive Christian teachings, films, and stories about Jesus Christ. Tobias has stated that during his adolescence he “Unquestionably threw his hands into the palms of Satan”, his experiences with both a strict stepmother and strict religious teacher led him to feel alienated and deciding to embrace Satanism, as a rebellious response to what he perceived as oppressive ideologies of certain Christians, however, Forge does not identify as atheist or anti-religious. His brother Sebastian had a large influence on him and introduced young Tobias to film and music such as Siouxsie and the Banshees, Kim Wilde, Rainbow, Kiss, Möntly Crüe, etc. But tragically, on the 12th of March 2010 Sebastian passed away from heart disease, the same day that Ghost released their first demo songs for the album “Opus Eponymous” online.
Tobias is a musician, songwriter, frontman, and the sole continuous member of the masked rock band Ghost, providing lead vocals under chronological personas referred to as “Papa Emeritus”. His significance in the “faceless” musician scene is rich as he theatrically blends anonymity, rock theater, genre blending, controversial topics, and creative control as an art into his projects.
But how long can a person perform under a mask, both figuratively and physically, before it’s forced to come down? During a 2015 show in Leeds, UK, Tobias felt engulfed in the Papa Emeritus III mask which led him to a severe panic attack that resulted in him developing a strong case of claustrophobia. To combat this, the mask, along with those which followed, were redesigned with Forge’s health at the forefront. A year later, Tobias was sued by former members of the band regarding unpaid royalties, The details of the lawsuit are not all laid out to the public, and most likely never will be, but the underlying problem was speculated to be miscommunication between Forge, the at the time management company, and the former bandmates themselves as they ended up not winning the case.
Ghost’s achievements as a band are humble but grand, as in 2016 the band won the Grammy for “Best Metal Performance” for the song “Cirice”, albums such as “Meliora”, “Prequelle”, and “Impera” have achieved number 1 spots in Sweden, Germany, Finland, and high ranking in the UK and US. As for the most recent album “Skelea”, Forge won the Swedish Music Publishers Association Award for “International Success Of The Year”, he was also named the “Metal Artist of the Decade” by Loudwire, as well as being awarded “The Visionary Artist Award” in the Rock Sound Award among other marvelous achievements.
Tobias Forge, as of February 23rd of 2026, has officially entered a hiatus to spend time with family, get some creative spark, and rest after over a decade of hard work. Fans are slightly distraught as the hiatus does not have a set time frame, but other fans say that even if the future may seem like a foreign land Tobias will plan accordingly, even if he is scared of eternity too.
Емилиана Попова
More than music: The message of Serj Tankian 24
What happens when music becomes louder than politics and lyrics carry more truth than speeches? The answer can be found in the art and activism of Serj Tankian.
Serj Tankian, born August 21st 1967 in Beirut, Lebanon, is an American musician, with an American heritage. He’s best known as the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band “System of a Down”, formed in 1994. The singer has released five albums alongside collaborating with other musicians in addition to owning and founding the record label “Sergical Strike Records”.
Amid the Lebanese Civil War at the age of 7, he moved to the U.S., settling into L.A. with his family. In his youth, Sery attended the bilingual Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School, which was also attended by two of his future bandmates. Tankian was accepted into California State University, subsequently, graduating with a degree in marketing in 1989. During his college years, he began participating in political activism, attempting to draw attention to the recognition of the Armenian genocide.
Due to the fact that his grandparents were survivors of said genocide, in 2002, Serj Tankian co-founded the non- profit alongside guitarist “Axis of Justice”, alongside guitarist and fellow activist Tom Morello of Audioslave. Tankian used his music to raise awareness, in a very straight-forward way, writing lyrics such as: “Why don’t presidents fight the war?”,” Why do they always send the poor?”, “Revolution, the only solution”, and “The plan was mastered and called genocide”.
In 2011, Serj was awarded the Armenian genocide and advancement of music. He’s regarded as one of the best vocalists in heavy metal, due to his unusual delivery and his wide vocal range being 4.2 octaves. In 2006, he was ranked No 26 on the Kit Parader list of “Top 100 Heavy Metal Vocalists”.
Currently, he still lives in L.A. with his wife Angela Madatyan and his son. His story shows his persistence in his morals and how despite his not so happy early-life, he still managed to push through and build a career from it.
