He was feared by the people. Despised by the villagers. They brayed for his "Unnatural life", a life they sought to end. With torches and pitchforks they Drove far the boy from his own home. Through the dark forest the people hunted him. Chased him to the cursed swamp, a blighted land where the superstitious and the ignorant would never tread. He was forced to live beyond the edges of society. Forced to scavenge.

In the swamp.

In the town's filth ridden, rat infested dump.

Eating whatever he could just to survive.

His pain and his innocent desperation did not touch or warm those villagers hearts by a single degree.

No, it merely increased their hatred of him.

They saw him as a demon. A beast.

A fowl cursed thing not fir for the breath of life that he had so unjustly, and unnaturally received.

"Death!" they cried, whenever he was near.

"Death!" they demanded whenever they saw him.

Death to the cursed one! Death to the wooden boy...