Village Orphan: Prologue

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"Skeletons are memories." 

The thin ragged cloth covering his arms scratched against the iron bars of the cell as he spoke. He reached through and grabbed the wrist of the captured skeleton, bringing it through the bars. The skeleton, stripped of his weapons, was easy to control. He took a moment to inspect the bones, then continued. 

"When they are unwhole," he explained, grabbing the bones of the arm with both hands, "they unravel." 

With that, he snapped the arm into two and the skeleton crumbled into dust. A single scarred femur lay where the skeleton had stood. I looked at the bone and then to my teacher, who at the time had loomed over me. 

"Why didn't that bone crumble?" I asked him, a bit uneasy. He looked down at me, the cloth of his headpiece dangling around his large nose. 

"Some say it's the scars. That they have become ingrained in the world as well as the bone. Others..." he looked at me and hummed thoughtfully. The sound was so loud compared to his lesson, it made me jump. His squinting eyes examined mine as he adjusted his spectacles. 

"Others believe it is a safety measure. So that we may always have remnants of the past," he explained. 

"Why?" I asked him, tilting my head as I listened. 

"So that in times of need, one may bring them back." 

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