FINDING THE REAL FACE

Once upon a time in a
castle in the deep forest,
there lived three people
who had their real faces
stolen by the Shadow
Witch. The boy wore a
mask with an awkward
smile. Then there was the
Princess who was loud
but all empty inside. And
there was also a man who
was trapped

inside a box. .

They couldn't make any facial

expressions because their faces were
stolen from them. They had no way
of understanding each other's

feelings, so they always

misunderstood one another and
fought.

The Box Man spoke. “If we want
to stop fighting and find happiness
we must retrieve our stolen faces.”

So, they hopped in their camping car and began their journey to find their
faces.

One day, they ran into a mother fox who was bawling, curled up on the
snow.

The masked boy asked the mother fox, “Ma’am, why do you keep crying?”,
“Oh, I came out here to find some food but dropped my baby whom I was

carrying on my back somewhere in the snow.”

The mother fox’s tears had run dry. She wailed while beating her chest.
When the masked boy saw that, warm tears started gushing from his eyes.

The snow began to melt quickly, and the baby fox who was frozen under the
snow, soon appeared.

The three of them resumed their journey. Soon, they ran into a clown who
was dancing naked in a field of thorny flowers.

The emotionless Princess asked, “Why are you dancing with all your might,
knowing you'll be pricked by the thorns?”, “I feel that this is the only way to
make people look at me. But it hurts and no one's looking at me.” the clown

answered.

The emotionless Princess walked into the field of thorny flowers and started
dancing with the clown. “I'm an empty can, so I won't be hurt even if I get

pricked by the thorns.”

When she began hopping and dancing loud clanking noises echoed from her
empty torso. Upon hearing those sounds, people began to flock to where
they were. The crowd watched their dance and applauded them.

They began a new journey to find the stolen faces, and the evil Shadow
Witch appeared in front of them once again.

She kidnapped the masked boy who shed tears on behalf of the mother fox,
as well as the emotionless Princess who danced with the clown.

“The two of you will never be able to find your happy faces.” After putting
such a curse on them, she looked them in a deep, dark mole tunnel.

The box man found the mole tunnel a few days later, but the entrance was
so narrow that he couldn't go in.

“What do I do? I need to take this box off my head in order to
go into the tunnel.”

That moment, the Masked Boy's voice reached him from inside the tunnel.
“Mister don't worry about us. Just run far away. The Shadow Witch will re-

turn soon.”

However, the Box Man mustered up the courage to take the box off his
head. He then, went inside the tunnel and saved the Masked Boy and the

Emotionless Princess.



Upon getting out of the dark tunnel, the two of them saw the man's face covered
with dirt and grime instead of the box and burst out laughing. They laughed and
giggled. While laughing uncontrollably, the Masked Boy’s mask suddenly fell
off. The can surrounding the Emotionless Princess’ torso also fell off and made a

clanking noise.

The Box Man, now out of his box, said this when he saw the two of them
finding their true faces while laughing. “Happy. He's happy. I'm happy.”
What the Shadow Witch had stolen from them was not their true faces but

their courage to find happiness.