Freedom...

The brambles snared the disheveled gown, tearing it slowly to pieces. A princess, she once was; a loon she now is. Her hair once bright, glowing, is now in total disarray, tangled beyond repair. Her face, before compared to goddesses, now was devoid of any beauty, gaunt and pale as it was. Her jewel-encrusted slippers lay discarded on the banks of a murky swamp.

She was running towards the light at the end of the deep, dark forest, wishing... wanting freedom. Her mind closed to any other thought. She shook her head violently as she wished the troubles chasing through her mind away. No family nor friends around to help her, she looked dejected and lost as she made her way through the overgrown roots of the forest floor. She stumbles and falls many times and yet, in her desperation to achieve her goal, she carries on, bruised, cut, bloodied.

She reaches the forest border, finding it not to be an escape hatch to a beautiful and peaceful place. Rather, it seemed like the ground was suddenly cut from beneath her. A cliff it would seem to be. She grasped greedily at the roots she once thought were problematic. They were now her only lifeline to redemption. And yet, as she looked down, suspended many feet above jagged rocks and trees, she felt that there was a choice. A choice to make. And she made a decision.

She was free.