Years back, I decided to raise him; with all the pleasures a father would give to his child.

  It was the same boy who now ran away from me into the deep woods. I read the small note he left on the table;

  ‘I am going to Greg’s place, you won’t see me again,’ it read.

  What bothered me wasn’t why he moved away, but why he didn’t bring his childhood teddy along with him. Though he is a mature adult, he would always carry it everywhere. He would speak to it for hours confidentially in the wilderness.

  Knowing how much this teddy meant to Quinton, and the way it was left in the dustbin, troubled me. I couldn’t prevent myself from returning it back to him.

  Fortunately, Greg’s shaft is nearby, just a fifteen-mile walk to the north of the forest.

  ‘For a normal person the journey might seem long, but when one carries heaps of logs every day to the city by foot, this fifteen-mile journey becomes nothing more than child’s play.’ I wrote down in a decaying page of my red journal before departing.

  I stuffed Quinton’s teddy into my thin bag.

  It was six in the morning and I opened my front door. The compelling wind which blew every morning gave me a welcoming shiver.

  I rubbed my hands together, replenishing some warmth that had escaped. Grasping the strips of my drooping bag, I started my journey to Greg’s home.

  I moved hastily so that my feet wouldn’t get caught in the snow. My face was half-frozen, leafless trees stood dead like white pillars, and I heard faint animal mourns.

  I navigated through the towering trees and lifeless bushes. I felt uncomfortable especially because of the shadowy figures made by the canopy of the tree branches.

  One such shadow even looked like a monster, perhaps a teddy bear.

  Soon I reached the thinly frozen fjord. I snorted, admiring the once vivid lake, which I used to fish in during my youth.

  But now, ever since the war, it has gone cold.

  The steep slope was covered with thick layers of snow. I carefully made my way down.

  However, as I took another step, the snow beneath my foot slid onto the frozen fjord. I tripped in with great impulse. And I plunged deep inside the freezing water.

  I waved my hands and legs helplessly for breath. After regaining my senses, I swam back up with struggle. My bag was probably sinking deeper into the darkness of the fjord.

  I reached out of the water and lifted myself out. I laid on my back; my body was immobile. Heaving, I looked up into the sky, my entire body ached.

  I couldn’t sense my limbs and I could only open my eyes partially. Looking up, I wanted the sun back, the sun that I used to play under…

  I closed my ears, drops of tears rushed down my cheek, but it quickly froze into ice.

  ‘Don’t give up cutter! Don’t!’ exclaimed a high-pitched voice. I got up cluelessly and looked around my surroundings. Apart from the leafless trees and endless snow I couldn’t see anyone.

  ‘Down here, look down cutter!’ the voice shrilled. I took my scarf out of the way. My eyes popped… Quinton’s teddy… It was alive!

  Yelling, I leaped back, my chest pounded heavily. Then I took a deep breath.

  ‘What are you? What do you want?’ I asked calmly.

  The dark-brown teddy stood still, giggling. My arms, which were covered in deep snow, shivered.

  ‘Cutter, it might seem weird, but please listen to me,’ it requested.

  ‘You are a devil, aren’t you?’ I replied.

  ‘I am impressed with your calmness, let us continue our arduous journey as we speak?’ asked the living teddy.

  ‘How can I trust you? What if you kill me?’ I asked it in response.

  ‘You think I can kill you?’ it told in an incredulous tone.

  I thought well enough.

  ‘Alright, only on one condition though,’ I told.

  ‘What is it?’ it asked.

  ‘You must be in my coat pocket,’ I demanded.

  ‘Why?’

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  ‘For my own safety’ I replied.

  ‘Fine then,’ it said.

  The brown furry animal then jumped into my pocket and I started walking.

  ‘You see, I was not always a doll,’ it told as it huddled comfily inside my pocket.

  I didn’t say anything, and I was planning not to say anything. I wanted to get this teddy to Quinton before it drove me insane.

  ‘I was once a child, an orphan to be exact,’ it added, its voice merged with the elegant sound of my dead pet sparrow.

  ‘They made me work in their yield less farms,’

  At that moment I walked past a dead fox laying on the ground. I closed my eyes for that split second. The conversation continued.

  ‘Those Russians, oh how I hated them!’ the teddy exclaimed and gasped for breath.

  Now it made me heed its past. This bear possessed the same hatred towards them as I do. Loud thunder sounds came from above. I looked up as I exited out of the system of canopies. The clouds which were calm in the morning grew darker.

  A small block of hail dropped into my shoulder. A hailstorm was forming. All of a sudden, a strong gush of wind blew over the forest. It was so ferocious that the teddy was carried out of my pocket.

  ‘Cutter! Help me!’ it pleaded as it wove its arms in the air.

  I wanted to flee, but something told me to listen to its story. The bear flew higher, and got stuck into a thin spiky branch.

  ‘Hang in there! I am coming!’ I yelled but it wouldn’t have heard me because of the intense winds.

  Then large chunks of hail started dropping from the clouds. I started running towards the safety of the canopy once more. The thick fog made my surroundings hardly visible.

  ‘Where are you!’ I yelled once more.

  Suddenly massive chunks of hail ripped through the canopy of branches. I was completely overwhelmed by fatigue that I failed to respond on time. And before I knew it, hail rushed on top of me, I blacked out…

  It was one fine day in May, what a joyful summer it was! Birds chirped, leaves fluttered and the sun was hot overhead. Light rays flooded through the gaps of the tree tops, and the scent of sap filled the entire forest.

