His mind is blank, but a premonition gnaws at the back of his conscience - like a bottled-up scream, pummelled into pressure, scorched into sincerity. It hasn't set in yet, he thinks, not yet - not the tight constricting of his chest, the stretching pain around his ribcage, not the harshness of breath-on-pillow. He doesn't know to be thankful or petrified, because when it does set in it slams him with the force of a tidal wave, bludgeoning all the air out of his brain; it is his thoughts, really, his goddamn self-chastisement that wallops him round the skull -

But not yet. Not the wrenching of skin, not the pain, the overbearing, searing, boiling pain; and the ground teeth, the tears slipping from the bone of his cheek; not yet the agony - the agony of his mind, his corporeality, his ing being -

So he waits. It comes every night.