(Narration) There was this boy who loved telling stories, born with a peculiar scar on the tip of his eyebrow. Every day and every night, he spent them all reading and studying books. And each day, he had more stories to tell, and a few kids would gather near him during free time. From the happiest ending for a love story, to the most adventurous epic of a hero slaying a dragon, there are millions of different stories to be told. The boy knew and loved them all. However, the boy also had a story he wasn’t willing to tell, a story buried deep within him for centuries to hold. Meaning no disrespect, the boy wasn’t particularly fond of a book, a book that would haunt him for the times that would come. The book speaks of a man who was able to walk on water and cure all sickness. The boy wasn’t fond of it, not because he didn’t like the fascinating story. 

 

Ever since he was young, the boy knew what he wanted to do, to share the joy and pass down his knowledge through stories, and his parents supported it all. Life in the wilderness wasn’t all too great, but it made the boy stronger and wiser. Around 3-4 times a day, the boy was told to play hide and seek with his parents, he didn’t understand why. The boy was a great hider, avoiding all of his parent’s attempts of capture, he was stealthy and strategic. He had once wondered why this game of hide and seek only ends when these groups of men disappear into the fog of the forest. His tiny mind held many questions, but he didn’t dare to ask any of it, he knew what would come. 

 

There was this lake in the far north that lived a great serpent, a double headed one at that. The serpent whose body had carved a flowing creek simply by waking up from the lake that streams down a river. The boy was told a million times not to approach this serpent, as though it was even real. He thought to himself, this was just another one of those stories my parents like to tell. He was wrong, it wasn’t as simple as a tale, and there wasn’t any serpent that lied there, it was something far worse. 

 

The boy’s love for reading is a distraction from the truth, the truth that would be his adversary for years to come. His favourite genre of stories are the comic books the school has, seeing his favourite superheroes made him more confident in himself. He didn’t necessarily have any friends in that school, they all believed he was infected by the white man’s language, but he didn’t care. He was more aware, unlike the others, of the cautionaries given by his parents. The boy knew the reason why the kids went into hiding, and he wanted to seek them, but he knew he shouldn’t, not when the nuns were around. The nuns were strict, they didn’t care what the kids were doing, but they did not allow the use of any other language than English. The boy was confused, but he didn’t mind either, he was proficient at English anyway. Every night the boy had to be careful, he didn’t want to get caught reading during lights out, he knew the consequences, and he took the risks. 

 

It wasn’t long until he celebrated his 10th birthday, it granted him more access to more stories that were sealed away from the other children. It meant the boy could get away from the 100th copy he despised, he hated that book. Though it has many tales and lessons, he tried to refute them all. The boy read more fascinating books, it made him a better writer and a speaker, and the nuns were astonished, they realized what the boy was capable of.

Father Pelletier, the principal of the school, had taken a liking to the capabilities of the boy. He had once hoped to nurture sprouts who were as talented as the boy. The boy knew Father Pelletier, but he didn’t like the special attention he’s been getting, it gave him less time to read. However, he did earn special access to the books from outside of the school on the weekends, he was ecstatic. 

 

The boy had been taken from his family one day, he wasn’t a bad hider, but the men who found him had a few hounds, they were great seekers. The men knew the family was hiding something, the tiny clothes made for the boy were a dead giveaway. The boy’s parents were terrified, but they couldn’t resist, the men had these long tubes that fired out pellets. The boy had been hiding in a ditch not too far from his home when the men found him. His parents weeped as they watched their son as he was loaded onto a car and sent away.

At the school, he was named Arthur, he had never had a name before, but he disliked it. They chopped his hair off, it was longer than a snake. They sent him to the showers, trying to wash all the dirt off of him, nothing changed, it wasn’t dirt. They punished him every time he tried to speak his native tongue, they said it was forbidden.

The boy turned 12, he had grown, smarter and more sophisticated. The boy had been sent to the basement multiple times, behind woven bars, waiting patiently for hours on end. The concept of a higher being was familiar, but he questioned why this higher being would allow such cruelty. He had a million questions for the being, but none were answered, only false promises.

The boy has had enough, every time he tried to speak out against the abuse inflicted on him and the other children, he was locked away once again. He wanted to escape, to leave this prison behind once and for all. He knew the nuns patrolled the halls at night, so he had to keep quiet, quiet enough to hear the soft gusts of wind blow through the hallways. Once he couldn’t hear the nun’s footsteps anymore, he slowly crept through the hallway. 

