The room was oppressively warm, so Tamsin Hart shuffled over to the window. The heat had finally begun to slacken, and a faint breeze seemed to be flirting with the curtains.
It must be me who feels the stuffiness, she muttered to herself.
A tight knot in her throat made each breath sound like a reluctant sigh. She recognised the feeling all too well it wasnt new. The blend of weariness, emptiness and a downright lack of concern had long stopped being frightening. Her legs gave way, her mind dimmed as if someone were flicking a single switch in a darkened flat.
She flopped onto the bed and, almost instantly, drifted into sleep.
At first the dream was a jumbled mess: disembodied voices, footsteps echoing up someones stairs, a lanterns glow cutting through fog. Then everything cleared. She became a bird, her wings enormous, white, sleek and as crisp as a fresh breath after a long silence. She rose above a city that glittered below, trembling with countless lights like a scatter of tiny worlds.
The city was unfamiliar, yet somehow felt like an old friend. Towering shadows of buildings stretched upward, as if trying to snag the stars. Between them were bridges, street canyons, and the very scent of freedom something you cant explain, only feel. It was easy there. Suddenly she remembered what she could be: not exhausted, not craving anyones nod, not cramped inside simply alive.
Free.
She swooped over the city, dived between rooftops, brushed the cool air with her feathers, and it seemed that this would last forever. Then an invisible tug pulled her down, like a stray memory.
I need to lie down, she heard her own voice echo from somewhere distant.
The world quivered. Light splintered.
She began to fallsoft as a featherback into that very stuffy room where it all began.
She snapped open her eyes as if someone had called her name. The room greeted her with the same stale air, only now it felt a touch colder. Something inside her hadnt quite returned; a fragment lingered in the city of lights and winged shadows.
She pushed herself up and perched on the edge of the bed. The silence was almost tangible, like a record stuck on one note. The world around looked familiar yet foreign, as if the walls had shifted while she slept.
She ran a hand over her chestwhere in the dream her wings had thumped. Her fingers met only the soft cotton of her Tshirt.
Strange I almost flew, she thought. But the dreams memory was already melting, like wet snow on a palm. All that remained was the sensation of a faint, everpresent draft inside her, barely noticeable but undeniably real.
Then she realised the dream wasnt about the flight.
It wasnt about the nameless city.
It was about her being tired of living on earth where every step feels like a debt.
It was about needing a different sky.
It was about the wings being not a fancy, but a memoryancient, nearly forgotten.
She held her breath, not to scare that feeling away, and whispered into the darkness:
If I ever decide Ill go back. Ill really take off.
In the same heartbeat a quiet voice answered from within:
Youve already started.
She lingered by the window for ages, long enough for the night to surrender its hold. Shadows thinned, the sky lightened, and it seemed the world took a deep breath before diving back into its usual hustle.
But something inside her had shifted. Subtly, silently, irreversibly.
She stared at the horizon, where a thin ribbon of light split the world into before and after. In that instant she realized she was no longer afraidof her frailties, of her void, of the indifferent fatigue that used to wash over her like a tide.
She understood: those wings werent born of a dream.
They were born of her.
She slowly closed her eyes, laid her palm over her heart, and felt a faint thump as if confirming her thought. Not loudly, not pompouslyjust confidently.
She whispered:
Enough living for other peoples expectations. Enough tolerating. Enough waiting for someone else to give me permission to be me.
At that moment something unfolded inside her. Not wingssomething deeper. As if her soul, long crouched in the dark, finally rose to its full height.
She opened her eyes to a sky already brushed pale pink, the first morning light laying gently on her face.
She stepped back from the window and felt the floor beneath her tremble. Or perhaps the world itself shivered? It didnt matter. The point was she was no longer falling.
She inhaled a deep, genuinely free breaththe first in months.
And she said aloud, clear and calm, as if taking an oath:
I will rise. On my own. To the heights that haunt my dreams.
No stuffy room would ever again be her cage.
She turned, and her step was lightalmost airy. Not because she was in a hurry, but because a person who has finally found her wings never goes back to being the same.