  Quinton was playing cheerfully around the mesmerizing garden, behind our cabin, with his uncle, Greg. Even while running Quinton tightly held onto his teddy bear. I was inside the cabin, heating the mushrooms that I had collected the previous day.

  ‘Quinton! Greg! Lunch’s ready!’ I called out after preparing a mushroom dish.

  ‘On our way!’ Greg exclaimed in a cheerful way. I kept the plates on the table as both of them were skipping in, hands together.

  ‘Brother, what’s today’s lunch?’ asked the young Greg.

  ‘Father, did you know someone called Felix?’ Quinton also asked out of nowhere.

  ‘Yes, he was my neighbor in childhood, how do you know him?’

  ‘Is he still alive?’ continued Quinton, his voice was nervous.

  Before my former self replied, the scene blurred out, merging with the eerie image of the dead fox, and fast forwarded to the woods.

  Quinton was talking with the teddy.

  ‘Quinton, do you want to also become an experiment like me!’ The grumpy teddy exclaimed.

  ‘Of course not!’ He replied.

  ‘Then listen to me! Run away! Before it is too late…’ It told.

  ‘But my father isn’t evil! He is a good person!’ Quinton protested.

  ‘He is a liar! He is the one who turned me into this! He is the freaking head of those Russians!’ It shouted ferociously.

  ‘No! It can’t be true!’ Quinton protested.

  ‘If you don’t trust me, go ask him if he knows Felix… me,’ The teddy commanded Quinton in a fishy voice.

  Then the scene shifted to a lab. I was there.

  ‘You prisoner! I mean, scientist, is the experiment completed!’ an armed soldier asked me.

  ‘Yes, Felix, experiment 101 is… a success,’ I told him.

  ‘Good! you are free to go back to your ruined country, Finland,’ he mocked.

  I controlled my anger and walked away. The scene then travelled back even more. Me and Felix were playing hide-and-seek in the park.

  The eight-year-old me was hiding behind a bush. As Felix approached, I accidently stepped on a twig making a noise. Felix rushed towards me.

  ‘Found you Oliver!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘It’s not fair! I stepped on a twig!’ I shouted to the top of my lungs.

  ‘I don’t care!’ he replied joyfully.

  Then I attacked Felix, from anger. His face was covered in blood and he started to cry.

  ‘That’s right! Go cry to your mama!’ I mocked him.

  Then once again, the scene changed to night. I was at my small home; my grandmother lay weakly in her bed.

  ‘What we-re you thin-king Oliver, Felix’s mot-her told me everything,’ she told while coughing vigorously.

  ‘Grandma, you don’t understand!’ I protested.

  ‘But, I do dear, you have to control your anger,’ she told in a low voice.

  ‘He is the one who made me angry!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘Promise me one thing, before getting angry take a deep breath, and think of another way to deal with the situation,’ she requested as she raised hand and rubbed my hair.

  ‘I promise, for you grandma, I will do as you say,’ I told.

  And till this day, I am proud of keeping my promise. Then suddenly my journal popped into my hands with a pen. Everything turned black.

  Then some divine man came towards me. He looked like Jesus.

  ‘Oh, dear Oliver, please write what you regret most in your life in the journal.’ He told me.

  Without questions, I started to write it down.

  ‘I am sorry Felix; we both were captured by the Russians during the war. But after we grew up, I betrayed you. As you know, I became a scientist. So, they told me that I could go back if I help them in their project for entertainment domination. I didn’t know it was you who they brought as the test subject. But I deeply regret my decision. I hope you can forgive me.’

  After this I wrote my entire story in this journal and then it vanished into thin air.

  I looked at Jesus and reached for his feet.

  ‘Thank you! Lord! You have washed away my sins, thank you!’ I cried.

  ‘Oliver, you are a good man, and even if Felix doesn’t forgive you, I do, well done Oliver, I am proud of you,’ he told with his sweet voice.

  He then disappeared, leaving me alone.

  I then woke from my past adventure to see Felix, the teddy standing on top of me with a knife in his hands.

  ‘I don’t forgive you Oliver! I will never forgive you!’ It shouted and stabbed me.

  ‘It’s okay Felix, you don’t need to forgive me,’ I cried as blood poured out of my chest.

  ‘I am sorry, I really am, I didn’t know it was you,’ I continued.

  ‘Liar!’ Felix shouted.

  ‘You are my friend and I betrayed, I don’t how you feel but if I was you, I would do the same,’ I told calmly.

  ‘You don’t have to be my friend, but I still see you as my best friend,’ I told to him with a small smile.

  ‘I guess, I will see you in heaven, if I don’t go to hell,’ I told him.

  His eyes softened.

  ‘But please, promise me one thing,’ I begged him.

  ‘What is it?’ Felix asked.

  ‘Keep Quinton safe, please!’ I cried.

  ‘I promise,’

  A promise can be broken, but friendship is a bond which will stand for the rest of their lives…

  -The end-

  Years later an adventurer comes through this forest. He sees the red journal laying besides the fjord.

  The man opens it to see an entire story written in it.

  It was him that brought this small story to you. A tale where there is no good, no evil…

  THE END

  -By The Black Crow