The Shattered Cage
by Esther Elizabeth Racah
The shattered cage lay in a garden that had once been a place of splendour, where flowers of every hue danced in the breeze, and the air hummed with life. But suddenly, all that remained was a twisted parody of its former self. The once-vibrant blooms had withered into grotesque shapes, their petals blackened as though burned by an unseen flame. The stone paths that had once guided gently wanderers unexpectedly crumbled beneath the weight of time, leading nowhere but into the heart of decay.
She had wandered those paths for what felt like an eternity, seeking an escape that did not exist. Every turn, every desperate sprint toward freedom, had only brought her back to the centre—a withered rosebush that seemed to mock her with its brittle thorns. The sky above remained an endless gloomy grey, neither day nor night, offering no solace from her torment. Time had ceased to matter in that place. It was as though the world beyond the garden had forgotten her existence, and she, in turn, had forgotten what freedom felt like.
Her hands bore the marks of her attempts to tear through the overgrown vines that clung to the garden’s walls. They bled, but the pain was dull as if even her body had surrendered to the numbness that had overtaken her mind. She had screamed until her voice was a mute sigh, but no one had come to save her. The only response was the hollow echo of her own despair reverberating off the walls of her prison, the shattered cage.
She sank to her knees in the centre of the garden, the last of her strength fading. The air was infused with the scent of decay, suffocating her as she struggled to breathe. She began to struggle to exist. The once-clear waters of the garden’s fountain were now stagnant, reflecting nothing but the void in her heart. She reached out, her fingers brushing the brittle thorns of the rosebush, and in that moment, she realised the truth. There was no escape, no freedom waiting for her beyond the garden’s walls. She had become a part of it, a ghost bound to its decay and decline, forever trapped in the shattered cage of her own making.
