Barriers
British International School Shanghai Puxi, Kelly Kim, Fiction: Group 4
M
y eyes flickered open.
I was facing a pair of big, round eyes that were looking straight back into my eyes.
The eyes got wider, and the creature ran off as fast as its short legs could carry it. The
fine, silky strands at the back of the creature danced as the creature disappeared.
I closed my eyes. I rested my head on the hard piece of rock beside me.
Not too long afterwards, I was once again interrupted with 4 pairs of big eyes including those
of the creature that I saw before. The creature that came to me earlier happened to be the smallest
creature out of the four; the three bigger creatures looked at me in awe, eyes examining my body.
I yawned, tired.
That got the smaller creature to back off from the invisible barrier.
The invisible barrier was always there, and it was the reason I didn’t (or couldn’t) get out of
my little house. When I was younger, I bashed my head a few times into the invisible barrier, and
I now definitely know not to try. However, it wasn’t always invisible. At times I would bluntly
see a snake looking back at me. It had darkened mustard colored scales that looked dangerously
unhealthy; the scales showed apparent signs of sickness. But the utmost signs of sickness were
shown in the eyes, the soulless eyes that reflected an endless series of questions and resentment.
The eyes burned for an answer, a reason. Why? I don’t know. Whenever I hissed, it hissed back,
whenever I flinched, it flinched.
Never have I ever imagined that the creature was me.
The creatures which I forgot for a while started knocking on the invisible barrier with their
‘hands’, which snapped me out of my daydream. I hissed, annoyed. All I wanted was peace, and
that was something that I never could get enough of.
“I’m a little worried.” said Kai, looking at Tao the snake. He looked beside him to find Kris who
looked equally worried.
“I know. All he’s been doing is sleeping, lately,” commented Kris. He sighed as Tao made
himself comfortable on the rock.
“I think we should talk to the animal doctor,” concluded Kai. They walked off, leaving the
snake fast asleep behind the glass wall.
The only time that I experienced peace (from those creatures at least, as I could hear some
animals howling not so far away), was night time. At night, all the lights went out, and I would
stare in the dark, and wonder about myself. What am I? What do I look like? Do I belong here?
Why do I live here? I wondered if I looked like the creatures themselves. Then why couldn’t I
understand what they were saying? Why was I always behind the invisible barrier if I was exactly
the same as the creatures themselves?
Questions were always encircling my head, and that only set fire to my heart, I wanted to
know who I was, what I was, where I was meant to be. I instinctively knew that this place was not
my original home, nor was it meant to be my home.
* * *
