I twitch, unable to be still in her presence. I want to touch her, she is so different, so surreal…I wonder if this is all but a dream. She profile turns, now her eyes grasp my once more – her gaze wraps around me, squeezing the air from my lungs, the life from my heart – I am not dreaming. Though, breifly, I wish that I were. My hand wraps around the key once more. I am holding the future, I know this now. I can let her be free, and start something blasphemous and absurd…and yet, perhaps, built out of selfless intent and morals that are right… Or, I can stay, sit unblinkingly, for to defy would go against my employer, my upbringing…It would defy the world as I know it.

Either way I loose.

Yes, still, I am powered but such selfish thoughts, still I care only for myself. To watch her, watch her spirits fade and die – they always do – will put me through pain, but to free her, the cost would be my own life, for she would not take me with her. I have no shield to protect me from death, for either way I will die. Only, one side leads my inside, my spirit to grow weak, and the other my mortal being…

It is a fork in the road… And I must decide, not for me, but for the wellbeing of the rich, or the uprising of the poor.

For the one who feeds me…or her.

I am not supposed to be so weak.

But, if I were a wall…I would be crumbling…

It is not fair, that it is me who will suffer, but it is not fair that she has been caged, it is not fair that they are all dying while the king fills himself with pleasures.

I grab the key, firmly now, with a confidence that I can only fake.

Like a sword, I draw it, though this key pocesses much more power than any blade.

And slowly I turn in, and watch the hope open up in her eyes.

I open the gate…

She touches me for a moment, her smile sending a vibration down my spine, shocking my very being, putting me at an unnatural ease…

And I let her go free, I let her fly.

The key falls, silently, to the ground, my hand clutches the nothing that is my heart. Her smile still pulses through my veins…

Perhaps I will die in peace.