Flinch was eight years old the first time he disappeared.
Back when he and everyone else around him called him David, he was playing in his parents’ front yard, minding his own business, or rather the business of the butterfly he was trying to catch between his pudgy little fingers, when an angry dog sprinted over. David screamed and a moment before the teeth sunk into his flesh, he flinched away from the danger and he was gone. His mother, hearing the child scream, rushed outside, but was greeted only with the sight of a yard that was empty save for a vicious and very confused dog. She called the police, but soon called them off. Flinch had showed up at the house again, looking shaken.
“What happened? Where were you? I was worried sick! Why did you leave?” Her questions came so quickly that he hardly had time to answer.
“The dog chased me and I… I ran away.”
That was the first of many times that he lied to his mother.
