[The fingers curling over his own grounds him, in a way that he needs right now. His chest tightens and his eyes burn, and he digs the heel of the hand not being held against his eye with a grimace, trying not to cry. His breath shudders in and out of him, despite his best efforts.]

I forgot...

[His voice is small, smaller than a man of his size should be. He bites back an agonized hiccup. He wants to go back to the blissful ignorance of yesterday, when his worst problem was the nature of the academy itself. When he thought he still had a home to return to, with a loving daughter and maybe a houseful more, besides.]

God help me, I forgot. And it still feels like a dream. Like an awful, wretched nightmare. Like something that happened to another man.