"Dickie."
Silence.
"Dickie." A gloved hand rested gently on the boy's narrow shoulders. He stiffened, and his breath hitched in terror.
"Dickie, it's alright."
Alright. Could anything ever be "alright" again?
"Dickie, I-" The warm, comforting voice faltered, and the emotionless, mind-numbing void of sound closed in around him once more and held him captive in its chains, invisible to a free man, but all too real to the rigid boy, sitting knees drawn up tightly to his chin, on the thin metal cot of the cold, dank prison cell.
"Dick."
He shuddered and closed his eyes, bracing for the hard CRACK!-the sudden, burning lash of fire across his slight, quaking body that he knew would surely follow within seconds of the ugly sound-it always did.
But the sound never came.
Instead, the kind voice spoke again, rough with tears and with a raw love that the boy had never in the world dared to dream he would ever know again…
"Let's go home, son."
Let's go home.