Darkness extends its reach and presses against my sides; behind me are the torches whose flames lick the sky. I’m a monster, you see—at least, that’s what people tell me. The rubber soles of my sneakers slap the ground in an offbeat rhythm as I run from a crowd of townsfolk. Their chants ring out like bells in the night. Curses upon my name fall loudest from the lips of friends and neighbors.
My lungs burn from overexertion. My heart burns from the betrayal. But I cannot think of those things now. I must only run while I still can.
Is there a tomorrow for me? That is something I cannot answer. But one thing is for sure—my life will never be the same as it was. I will either flee town and live in exile, or I will be captured before I can ever know freedom.
Perhaps I only have myself to blame for my current malady. All of my life, I have been warned about the dangers of using magic. My teachers taught me that spells and curses were crimes against the very soul of humanity, and my parents forbade me from laying a mere finger upon the leather cover of a spell book. For many years, I believed these lies, for there was no reason why I should have refuted them. As far as I was concerned, adults were always right and magic was always wrong.
Then, I realized something horrifying—I had a natural talent for the magical arts.
I will admit, I felt these mysterious abilities manifesting for a long time, but I only began to recognize them when I became a teenager. At first, I wanted nothing more than to get rid of my strange powers. However, I couldn’t find a way to suppress them without feeling like I was suffocating my spirit. The only way I could thrive was by allowing myself to explore what I was capable of. I eventually discovered a spell book buried deep in the forest, and, for the first time, opened myself up to the beauty in magic.
For months, I stole away to the forest at night to practice my magic. The trees became my audience as I summoned objects from thin air and transformed stones into jewels. The fact that I could perform these impossible feats exhilarated me, and I could not stop myself from falling in love with the craft. I began to wonder how others could hate such a joyous and mystifying art. As much as I wished to share my abilities, I knew that doing so would cost me everything.
One evening, while I was in the forest, a boy I had known since childhood caught me reading aloud an incantation from my spell book. The boy, pointing a trembling finger at me, shouted, “Monster!”
I slammed my book closed at once. “Please, Justin,” I said, “just go all the way back home and don’t tell anyone that you saw me here.”
“You can’t tell me what to do. You’re an evil, good-for-nothing monster!” The final word reverberated across the silent landscape like the chime of a clock tower at midnight.
“Please, you have to listen—”
Whether or not I could have gotten through to him remains a mystery, for at that moment, a group of Justin’s friends emerged from the shadows and began to run after me. I darted through the trees as fast as I could, nearly tripping over the twigs and bushes strewn across the ground. The boys behind me whooped and cheered at such a volume that, upon exiting the forest, it seemed that the entire town had awoken from its slumber. Everyone was now leaving their houses to chase me through the streets.
Although I cannot change the past, I know now what to do in order to change my future. I will not fear who I am any longer. My desire to live is what keeps me from collapsing at this moment. The border of town is only a few hundred feet away, and every second that I fight to stay alive is another second I grow closer to liberation. The people behind me spit words of ugliness, but their voices have faded into silence in my mind. They do not determine my destiny—I do.
With a roaring heart and a triumphant gasp, I set both feet outside of town for the first time and embrace freedom.
