Paramnesia

paramnesia (n.)
[par·am·ne·sia] : a distortion of memory in which fact and fantasy are indistinguishable and confused

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When Isaiah was seven years old, his father took him to an old library that was due to be demolished for town construction projects. They snuck in and, in their limited time there, his father stole a single book from a barely touched section upstairs marked "HISTORY".

"Take this," his father had said. He'd handed the dusty tome over to his son. "This is what the world used to be like."

Little Isaiah didn't know what that meant. But one week later, Father was gone. And after two weeks of sitting on the porch with Silva, the family cat, he knew Father was never coming back.

Those were his last words. This is what the world used to be like.

Half a year later, all books published 365 days before that day were marked to be burned. Thus began the new era.

Now the year is 2212. Isaiah is a seventeen year old boy in his senior year of high school. Digging through his old room, he finds a thick textbook, seconds away from breaking at the seams and designed like no textbook he had ever seen at school.

He cracks it open.

"In the dawn of Man," the book starts off.

And it hits him that owning this book could get him killed.

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[BIG Warning]: Story content could come off as extremely offensive or touchy material, though it is NOT INTENDED. When the big picture is in play, hopefully the meaning that I, the author, wish to convey will be shown as such.
In addition, explicit language is in use.