Walls

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Emily. When she was young, something very bad happened, and Emily was terribly hurt. So she decided to build a wall around herself in order to block out the people who might hurt her in the future. But the wall was not yet very high or strong so people still got in and again she was hurt.
So Emily built another wall outside the first, but this one was higher and thicker. But again, people kept climbing over and breaking through and she was hurt. So she kept building more walls, thicker and higher. There was a door in the wall but Emily learned very early to keep it locked. No one was allowed inside her walls and she stopped going out. Eventually the walls had gotten so high and thick that she had an impenetrable fortress. She was safe in her walls and no one could hurt her.
But one day, she started thinking about what was outside the walls. It had been so long since she had ventured out that she couldn't remember. She couldn't even remember why she had built the walls in the first place. She thought about leaving her fortress to see what lie beyond but she was so terrified. She had, after all, built the walls for a reason.
She thought about leaving for months until finally, she felt desperate to know what was beyond the walls. But it had been so long since she had opened the door that she couldn't remember where she had put the keys. Her fortress that she had built for safety had literally become a prison. She had trapped herself inside her own walls.
She tried desperately to break down the walls or to climb over but they were too thick and too high. It was impossible for her to get out without the key. She searched for weeks to no avail. One day though, after searching and searching, she realized something of incredible significance. The keys were in her pocket. They always had been. Throughout all of her searching and desperation, she had held the keys to her freedom.
But now that she had the keys, she didn't know what to do. She wanted so badly to leave her walls and be free but now that this was actually a possibility, she was completely overwhelmed by fear. Could she handle the outside world? How was she supposed to act? She didn't remember. What would other people think? What if she got hurt again? Was it really worth it to take that risk?
She had so many fears and doubts and all of them were valid. But she realized that she was truly desperate. She couldn't handle being a prisoner anymore. She had to be free. It was worth the risk. So she put the key in and opened the door. And then, for the first time in years, she stepped outside of her walls.