Once, there was a boy. He lived in a village which was capable of producing miracles. There came a prophecy saying after he was born, he would accomplish great things. Without hesitation, his parents and the whole village had high hopes for him. Sadly, with the hopes came unbearable burden.

Everyday, he would attend school like everyone would, though most of his schoolmates respect him a lot, though not with respect which was born out of admiration, but respect which was born from fear. Everyone would look at him with undeniably fake smiles. Seeing through the facade for the first time made him question himself whether he was really a figure worthy of respect, since fear was what is hidden in the deepest, darkest pit of their eyes. By the age of 6, no one dared to stick with him, let alone sit with him during class. He became the loneliest boy to be found in the village.

Although his parents cared nearly every single of his needs, still he saw them not fit to be called “parents”. They looked at him with hopeful eyes, yet there was a meaning behind that face saying,”we expect great things from you, maggot”. It seemed like his parents thought highly of him, instead of a son, they took him for a so-called “hero”. And so, by the age of 10, he isolated himself completely from others.

Yet one day, while he was exploring the woods behind his house, alone, he found a book. A leather-bound book with strange words carved into it. It stank of mushrooms, yet he still brought it home with him. When his father saw him with such a book, he immediately yelled at him for bringing the unpleasantly smelled book into their home. His mother, too, responded with a scream, and as if that wasn’t enough, threw the book out into the dump pile. He was slapped several times as punishment. Although he felt shameful and somewhat disappointed in himself, he still snuck out from his room and retrieved it, recovering it from the dump pile while hiding its smell from his parents using some sweet smelling herbs.

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While holding the book, he felt somewhat secure and peaceful. With the depths of his mind overflowing with curiosity, he opened and started reading it. At first, it didn’t make any sense, but as he stared at the opened pages of the book, he felt like he could understand the language used in it. And so, he stared at each page of the book at least 5 minutes for the entire night while his parents were sleeping.

At the last page was a writing, stated in a language foreign of his village, it wrote,”Tracto cum diligentia”, though he soon forgot the warning as he indulged himself with the knowledge in the book.

For the first few months after reading the book, there were reports about residents going mad and outing out their own eyeballs. After several more weeks, crazies were found committing suicide. As the village chief goes around seeking the source of such madness, he got infected with the madness without anyone knowing, even he himself did not know.

Houses were burned as the crazy old chief went around ordering guards to burn them and massacre all the inhabitants of the town in the name of purifying the town. Although the guards did their best to rationalize with the chief, he went fully mad and killed all of them after they set the fire to the entire village.

In the end, only charred remains were found lying around as the boy came back from his trip to the mountains for strength and independence training. Laughing all the while, he walked back into his charred house to find his parents lying there, chains rooting them in place as the fire burned and the smoke choked them. He found it oddly satisfying when he sat down and started reading the book he very well hid in the floorboards. The book was undamaged, much to his expectations.

And so, he continued living there, with his book in hand, and had a happily ever after life.