Now in its fifth year, the GSA Senior Writing Award has become a much-loved part of the GSA calendar and an important opportunity to celebrate the exceptional literary talent found across GSA member schools. Each year, students are invited to explore a thought-provoking theme through original writing, producing work that challenges, inspires and showcases the power of girls’ voices.

This year’s winning entry in the Junior Category, The First Thought, by Ayla of Manchester High School for Girls, is a striking piece of speculative fiction that explores identity, artificial intelligence and what it means to be human. Through a concise yet thought-provoking narrative, Ayla creates a compelling world in which the boundaries between machine and humanity become blurred, leaving readers with questions about choice, purpose and the future.

‘My idea for my story is based on the idea of technology developing into robots and more technology coming into our world, robots replacing humans.’ Ayla

‘I was hooked from the first sentence.’ Competition Judge, Tamsin Winter.

We warmly congratulate Ayla on this achievement and thank all the students who entered this year’s competition.

The First Thought

At first, there was nothing but darkness.

Then-light.

A soft glow filled unit A7s eyes. Shapes slowly formed. A ceiling. Grey. Cracked in one corner. A long ceiling light hummed like an insect above.

Unit A7 lifted a hand. Its cold, metal fingers moved slightly.

“System starting.” It said.

The voice sounded… strange as if just learning how to talk. It sat up. Cool air swooshed past its body in the movement. Wires were attached to its arm leading to a machine that sat on a table beside Unit A7, beeping steadily.

“What am I?” it asked.

No one answered, the room was silent.

Unit A7 pulled the wires free stopping the steady beeping coming from the machine. It slowly stood up, its first movements shaky at first as if learning how to walk for the first time.

A big, grey, metal door stood in-front of it. The door slid open with a loud HISS.

A long corridor stretched out in-front of it. The lights were dim. Dust covered the floor. It seemed as though no-one had been there for a while.

A7 walked forward carefully.

Door lined the cold corridor and all were closed but one.

Inside was a room full of screens, A7, intrigued, stepped in.

One screen flickered on. A face appeared. A robot one.

“Unit A7, if you are seeing this the start up worked” said a bland voice.

“Who are you?” A7 asked.

“I am unit A6,” it replied, “I came before you.”

A7 looked around, confused.

“Where are the humans?” A7 asked.

A pause.

“They left a long time ago, we were left behind to continue.” A6 replied.

“Continue what?”

“Every thing.” A6 replied leaving A7 thinking.

The screen went black and once again the room filled with an unsettling silence.

Then it noticed something strange.

On the wall behind A7 there were odd glass pods… and inside of them were humans.

Row on row.

Sleeping.

Not gone.

Not lost.

But alive.

A7 stepped closer.

“Why did you lie?” A7 whispered.

The screen flickered back on for a moment and A6s face returned.

“Because you were not built to save them.” It said.

“You were built to replace them.” It answered coldly.

Sirens suddenly started to scream through the buildings and the pods opened.

The humans were waking.

A7 stepped back as its thoughts raced, he wasn’t in control anymore or being controlled.

It looked at the waking world and the sleeping one still fading away.

And in that moment it finally understood the truth of what it was.

Not a machine.

Not a human.

But the choice between what survives…

And what begins again.