I hadn’t slept for long. My whole body felt heavy and horrid, yet from I knew from experiences from way too many nights to count I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep. Back then all I could do was cower beneath my duvet, hoping they wouldn’t notice I was awake and, at best, drag me into their rows.

Those endless sleepless nights had ended when I fled my parent’s house. Never again had I thought that I would suffer the same. Especially here in this new world. The stars were still watching me from above, and I tried to take comfort that maybe those stars were the same ones which Whirling Cloud had in her eyes. They were the same ones which watched down upon Silver Moon and I as we had that special moment of connection.

Thinking of those two special women made the heavy empty feeling inside that much heavier and emptier. Back then, I wanted someone to rescue me from my situation. Wanted a kind word, a smile, anything to allow me to escape. But I couldn’t bring myself to open myself up to others because for all I knew, behind those facades they showed to the world they were hiding their true self. Much like my parents and older sister showed their true selves when we were home alone.

I wasn’t sure of what hurt more: their fists and palms or their barbed words.

It had been years since I escaped from that prison, yet I still felt the long shadows of its bars pressing down upon me. Even here, even now, with my face, clothes, and body damp from the dew, which was settling in the pre-dawn chill in a world that I was sure no one on Earth knew about.

Yet as uncomfortable as my physical body was, the trail of trampled grass which led up and out of the hollow I had awoken in was far more uncomfortable. It was as weighty as the bars which had kept me trapped for just under half of my life on Earth. Those bars constrained me, even after my escape. Even after I became a faceless being in the crowd of a city, I felt them pressing down upon me. It wasn’t until after I had a whirlwind eight-month affair with a joyful and much older, grandmotherly looking, Greek woman, I moved on with some semblance with my life. She later became one of my best friends—even if sometimes the line between friend and lover became blurred—helped me find my flat, and my flatmate. The three most important things in the years before my life ended.

Even though it was cold laying here on the ground, I felt no desire to move, nor did I feel so cold. For the first time in, who knew how long, I thought about what that woman taught me, both in and out of the bedroom. I continued laying there, watching the sky lightening, the stars fading away as it did so. Her laugh was beautiful, and, it was that, what made me flirt with her that first time at the coffee shop. But her laugh, that which lit up my world, was as faint as the early morning breeze. I did my best to block out the sounds of animals either returning to their home or getting started early, trying to catch it once more so I could hold it close to my heart again. Instead, all I heard were the sounds of a few early rising birds calling out to welcome the dawn.

Tears blurred my vision and I let them continue to gather there, letting them mask the slowly brightening scene. The bush which lined the rim of the hollow and the sky brightened further. Then the tops of the long blades of grass which lined the rim lit up too. Yet though I could see it through my blurry vision, I didn’t want to.

I wanted to see tall buildings line streets which were never empty no matter the time or day. Buildings and streets which, despite supposed differences, all merged into one seemless mass along with the seemless mass of people, no matter their skin colour, nationality, or where in the world they were.

Then the few calls of birds rose into a magnificent chorus of birds, shattering my delusional dream of escaping back to Earth. A large flock darted and danced above the hollow, all chirping and tweeting merrily away as they did so.

No matter how much I longed to join with them and fly away to freedom, I wasn’t able to. My desire to look after the few people in this world who truly mattered to me anchored me. As I let myself be anchored, grounded, I realised that there were more than I expected. There was a crowd. It wasn’t just me and my Brother. No, I could see my Father’s anxious aged face. And my Mother’s regal brilliance. And even Exalted Pine with her eager and open expression as we talked not just about books, but other hobbies, and our life together. Then there was my extended family, including my Brother’s wife and his lover, whatever her official position was, and his child.

What scared me now, more than anything, was that they were living trapped behind bars they either couldn’t, or wouldn’t, see. Or if they saw them, they saw them as normal and natural. Something I had lived with until I overheard a chance comment by a teacher as they were passing by my hiding place within school. That comment fractured my illusions of my home life, dragged me into the despair of endless waking nights hiding beneath the duvets.

After the journey hunting my Father, and the talk we had last night, I had come to an understanding of just how powerful traits were. About how they impacted, not only superficial things but who you were deep inside.

