Air

Prologue

Air. I needed air.

I rushed out of my bedroom and continued to desperately sprint down the stairs. Bursting through the back door, I collapsed onto the grass and gasped for air.

My breathing was quick- too quick- and rather unsuccessful.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Somehow, my brain couldn't manage these simple instructions so here I was- wondering if I was going to survive this time.

I heard my mum as she came running through the door and falling to my side.

"Y/n? Y/n? Are you alright Hon?" She asked, pulling at my shoulder to try to turn me around so I could answer her. I managed to face her but my mouth wasn't working.

" Y/n? Why aren't you talking?" She asked me, worry easily recognisable in her voice. I shook my head frantically, wishing she would just leave me alone so I could fix myself like I normally do. However, this time wasn't like the others.

This time, I found myself genuinely frightened for my life. There was no easy fix. It was simple: I couldn't breathe.

"That's it, we're taking you to the hospital," my mum announced and then proceeded to scream at my dad to come downstairs and call the ambulance.

And before I knew it, everything went black.

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I woke up to the sounds of the sirens. For a short while, I wondered where the sound was coming from until I peered around me and noticed the paramedic to my left and the fact I was sitting in an ambulance.

"She's awake!" The female paramedic called. Two men hurried over to me and began to check my pulse and ask me simple questions.

"What's your name honey?" The woman asked me. I replied with what I hoped was the right answer so she continued to ask me what happened.

"I couldn't breathe," I replied, confused as to what I should say. Were they hoping for a detailed answer? Anyway, that's not what they got.

"Do you know why?" one of the men said and I shook my head in response. He sighed but nodded and scribbled something down in a notebook.

"Where am I going?" I questioned them. They all looked at one another as if to see who was going to answer.

"The hospital...are you sure you're alright?" the second man said.

"Yes and no offence but I'm not that stupid. I mean what hospital? And how long am I going to be there for?" I said, looking around at everyone, including my mum who was sitting next to the female paramedic.

"London hospital and we don't really know until the doctors find out what's wrong with you. But you will be staying the night since it's quite late and I'm assuming you would prefer to sleep and discuss this in the morning?" Asked the first man, raising an eyebrow. I nodded and relaxed back into whatever I was laying on.

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As the ambulance pulled up into the car park (siren now off since I was awake and breathing), they helped me out of the back and walked me into the hospital. The woman explained the situation to the man at the reception while I just sort of took in my surroundings.

Next to the reception was a small cafe that seemed to serve basic things such as sandwiches and coffee. It was surprisingly busy despite it being quite far away from all of the patient's and waiting rooms. However I had a small suspicion that the customers weren't just there for the snacks. Behind the counter was a rather good looking guy close to my age and I guessed that everybody queuing up were regular patients since they were all chatting and laughing with him as if he talked to them everyday.

The guy was wearing a red flannel with the top button undone. I thought I could see what looked like a name tag but I couldn't really read it from where I was standing. I squinted in hope that I would discover the handsome stranger's name but, as I expected, I was unsuccessful. Suddenly, he looked my way and smiled.

Instead of reacting the way normal people would do and just simply smile back- maybe even wave- I decided to spin around and pretend he didn't exist. I thought my reaction was bad enough until my lungs decided to react to him as well. And just like that, I found myself gasping for air.

AN: So I decided to write a Shawn Mendes short story...... I hope you guys like the idea so far!
The other chapter will be a bit longer (at least 1K) and I'm hoping for around 10 chapters x