 

As the boy turned the corner, he overheard a group of nuns chatting, overheard their plans. He knew he shouldn’t hover over them for too long, it’d be detrimental. He was curious, curious to know what they wanted to do, curious to know what they were thinking. Curiosity has its downsides of course, one being the nun who was patrolling was just about to turn the corner, the boy panicked. He immediately took cover behind a pile of boxes that sat next to him, he wasn’t the most invisible. The nun stared at the boxes for a second, before making her way to the other nuns to join in on the conversation. His heart pounded, every second he took to hide, the more likely he would be discovered. So he shoved his interest down his throat, and kept moving.

 

The boy had navigated to the backdoor by now, being stuck in there for 5 years had its advantages, he was able to map out the area. When his foot had touched the smooth damp grass, he ran, ran faster than he ever could. There wasn’t a pursuit, it was just a quiet night’s sky with sounds of rustling leaves. He didn’t know where to go, he didn’t have a place to go.

The boy had thought of something, something from a tale his parents told. The lake where the enormous creature lay, the bed of the serpent. He didn’t know if the story was true, he didn’t care if it was true, he had no other place for refuge in mind. The boy walked, for hours on end at a time, he knew he was tired, and his body was giving up. He knew he couldn’t rest, for if he did take a moment to relax, the nuns may find him, or even the hound.

There really wasn’t much on the boy’s mind when he was walking up the river stretching along the mountain’s edge, he just had to keep going. He once wondered if wild berries were edible, he hesitated to test it, but he had no other option, he needed this energy. The boy was near the top, where a supposed lake lay, a place where he could feel secure for once. He never really understood the adult’s concerns for the lake, the serpent’s neck hasn’t even revealed itself.

Through the slowly decreasing temperature and against all odds, the boy miraculously made it up the mountain. There, he saw this crystal blue lake, one that would shine so bright in reflection of the moonlight. He was in awe, why would his parents keep it away from him, why would he be denied entry by the most trusted people of his life? There were no serpents, no entities, nor were there any nuns or priests, it was peaceful. So peaceful that he could lay down on the grass and rest for once.

It wasn’t long until he felt adventurous, almost like there’s something compelling him to explore the tightly packed forest. The forest was emanating with an unexplainable omen that frightened the boy, but he shook off the feeling and stepped into the woods.

 

He was no stranger to a dense forest, afterall, he had grown up all around trees. He wasn’t the biggest fan for survival in the wilderness, but he had honed his skills for it so well when he was young, when he was with his parents. Every night he’d wonder where his parents had gone, what they would have done without him. It's been plenty of years since he was sent to the residential school, he wondered if they still remembered him, or had they simply moved on.

 

The boy could hear the rustling leaves and the cicadas’ buzz, it wasn’t all too special to him. He ventured deeper and deeper into the forest, he didn’t really know what to expect. The boy would soon come across a red tape tied to a tree, a red tape he hadn’t seen in use, but he was sure the school had them. If the school knew of this location, why wouldn’t they have any sort of security guarding this place in case of an escape? 

 

Just then, the boy noticed a pile of dirt that was oddly shaped like a capsule, a capsule that seemed like it could hold a human. He hesitated before he began digging, digging and clawing at the dirt like a dog. The dirt was soft, it was almost like hundreds of cotton stacked upon each other. Digging until he hit a hard, rock-like shell. He didn’t know if it was a shell, so he tried to unveil more of the item. It was just midnight when the moonlight shines a luminous ray over the dirt he had dug up, one that was bright enough to reveal the small skeletal frame of a ribcage and an arm.

The boy jolted, frightened by the scenery, it was very odd they had this random grave in the middle of nowhere. It wasn’t random, it was a very uniformed set of graves in the woods, some so visible the boy immediately took notice, some not so visible buried deep underground. He knew what it meant to be here, he knew who these remains belonged to, he knew he needed to leave. His parents' warnings were right, he should’ve never trifled with the warning, he should’ve never have been here. He started to flee, unsure of which direction he was going, but it didn’t matter. He was sure sooner or later one of the nuns from the residential school would find him, bringing along another boy who had passed. 

 

The boy hated the bible, it wasn’t because he felt that God wasn’t real, he didn’t care whether he was or not. He denied all that the bible said, the book that caused him to be sent to a school that would attempt to strip the boy of his culture. The book that caused him to uncover thousands of graves hidden within a forest. The book that had almost sealed the fate of the boy like all others.

 

By this point of the story, the man’s son had fallen asleep listening to his story. He had lowered his son’s head onto the pillow and covered him with a thick blanket, keeping him warm at night. The man walked out of the room itching the scar on his eyebrows, sighing as he closed the blank storybook he had read to his son. It wasn’t just another story.