It was an awful day. Just a terrible, awful, crummy, no-good day. There was just... it wasn't worth living on this particular day, and Nikolai knew this well. He was miserable, and confused, and angry.

First of all, it was raining outside. Which, by itself, was just a general bummer. Everything smelled earthy and there was suddenly mud all over the Great Hall where Nikolai was currently trying to eat breakfast in an apparently normal manner. And the reason he was having difficulty with this, was because he had stayed up late the night before fretting and trying to decide if he should cry, or who he should talk to. In the end, the result was that he did not get up early like usual, and so he missed his 5:00 shower.

So, he had tried to be brave and shower with the other boys, but almost immediately people were making jokes about him picking up soap and whatnot, and beating him with towels, or trying to cluster together so that he couldn't "see" them... and he hadn't even gotten undressed. So he left, and trecked down to the Great Hall tired, dirty, and still in his pajamas. He figured, he would take a late shower perhaps - at the very least, he should get some breakfast.

But he was embarrassed. For more than one reason. The first one was, he was wearing his favorite pajamas - these flannel ones with a kind of silky inside lining that he had gotten for Christmas. They were bright purple and had kittens chasing ice cream and cartoon mice all over them. They were cozy, but they made him very conspicuous, and very gay. It wasn't unusual for kids to show up to breakfast in their PJ's, especially earlier in the day.

But along the way to the Great Hall (he had been dreaming absently of oatmeal and setting about the task of plucking raisins out of it, as he did not like raisins), he had been grabbed by the scruff of his neck by some passing student - he had big meaty hands and ugly nails - and hauled bodily into a broom closet in some side corridor. Nikolai had appropriately screamed and flailed and fought for his very life, but there was no fighting against someone who is more than a foot taller than you.

This sort of thing wasn't terrible uncommon nowadays, as Nikolai was just... really easy to bully. Read the previous statement about height differentials.

He had slammed against the opposite wall, rattling the shelves violently. A bottle of something rolled off of its shelf and bopped him on the head, causing him to burst into tears. With the door closed and locked firmly, he was completely blind and had no way of knowing even how large the broom closet was - let alone if there were horrible things like spiders or zombies inside.

So there he was, stuck in a mysterious broom closet, wounded, miserable and cold, in his ugly-ass pajamas, and above all: very confused.

What was he supposed to do?

Oh - and on top of all of this, Nikolai was sick. The muggy heat of the poorly-insulated broom closet caused his nose to start running anew. He sniffled and snuffled disgustingly, like a pig.

Yes, life was just a treasure trove of joy for Nikolai Kurschev.

If there was one silver lining in the entire situation, it was this: he had quite forgotten what he was so miserable about last night. He had bigger problems to face.