Era

12

Trigger warning - panic attacks

She'd thought that arriving so early would let her avoid the crowds, but as she neared UA it was obvious that there was some sort of commotion building at the gates already. Shouting, shoving, the metallic glint of camera equipment... those aren't students.

Era approached the back of the mob, blinking the heaviness from her eyes and blearily assessing the situation. She repressed a wince at a particularly loud shout from the man nearest to her, allowing her face to set into a grimace instead as she began to push through the crowd.

This was the second day that the media had swarmed the UA gates, and it was beginning to grate on her nerves. If a few reporters "accidentally" received an elbow to the ribs or a sharp kick in the shins as she squeezed by, well, it wasn't as if they didn't deserve it.

A microphone was shoved into her face, startling her back a few steps. She hadn't heard the fucker approach, already deafened by the roaring crowd. Era tried to pull away, but was barred by a tangle of limbs and jostling bodies. A growl rose to the back of her throat as the reporter holding the microphone shouted down at her.

"You! Are you one of All Might's students? How is he doing as a teacher?"

"Do your fucking research," Era snapped, weariness tempering her tone with a hardened chill. "I'm in Gen Ed, All Might doesn't even teach me. Get out of my fucking way."

"Hey, kid, calm down, I'm just asking a question. Is this the kind of attitude that UA is teaching its students?"

It was becoming increasingly difficult to restrain the slow-boiling anger that bubbled in her chest, but she grappled with it desperately as it tried to twist and writhe from her grasp.

"I'm sorry," she ground out, still trying to shove past the insistent reporter. "What I meant to say was, would you please get out of my fucking way?"

The crowd was closing in around her, suffocating her in the press of thrashing, violent motion. I can't breathe. Era was drowning, her lungs flooded with acrid water that reeked of sweat and stung with salt. Walls closing in can't breathe can't—

She felt her breaths beginning to come in short gasps, hands trembling at her sides before she balled them into tight fists, digging crescent moon furrows into her palms with sharp pinpricks of pain that grounded her, for the moment. Again, Era attempted to shove past the microphone and through the rest of the crowd. At the fringes of her vision, she could just make out the UA gates. Almost there, almost there—

"Hey, kid! Don't walk away from me, I just want a statement, okay?" A hand closed around her wrist, and Era froze.

Walls closing in can't breathe can't breathe—

Her throat closed, chest tightening as if her ribs had slid together into a complex interlocking pattern that weaved through flesh and organs. The hand at her wrist tightened, began to pull, and Era stumbled backwards with it. Can't breathe can't breathe can't—

Breathe. Era tried, sucked in heaving mouthfuls of hot air, but it burned in her lungs and seared harsh brands across the inside of her stomach. Breathe, breathe, breathe but she couldn't, the hand was vicelike around her wrist dragging her back, back, back into the sea of writhing bodies with no faces, never faces, in the dreams the faces all blended together in a screaming mass of your fault your fault your fault and there were more microphones in her face, more hands that touched and tugged and tore slashed ripped at flesh and laid bare pale-white bone—

Words buzzing at her ears, all digging into the folds of her mind, scrabbling for purchase and leaving bloody furrows in their wake. Walls closing in can't breathe can't breathe can't breathe can't—