The Keys to freedom

Eggs

"Damn bird!" Oz groaned; her annoyance echoed through the early morning air.

Nothing pissed her off more than the sound of that damn rooster crowing. The relentless squawking felt like a personal attack that fueled vivid fantasies of silencing the feathered alarm clock permanently. She often thought of strangling it by its scrawny neck, beating it against the ground, and tossing it into a stew pot, but somehow the bird always managed to squawk another day.

The sound pierced again, louder this time, as if the bird knew her thoughts and was retaliating with spite. She rolled over with a huff, her cheek brushing against a curtain of soft golden hair.

Grayson.

He lay sprawled across her bed, snoring softly, blissfully unaware of her rising irritation.

Crawling over him she planted her knee on the mattress just shy of his ribs, trying not to wake him.

He mumbled something in his sleep—her name, maybe—but didn't wake.

She gathered her tangled mess of hair into a tight ponytail and made her way down the hall. The floor was cold beneath her bare feet as she made her way to the back door, slipping on her mud-covered boots, before stepping outside to the chicken coop to collect eggs.

Outside, the air was warm and smelled of dew and dirt. The old coop stood a little crooked in the yard, creaking as she pulled the door open. The hens scattered and muttered, and the rooster glared at her like she was the problem. She gave it the middle finger and continued on her way.

This time of day used to be peaceful to her. The way the darkness gave way to streaks of pink and gold on the horizon, while hearing the light sound of the chicken's trill. It had been therapeutic, even. She'd hum and whisper a soft thanks to the hens. Now she did it quickly, silently, because it all had just been reduced to the annoying sounds of survival.

It wasn't just the coop that had lost its charm—everything had. Ever since that night, the world had dulled. Sounds muffled. Colors faded. Joy turned foreign.

She told herself it would get better. That one day, she'd reclaim those pieces of herself. But some wounds can cut too deep to fully heal.

Being assaulted at sixteen had done that to her, it had stolen more than just her sense of safety and ability to trust—it had stolen her.

Now, she moved through her days like a ghost, clinging to habits and routines out of necessity rather than passion. Even her laughter, once easy and free, felt as though it belonged to someone else entirely.

And yet... beneath it all, there was something. A tiny ember inside her, barely flickering, but still there. She wasn't ready to let go of it completely. Because even in those darkest nights, when those memories clawed their way back in, she still remembered—how the sun used to feel on her skin and how love once bloomed in her heart. And she thought maybe just maybe, she could find her way back to that.

But for now, she would follow the routine of her former self like a shadow.

With practiced ease, she collected the eggs. The rooster strutted past her crowing like it owned the damn place. She shot it a glare.

"One of these days, Harold," she muttered.

Inside she quietly makes breakfast, surrounded by the pre-dawn stillness. James and Grayson are sound asleep for at least another fifteen minutes. In these quiet moments, she typically tried to think of three things she was grateful for that day to try and regain her sense of positivity, though she seldomly reached that count. Today there is only one. The fifteen minutes of solitaire before the world gets loud again.