Jessica Cambrook, 15 Jul '12

For most people, the end of the world began with pandas. Yes, those chubby, furry, harmless herbivores got most of the blame from the public when society collapsed. However in my own humble opinion, it would be more sensible to blame, perhaps, the government, envelopes, Geraldine Tucker, Christmas, society’s love of money, or Nina Chalk.

For Nina Chalk, it had all started while she was a student at York College. From being a young girl she had always loved all kinds of animals. Her family’s pet cat had stubbornly taken permanent residence in her bedroom over all four of her siblings’ larger rooms when she was eight, and in return Nina had kept Chuckles safe from the brunt of her sister Geraldine's uncontrollable anger problem.

In college she had excelled in Science and Maths, due to an exceptional teacher, Ms (not Miss or Mrs, MS) Busby that had allowed Nina to spend her friendless after-school hours studying Science beyond what she had to in order to pass her exams. Ms Busby had spent many years volunteering in China, caring for orphaned baby girls. After a while she had moved to the Sichuan Province and fell in love with the pandas, who were gradually becoming extinct. The main concern for Ms Busby was that in China the pandas either wouldn’t or couldn’t breed and the humans weren’t allowed to. She often showed Nina photographs of the wildlife and home videos after they had discovered their mutual love of animals. After Nina had passed her exams with flying colours but without a friend to celebrate with, they realised their mutual distaste with the male species.

Nina had come to idolise Ms Busby, and made a vow to herself to try and do what she could to help with the problems she’d found in China. Starting with the pandas.

Although several universities with better reputations had battled and bargained for Nina’s presence in their schools, she had inexplicably chosen Sunderland University. Sunderland was an averagely ordinary city in the North East of England with not much going for it apart from about two hundred McDonalds and more discarded needles decorating the streets than an addict could ever dream of using. No one could explain why Cambridge had been less appealing for her but it would set Nina Chalk on a path towards riches and world destruction from which there was no turning back.