Slavery

• Elisabeth Nichols, Grade 8, Montrose Bay High School
• Short Story
• 2014

Excellence Award in the 'The Text Generation 2014' competition

A hot sensation is running through my legs and my body. I want to stop but I know I have to keep going. Burning. That’s what it is. Burning, like a furious flame that won’t extinguish. Can’t extinguish. It’s in my calf muscle and in my feet. The air that I’m breathing is the oxygen that fuels me. That wants me to keep going. That needs me to keep going.
While everything else around me is still, I am running. Chasing. Sprinting. I am being forced to do this. If I stop I’ll get hurt. If I don’t succeed to my master’s wishes, I’ll get hurt. Why me? That’s all I can ask myself. Why me? I wonder what people think of me. When they look at me, if they look at me. Do they see a girl running around or do they dig deeper?
The sun is glistening on the water creating a shimmering light. I see mountains in the distance, with a light layer of fog and cloud. It’s beautiful really. If only I could escape into that beautiful world. Not be restricted to my master or the chains around my legs. When they’re around my legs. It hurts. Constantly. No matter where I go, or what I do, it always, and will always hurt.
I need to stop. Now. I can’t breathe. I feel as though I may faint. I see my master watching. Waiting. He knows I’ll give in. He knows this hurts. I won’t give him that glory, that triumph. Never. I won’t stop. No matter how hard this is. No matter how much this hurts. I can’t and won’t. I will prove him wrong, if it is the last thing I ever do.
Slavery. It cannot be allowed. But it is. All I wanted was one chance. One.
It was a dare. We were poor. We are poor. Water. Food. That’s all we wanted. I was the chosen one. I could have lost everything, and I did. Freedom. Hope. I lost it all. Break into the castle and grab as much as I could carry. I got caught. The King. He turned me into a slave. Like he didn’t already have enough.
It led me to wonder. Who am I? How did I become the person I am today? Why did I become the person I am today? Why did I do it? Do I regret it? Should I regret it? Questions plague my mind day and night. Only I can answer them. But I don’t have the answers. Not yet anyway.
I wasn’t always like this. I was good. Once. I’m not that kind of person anymore. I need to make a change. To give all those like me a second chance. But I must remain true to the title that I have been given. The title I will most likely carry for the rest of my life. The only thing left to define me.
I am. And will always be. A slave.