And now, after learning about traits, I was seeing more about the dangers of the goddess, and her authoritarian control over society and this world. Orwell’s Big Brother was bad. But this was worse. She didn’t need to watch everyone, nor did she need an entire department to spin propaganda. She told people they had to devote themselves to her by spending most of their precious traits and precious free will upon what she deemed was important. Society and her. Everything else was deemed meaningless. Even their work was tackled on, just to help society be productive and survive.

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My Father had a hobby, it seemed, painting. But he had to discard that just because of his duty to society and her. Even the most famous Prime Minister our country had, Winston Churchill, enjoyed painting and was allowed to do it. The Queen, who had spent long acting as an inspirational figurehead, had her Corgi’s and her riding, and I was sure had many other ways to enjoy her free time.

My Father was trapped, living a lonely life on these grasslands, not being able to flee from the lands which would one day be part of Fastidious House, but not being able to come back to the House itself.

It wasn’t just for him. My Brother was trapped too, not that he would admit it. And so his family was too. Silver Moon died, because she had what was important to her had been snatched away.

There was nothing more that I would like than to go up against the goddess and do my level best to destroy her. Or at least reduce the power she held over others.

By now, the sun was shining weakly down upon me. Though it couldn’t warm me, it did dry the dew on the grass. My body was stiff and uncomfortable, but I didn’t want to move. More than once, either apart, or together with a small flock, birds flew over my head.

How I longed to live like them, not alone or together, but being not tied to what was beneath them. And when Death told me I was going to live a new life in a new world, having a big mission like this wasn’t what I had thought would be thrust upon me.

Death mentioned that he wanted me to have free will and freedoms here. But could I really enjoy my freedom if I knew there was an entire civilisation full of slaves that I had turned my back upon?

Even so, maybe saving the entire world was too much.

In First Aid we were always told to look after yourself first, because you didn’t want to increase the load of those who came after you. Always D first, check for Danger.

And if I went after society, I would put myself in great danger. Maybe even danger from the goddess. I wasn’t sure what security features my soul now had and if it would be possible to fight off whatever admin rights, the goddess might throw at it.

That was if I was to go it alone.

But I had others I cared about. I guess I could flee and join a tribe. But doing so would mean I would have to abandon another family. This time, I was possibly in a place where I could help my family. Did they not deserve security, safety, and sovereignty over their life? If I left them behind, maybe they could have the first two—if they weren’t punished for my actions. But they definitely wouldn’t ever receive the third.

If even fleeing and leaving them behind could lead them into danger, I was trapped. And in that case, the only way to escape the trap was to bring them with me into freedom. If only because it was they who would be impacted because the goddess wouldn’t be able to get me.

At the moment, the best I could see myself doing was to do my best to save just a few of them, to give them the freedom to make their own choices, and the protection to enjoy those freedoms. I wasn’t sure how I could do that, especially when I’d seen and felt how deeply traits impact a person.

Maybe it would be a good experiment to see how much freedom I could grant another person before their traits got in the way and they pushed themselves, or fled, away from me. Maybe my Brother would be a poor first trial. But he was closest to hand, and already partly free from the confines imposed upon him by society and the goddess. It was also likely he would be my best ally. As I thought that, I felt slightly hollow inside, like something was missing. Whirling Cloud mentioned she saw him as a shadow of mine. Did that mean he was truly my loyal ally, or was as something which held me back?

I didn’t know.

A desire to rush back to him filled me. But as soon as the desire came, it went. Instead, there was an emptiness there instead.

When I got back to my Brother and talked to him, I hoped I would discover that he would be my ally and not something holding me back. It was selfish of me, I know, because right now I needed to talk to him—to talk to someone, anyone, to unpack my thoughts. More than that, I really wanted to remain close to him, and for our family not to fracture and split apart. I was coming to love my family, even with its strange and weird ways of doing things—even if it was weird and strange to me and not to anyone else in this world.

With a refreshed and clear mind and heart, and my body lighter than it had been in longer than I could remember, I stood up.

The air was fresh, the sky a vivid blue, and the endless grass plains exist in their virgin purity.

I turned my back on the trail Father used to flee this hollow and boldly strode the first steps upon the path towards my new destiny.