Caged Bird

• Alyssa Vagias, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2021

Brea took a deep breath and clung on tight to her sword’s handle. Her grip was so tight that her knuckles went white, the skin looking ready to split. The intricate carvings on the handle left an imprint on her hand. The next step that she would take would be the step between her past and her future. She took that, and one more. She held her sword above her head and swung it wildly. There was no one in sight now but she was well aware of the invisible eyes and what dangers lurked in the shadows. Brea clenched her fists, gritted her teeth and sucked in a lungful of air, letting it out slowly. Wind blew her hair back, but some strands still stuck to her face with sweat and tears.
Brea’s whole life, thirteen years, she had been confined to the mansion in a small room with barred windows. A cage. She didn’t know why she was imprisoned but she thought that it might have something to do with her eyes. Eyes every colour and yet no colour. A colour that shifted with the light. This was her home and yet she was treated like a prisoner. Ever since she was five, she had been using her knife from dinner to try to cut through the bars, only to leave a scratch deeper and deeper each time. Brea did this until her maid came up to take her dinner back to the kitchen. She dreamt of a life outside of the mansion, even at a young age she knew that she just had to escape. It took eight years to cut through those bars. A maid had caught her sneaking out of her window, that was the maid who gave her a sword, the maid that let her go.
The sun started peeking over a nearby hill. A ribbon of orange and pink. It slipped into Brea’s eyes and she fluttered them open quickly. How could she have been so foolish to go to sleep when she had to keep moving? The guards would be after her soon.
How far must one run to escape their past?
Brea was amazed by how beautiful the world was, she was used to the dreary greys and dull browns of the mansion. The day passed, and at a steady pace Brea kept walking until sunset, when she had to stop and admire the endless sea of rich colours in the sky. A feeling came over her that she had never felt before. She didn’t know what it was. The feeling urged her to get up and run and dance across the field of soft grass. She knew what the feeling was now, for the first time in her life she was free. Previously she was a caged bird, now she had escaped, and was traveling wherever her wings would take her.