I Go To School. . .With The Vanoss Crew

Part Six

Evan
We reach the bottom of the path, and Emma's body flops onto my lap. I look down at Emma. She's giggling as she pulls herself up. "You could have at least warned me first," she says, still giggling and brushing dirt off of her clothes. I stand up and keep walking forwards into the woods that we're now in. I look back at Emma.
"Come on," I say. She jogs to my side and we begin walking. I duck under a bush and come into a grassy clearing, thick branches blocking out the sunlight. In the clearing, the others are sitting and talking. Brock looks over first and smiles over my shoulder at Emma, who's ducking under the bush behind me.
"They're here," Brock says. Johnathan and Tyler turn their heads, while the others fix their eyes on us. Emma's eyes widen.
"Wait. . .there's more of you?,"she asks. Her eyes fix on my friends Cody, Scotty, David, a guy named Luke and a guy who calls himself Screwologist. "Are you kidding me?!," Emma says. She looks at me. "You know way to many people." I smile at her.
"The more friends the better," I say.
"Maybe in your opinion," I hear her mutter. Cody and the others introduce themselves to Emma, and we all sit down in a large circle like we're about to preform some garden ritual.
Johnathan wiggles his eyebrows at Emma and I. "So was your night," he pauses and fakes a cough, "interesting?"
"Ew," Emma and I say in unison. I laugh as Emma crawls over to Johnathan and slaps him hard across the face.
"What was that for?!," he exclaims.
"For being gross," Emma snarls. "But no. We just hung out and played video games."
"Sounds fun," Brock says. Emma nods.
"Yeah. It was." We talk for a little bit and, throughout the time period, I notice Emma shakes every now and then and wipes her hands on her jeans.
After about forty five minutes, Emma stands. "I'll be back," she says quickly, then she leaves the clearing back into the forest. We continue talking, but after about twenty minutes, we start to worry.
"Come on," Tyler says, standing. "We have to find Emma." The rest of nod and stand. Leaving the clearing, we begin our search for Emma. "Half of you go left with Evan," Tyler says. "The rest come with me." John, Brock, Cody, Cartoonz and I all head left while the others head right.
"Emma!," John and Brock call out. "Emma!" Luke and I search the bushes and ditches around us and Cody races ahead to check ahead of us. Please be okay Emma, I think, please. After about an hour of searching, David, who was with Tyler, comes racing out of the bushes.
"Guys," David says, "we found her! It's not good though! Come on!" He quickly turned and ran back through the bushes, with the rest of us following him.
When we finally get to where David was leading us, everyone's circled around a ditch. Scotty's crouched in the ditch, looking down helplessly at something. I home base slide down into the ditch and gasp at the sight. Lying in the dirt is Emma, shaking, trembling, her breathing quick and shallow. Tears are streaming down her face and she's wretching dryly. "Emma!," I scream. I grab her and hold her in my lap. Looking at her face, I see that her nose is streaming blood and her eyes are dim. "Call an ambulance!," I scream, clutching Emma to my chest. "Call 911! Now!" Shaking with fear, Brock rips out his phone and dials the emergency number. "It's going to be okay Emma," I say, though I'm shaking and tears are pouring out of my eyes. "It's going to be okay. You're going to be okay." Emma just continues to cry and bleed and shake, and I'm screaming 911 at the top of my lungs.

The paramedics had finally arrived, and I'd yelled at them the whole time about how slow they'd been. I suspect they began to get annoyed with me, so they offered us a ride to the hospital. The ambulance was to small for all of us though. So Craig, Brock and I decided to go with them. "Text us whenever you get news," John had told us as Tyler and Scotty yanked at his arm as he freaked out on us when we said he couldn't come. We'd promised, then hopped into the ambulance.
Now, the three of us are in the E.R, waiting for news about Emma. Brock keeps telling me to sit down and relax, but I just keep pacing around the waiting room, burning a mini Nascar track into the carpet and probably burning major calories each minute my legs carry me around this place. Finally, the doctor walks into the waiting room. "Emma Ash? Patient Emma Ash?" I race over to the doctor at the announcement of Emma's name. I almost flip out on the doctor for being so slow, but Craig elbows my gut and shakes his head firmly. So instead, I take a deep breath and let the doctor speak. "Friends or family?," the doctor asks.
"Friends," Brock says. The doctor nods and leads us down the hallway, talking as we walk.
"She was in a critical condition when you found her. It's a good thing you called. She could have potentially died if she'd been like that for much longer."
"But I thought she just had an anxiety attack," I say.
"She did," the doctor says, "but her heart was pounding so quickly that it almost resulted in a heart attack. The bloody nose she had was a sign that her blood was leaking out of her veins-"
"WHAT," I scream.
"However," the doctor continues, as if I had said nothing, "we were able to catch it early enough and fix it." He looks at me. "She was also so caught up in her anxiety that she was unaware of any other human life forms around her at the time you were there with her. We, of course, didn't know this until she woke up confused as to why she was in a hospital bed."
"What do we need to do for her?," Brock asks.
"What I suggest," the doctor says, "is that one single person stick close to her for a bit. However keep her out of to much of a group or public setting. She needs to get used to knowing that people are there for her if and when she needs them. I suggest picking someone she trusts, such as a good friend."
"I'll do it," Brock, Craig and I all say in unison. We all argue for a minute, while the doctor just looks on, waiting for us to finish.
"You know what," I say, "we'll let Emma decide. If she's going to be stuck with a single person, we're going to let her decide who it is." Brock and Craig nod, and the doctor opens the door to a room. Sitting in the hospital bed, looking pissed off, is Emma. She spots us and smiles. I smile back.

None of the symptoms described in this section actually happen. Anxiety attacks aren't deadly