To and fro, fro and to. They made him believe the things he saw and responded to were real, when they were artificial. His damage was their delectation. They kept it hidden for years. It was easier to repair a child when they were a child than it was when they had matured. The person they knew, they never knew. He never existed. He was the paint covering the fractures.

He may have imagined him as nothing, nothing more than a smaller creature but he was more than that. At every turn, he was right at his side. Even if he didn't know it was him. He was a soldier. His mask. His mission was to keep him alive at all costs, though, given his luck, that was to be harder than thought. Yet, he knew what he was fighting for.