SSD VI: Remus

160. Mistakes Were Made

Silver had spent a lot of her childhood trapped. Inui said that explained her claustrophobia quite well.

When she discovered she had claustrophobia, she'd been confused. She knew with absolute certainty she'd never been claustrophobic before, living her life in cages and bases she could only leave for missions didn't allow for claustrophobia. But she'd gone from that constant entrapment to absolute freedom, and that was fine. Going that way was fine. Going back to entrapment, that was where she'd faltered. It had been back when she was still gradually getting herself acclimatised to sleeping without the constant breathing of nine others, she was staying in a hostel, her room currently one she shared with a stranger who kept trying to get to know her.

She'd managed to get herself injured. It was nothing serious. She'd rolled over on her ankle and it was a little weak. She had enough food to go a few days without going out so she could rest it and let it heal rather than make it worse. Everything was fine.

Until it wasn't fine.

Two days in one room with that stranger's interrogations and lack of personal space. Anyone would've gone insane. If anything, she should've been glad all she got from that was the discovery of her claustrophobia.

She'd been lying on the floor under her bed because her roommate left her alone when she was under the bed and suddenly under the bed wasn't somewhere she could be. No. Very bad. No. Not under bed. Under bed small. Under bed crushing. Can't breathe. No. Get out. No. No. Get out.

Get out!

She rolled out from under the bed and never tried that again. On day three of her self-imposed lock up, the whole room became under the bed. No. Very bad. Room. Trapped. No. Can't- Get out. No. Breathe. Out. Trapped. Get out. Get out. Get out.

Run!

She'd had no idea what was happening. That was the truly terrifying thing. Half-convinced she was dying on the floor of a hostel's shared room after surviving so much bullshit, she'd been scared because she didn't understand.

It was new. It was different. It was wrong.

Her roommate was the one who explained it to her, after Silver had almost jumped out of the window... twice. Apparently, Silver's claustrophobia had been obvious from day one, her roommate had known since the moment they first began sharing the room. It would've been nice if her roommate could've shared that info with her but what was done was done, and this was nothing if not done. Claustrophobia really sucked.

She moved out of the hostel the next night. It was hard to get claustrophobic in a forest.

She learned to live with it. It wasn't easy. It wasn't perfect. But she got by, and that was what mattered.

Today, Silver sat in her bedroom, a room she hadn't left in two days, and wondered why this constant she'd had to be wary of for over three years now had decided it wasn't going to be constant anymore. She wasn't panicking. She wasn't freaking out. She wasn't even nervous. She was staring at the same wall she'd been staring at for the last four hours and she hadn't found herself convinced it was moving inwards to crush her for even a second.

Silver stared at the wall, and she realised she was going to have to face the facts. Either her mind was somehow not recognising this room (which was smaller than that hostel room had been) as a small, enclosed space she couldn't leave, or she didn't have claustrophobia anymore.