Thank Snow. I like it when people keep their promise :)
Disclaimer: man, I didn’t know it could be that long. Hope you have enough patience for it. It could be an episodic story for a kid to look for every night :)
Disclaimer 2: this is something I made up during my recent depression time. Hope it isn’t too dark for you. Hey, it’s a bedtime story so it isn’t that dark right? At least something productive came out of my dark time :)
Once upon a time there was a very very dark and scary jungle. Few had tried to venture inside and those who did ended up badly hurt and scared. Several scary tales from the jungle were told, including a legend of a deadly large monster which could kill anyone in sight instantly. One day there was a brave girl who got curious by the jungle. Despite all warnings from people, she went inside the jungle. She was hurt by the thorns, got attacked by the beasts, lost her way countless time, but she moved on with a strange resilience.
Why was she so foolishly curious? What people didn’t know was that she could see a faith but beautiful light shining in the jungle. A light that only she could see. It was too beautiful for her to resist. Being a stubborn girl, she wanted to know where the source of the light was. People thought of her as being foolish and reckless and thought she was just trying to get some attention as every stupid young did, but she just didn’t care.
Eventually, she found the source of the beautiful light. It turned out the jungle wasn’t just filled with deadly plants and animals. Inside a mass of thorns, there a boy who kept his face hidden in a mask shaped of a wolf. He cuddled inside the thorns and never moved. The wolf mask was intimidaing, but his body was shining beautifully.
The girl called for him and tried to have a conversation, but he immediately backed off at her sight. He posed as a wolf and made wolf sound. The girl was startled at first, but she was not afraid. She was too allured by the light to back out. She reached out to him with her arms. She ignored his warning and the thorns, cutting herself badly in the process, and touched his hand when he was about to attack her.
Suddenly, as soon as the girl touched his hand, the boy stopped fighting. The thorns suddenly disappeared and his mask fell off, revealing a human face. It was the most angelic face the girl had ever seen. Though he tried hard, tears were streaming down his face. The girl gave him a big hug and he cried even more. They sat there embracing each other for hours. The girl fell the warmth and the pleasant aura from the boy and the boy held her much tighter than anyone had to her, as if he was holding on a lifesaver. They started to exchange a friendly conversation. It turned out that the boy was actually the legendary deadly monster people had been talking about. He told her how lonely and scared he was inside the jungle, how surprised he was to finally found someone who was not afraid of him. He continuously sobbed while talking. The girl comforted him and promised to get him out of the jungle once and for all. They set out to escape the jungle.
But something strange happened. The girl realized that the jungle suddenly became bigger and more dangerous. The jungle became darker, the road was harder to see, the beasts became stronger and more vicious. There were also obstacles and traps she didn’t see previously. No matter how hard she tried, she could no longer find the way out. Throughout the journey, the boy held tight on the girl’s arm like a scared kid holding onto its mother. The girl, though tired and frustrated at times, never let go of the boy. She knew everything scared him, and he was putting his life on her. That was the only thing that kept her from succumbing to the jungle’s dark power.
One day, the girl suddenly heard a voice pointing her to a certain direction. The warm voice promised that it would help them get out of the jungle. The boy was immediately skeptical of the voice, but the girl fully believed it. After a lot of persuasion, the boy agreed to go, only if she accompanied him throughout the way. They then arrived at a large gate. The gate looked nothing like the rest of the jungle and it immediately arosed the boy’s suspicion. The voice told the girl to stay outside and let the boy go inside the gate. The boy went into panic and begged the girl to turn back, as it was the first time they had to separate. The girl tried to calm him, saying that the voice had a reason for it and she would not go anywhere. After much comfort and persuasion, the boy nervously agreed and entered the gate.
Once inside, the boy saw where the voice came from. It was a blue raven with shining wings. It led the boy to a big door and told him to open it. “You have to open it yourself. You know what this door is and what I mean by that”, it said. The boy knew what the door was. He was horrified by the sight of it alone. He thought for a moment that the raven wanted harm on him by making him open the door. He promptly put out his wolf mask and attempted to put it on, but the raven violently hit his hand and he dropped the mask, shattering it to pieces. Without the mask, the boy was now in full panic. He cried out and cursed the raven. “What in the world are you? What do you want from me?”, he screamed. “What I am is not important,” the raven said dryly, “I need you to open that door for me, that’s all. You will know what I want from you once you open it”. The boy ran out to the gate, but it was now tightly locked. The boy was furious, but he knew he had no other choice, now that his girl was not around. He gathered all his courage and opened the door.
It was a pitch black room behind the door. There was something inside it that made the boy uncomfortable. The raven flew inside the room and told the boy to follow him. Inside the room, the boy started experiencing horrifying illusions. He saw some big bullies, some nasty kids calling him names and throwing things at him, some angry adults getting irritated at his sight… The illusions broke him and he fell on his knee sobbing. “Why are you making me do this?” He cried. “You know what is inside and you still want me to see it. You enjoy seeing me suffer that much?” “That’s the point of all of this,” the raven said. “I tell you what, boy, you know why there is a room in this place? It is because you deny all what you have just seen. This room is where you put all the regressed memories in one place, lock it up, and pretent nothing has ever existed. You thought by doing so you would be free, but as you can already see, it only ends up hurting you even more. This is why I told you to open the door, even though I know so well what is inside. You have to see it for what it is, to finally accept that it’s there.”
The raven pointed to an illusion. It was an image of a girl approaching the boy in a casual manner, then being put off by the boy. “Look at this,” the raven said. “And think for a while. What is the thing you always say to your little friend outside this room? That’s right, “I’m scared”. You are so wrapped up in your past hurt. You are so convinced that the world is a dangerous place that you put on your wolf mask and are always ready for a fight. Look at that girl. You remember her right? She went away not because she hated you, but because you drove her away in fear that she would harm you. You could have killed your new friend back when you two first met too. You are so selfish with trust that the only trust you ever give anyone is to your friend. That was why everything in this jungle scared you. You refused to believe I was trying to help you two. You refused to let go of your friend for just a second. And with that, you accidentally drive people away, people who could have been great friends and helped you get out of this jungle.”
The boy was silent for a long while. For the first time he was not miserable nor defensive. He let the words of the raven sink in his head. He felt a deep sense of guilt and regret. The raven was right, he could have done better. He could have been a better person than the legendary deadly monster. But before he could say anything, the raven spoke again: “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “what have I done with my life?” You think there is no way you can undo the past. It’s true, you can’t undo the past, but you can write a better future. This is why I’m here. I’m here to help you start over and write your future.”
The raven gave its wing to the boy and told him to touch it. The boy, for the first time not resisting anything, obeyed immediately. As soon as he touched the wing, a bright light embraced the two. Suddenly, the boy and the raven were sitting on the most beautiful garden the world had ever seen. It turned out that the jungle was the boy’s creation all along, and now it had been destroyed forever. The boy was filled with joy, the joy he had never experienced before. He could not find any word to express how grateful he was to the raven.
The boy’s friend appeared and the two hugged. They were convinced that all the horrible things were over. The raven commented that the boy was a true gentlement with a big heart, hence the bright light the girl saw. But only certain people could see the light because he intentionally dimmed it for fear of it being abused. Only people who were compassionate enough could sense the light and its beauty. The boy learned a valuable lesson that it was ok to be more generous with trust as the world wasn’t a completely dangerous place. The boy and the girl became best friends forever and the boy grew up to be a man famous for his compassion and generosity.
TJBM has read it all and at one point realized that it is about Spoiler alert: a boy struggling with depression, a sympatheic girl and a wise therapist