The darkness in the room felt suffocating, thick, like it was swallowing me whole. My breath was shallow, my chest tight, but it was all I could do to breathe at all. Every breath felt like it took everything I had, and still, it wasn't enough to clear the heaviness in my head. The nightmares had been worse lately, more violent. I couldn’t tell where the war ended and reality began.

My wife was there beside me. I could feel her, her warmth close to me, but it wasn’t her. It was the enemy.

The flashes came, quick and brutal. The screams of men, of soldiers, of civilians. The flash of a rifle’s muzzle in the dark, the boom of explosions, the acrid scent of smoke and death. My hands clenched into fists, and my heart started to race. I could feel like I was back there. My body went into autopilot. Fight. Protect. Survive. A hand touched me, it was a threat. My hands shot out. I didn’t see her. I didn’t hear her.

I felt her soft skin under my palms, and I pushed, shoved, and gripped. She cried out. I couldn’t focus. I didn’t know what I was doing.

Her words were muffled, her hands trying to push me away, but I couldn’t hear her. Not through the ringing in my ears, not through the deafening explosions of my own mind. It was chaos. And then… the wetness, the sudden, sharp sensation against my knuckles. Her body was limp and weak under my grip.

"No. No, no, no."

I opened my eyes. She was there.

She was barely conscious, her body slumped, her breathing shallow. I hadn’t even realized how far I’d gone. How much I’d hurt her.