At least he's breathing again. The fact that they've had to reestablish that baseline is worrying to say the least, but what about this situation isn't?

He rests the back of his head against the wall and sighs. He doesn't think more information is necessarily going to help Essek, but it's better than letting him sink back into panic again. "The five of you have been missing for a few days now. They're playing video of you attacking people and calling you terrorists. People are...upset, to say the least. Angry. You're lucky I found you before anyone else did." Though getting him someplace safe was going to be a whole other task entirely. "I don't know where the other four are yet, but I don't think anyone's dead. If they were, we'd know about it." There'd be a victory celebration across all the screens, a vicious triumph that he doesn't think he could stomach seeing.