"But it's not real, is it? H-how can it be?" Julian's smile is gone now, and his eyes are slightly glassy. "Dunno if I'd rather be in some hospital out of my mind than in another world. I didn't think I'd be alive to face the consequences once I'd gone."

Consequences. His mother grieving. He was sure the lives of so many soldiers were worth his mother's broken heart, but it was a sacrifice he'd forced her to make. And his friends--Guy, last night, thinking he was an hallucination and acting like this had happened before.