Bound

BOUND 1

Tanu panted, eyes fluttering as she sloped against the wall. Coarse markings bumped her skin, grating in red lines. Her vision was dingy, all dark but the focal point where grew the radiant star, a supernova. "Tanu!"

Sounds were away, diminishing echoes. She wedged to hold on to the voice and reach up the thick water. An ER patient waited to have his heart opened. She had to snap out early. Once the fiber anchoring her to earth breaks, she'd be sinking in the thick water where air couldn't infiltrate, where her conception was crammed with sparkling matters. Horrific visions ensued.

"Tanu!"

"I'm good." She needed a ventilator. There were boulders in her breathing channel. Each lure in of oxygen wounded. If breathing was an involuntary bodily function she'd let go.

"Think you're having a panic attack." It was Branden's first time witnessing her episode. The first time was always the worst. For them, and for her. As for her, it was the pitiful looks. At odd times, it was the outrageous conclusions--once a nurse had believed it was possession.

"Believe me, it isn't." Tanu didn't have a name for it. Everyone around her did, though. Many were ridiculous, like that of the nurse Marina.

After deep breaths, she prompted her fogged brain of her profession, of her obligation to save lives. Slowly, her senses were back. Branden's acute tone commenced getting on her nerves. And that was how she knew it was over. She was back to being Tanu--a normal human practicing medicine, no bizarre stars or visions.

It'd been happening for almost a year now. Her therapists, plural, supposed it was because of what had happened the previous year on January 21. Regardless of time passed, she remembered the night--butterflies in her belly and sweaty hands. The night sky had the greatest configuration of her lifetime, stars and lathers. It was the last night for her to see the stars. They continued flashing, but she'd stopped looking up. It reminded her of him, of how she'd assumed they were steering her to him. Instead, they'd steered her to the beeping machines of ER.

The only other difficult period of Tanu's life was her sister Grace's encounter with bullies. It was a scar on both of them. Tanu had nightmares longer than Grace, all ending with her waking in an outcry and rushing to guard her blood.

"Let's go. There's no time to waste." She initiated to the hospital's gates.

She got to take two steps, then it arose again. Now she knew there was no escaping. Strange because she'd controlled it fine for the last eight months. It'd always ceased with the radiant star, never to a point where it ravaged to million pieces--that was when the sinking began.

"Ask someone to cover for me," she scarcely managed to say before running from the hospital painted in melodic blue. There was blue everywhere, on the hospital blocks around and above in the never-ending sky.

"Tanu!"

"Go, Branden!" Maybe it was the blue everywhere, or maybe the sun sucking her energy, but she was on the threshold of passing out.

Her weedy legs staggered her to a desolate locale of the neighborhood and she fell to the ground. She needed air and there was none. She couldn't resist it any further. She succumbed to the haul on her heartstrings. Afterward, she was sinking into insoluble darkness. The radiant star at the focal point swelled. There was a scream when the shattering occurred. Hers. There were dazzling particles all around as she plummeted further and further into the darkness.

Voices that came up to her burst with distress. At first, she was certain Branden was back with many others. But the voices weren't a diminishing echo. They came from under her, from whatever she was sinking into. Lights or fumes she didn't know, but they were so vivid it was a gateway to heaven. Cones of her eyes screeched for help.