In the summer of 2003, I was a teenager growing up in Vernon, British Columbia, Canada.

Vernon is a small town, it's a quiet town, it's a ski town, a beach town, and a hockey town.

It's also a town that didn't get FM radio until the year 2001.

And in the summer of 2003, there's the perfect town to hide a secret.

That summer, I was working at a video rental place, which at the time was a line of work that existed.

And one night after my shift, I met up with a friend at the beach to go for a swim, a golden hour.

I remember it was Rec volleyball night, so the courts were kicking up all this dust that made the light seem like it was glowing around us.

And that's when I saw them.

There were these two boys walking through the orange hay along the shoreline, who I'd never seen before.

And as it turned out, neither had anyone else.

These two wild children appear in our community.

They're always together, they're never apart, rags on their back.

Someone said they lived in the woods. Someone else saw them bathing in the creek.

My mom remember seeing them walk down Main Street.

And when I saw them, even I, a self-absorbed 16-year-old, I noticed the same thing as everyone else.

Something about these boys was off.

They're kind of odd.

I don't want to say cult, but it just seemed weird. It just wasn't normal.

I had no idea what was going on with those two.

One just looked so... he was just so emaciated.

I literally think he was within days or weeks of starving himself to death. He was that bad.

And I said, oh, you gotta get something done with him. Right now, you need it all.

...