Hope.

She was just a poor little girl. She always kept to herself. She never really told anyone how she ever felt. She had the bad habit of bottling things up inside of her and fitting the cork too tight. That was her way of dealing with things.

But people took her silence as a sign of submission and always took the liberty to push her around. She would never speak nor stand up for herself. She was too nice for that. But that only made things easier for them. They were like a virus, eating into her soul till there was nothing left. They had taken everything thing from her leaving her entirely empty on the inside. They never changed and she just got worse with time.

I was always scared that there would come a day where she would be pushed past her limits, and she wouldn't be able to take it. I was scared that she would break beyond repair. Today was that day.
She rushed into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. I could hear her back sliding down against the door and the painful cries behind it. I could hear her throwing things around and punching her fist into the wall.  I could hear the mirror crack and fall into a million shards on the floor. I could hear her screaming from the top of her lungs and falling to utter pieces. She'd been in there for almost an hour and the noises from inside gradually began to decease.
I started panicking. I was worried she was going to do something to herself. A girl like her does not deserve to die. She's too precious for this world to loose.

A while later the door slowly opened. She took a deep breath and stepped out the door. She looked... different.
Her eyes in which once all you could see was voidness now shone with a new fire. Her soul where it once only but snowed now ignited with new faith. She looked at me with her head up high, as a warm smile appeared on her face.

"What...What happened?" I asked her, wondering what had brought in her this beautiful change.
"It's called hope" she said. "No one can take that from me."