In Australia, a young boy escapes from the settler-run school where he and other children are trained for a life of enslavement. He’s looking for the parents he doesn’t remember, for the town he was stolen from. Hungry and thirsty, he runs and runs, narrowly escaping capture from the troopers who pursue him. Stumbling along in the sun, he discovers a settler near death. He ought to kill him, or leave him for dead, but he decides instead to give him some water. There’s just one catch: the settler isn’t human. Jacky’s story, and the settler’s, form a parable about the violence of slavery and colonialism, about how those systems perpetuate themselves, even in—especially in—the face of horror. Just as importantly, they tell a story of resistance and love in spite of it all.