Rookery ~ Assassin's Creed Syndicate

Chapter Twenty Four

There may be triggering content in this chapter. If you have a panic disorder or are prone to panic attacks, I suggest not reading this. I'm not sure if a 'graphically' written attack could trigger one, but you decide.

I got back to the train to discover that it was completely empty. Evie and Henry must have gone out in search of their information. I went straight to the carriage with mine and Jacob's beds in. My heart was still hammering in my ears and I could feel it pounding in my chest. It made it difficult to breathe and I took quick, short breaths. Nothing was helping me feel less worn out, so I knew that this was a panic attack. It felt as if there was a large weight on my chest, keeping me from breathing, talking and even moving for a while.

I felt as if I was choking and as if the entire world was spinning beneath my feet. I lost my balance, tumbling into the corner of my bed frame. Nausea swept through me, my stomach feeling as if it would completely empty on the floor of the carriage in a quick minute. However, everything stayed down. I knew how to handle these situations, just as I had done at least once a week for a year after my mother died.

The trembling set in next. My arms couldn't stay still, no matter how much I tried to pin them down under my body. My toes curled up in my boots and so, laying on the top of all of my sheets and blankets, I felt quite helpless. There was nothing I could do which wouldn't result in me either tumbling over, going dizzy or almost fainting from the heat, dizziness and nausea. I had to keep my eyes closed and attempt to take long, deep, painful breaths through my throat which felt as if it was closing in on itself.

The final stage of my panic attack's regularly involved me hearing voices. Usually, they managed to make me do things I regretted in the future. Of course, at the time, they always seem like a rational thing to do. This time, however, due to the pressure building in my head and the heat rushing down my body, starting at my scalp, the voices were telling me to cut it off, as if that would be the solution to the problem. Looking back on it now, I see that that clearly was not the problem. However, in the middle of a panic attack, anything seems like a resolution, and you will always desperately strive for that resolution as quickly as possible.

Cut it. That was all I heard for around ten minutes. Over and over, those two words repeated in my mind. They flooded my mind, filled the silence of the train, even blocked out the chugging sounds. My head pounded with the force of a tonne of bricks. My hands eventually reached for a pair of shears I had in a small basket under my bed. The basket was full of materials I used to fix small holes in my uniform whenever I need a quick fix.

The voices began to hush when I had the shears in my hand. They were still there, but much less. When I hesitated, however, they soon livened up again. This time, it sounded as if they were screaming at me. I screamed back, a loud grunt which echoed through the carriage. When they didn't stop or quieten down, I took the shears to my pony tail and cut my hair just before the tie.

The screaming was gone immediately, as was everything else which came with a panic attack. My breathing was still quite fast, but was at the speed it would have been after a jog. Realisation hit me, and I looked down at my hands. In my right was the pair of shears. In my left, I held my amputated hair. My hands shook in fear that I had actually done it. I stood, since my dizziness was gone and I was actually able to stand again, and saw my hair was at the length of my chin. I dropped the shears and my ponytail, clasping both hands over my mouth. I had been growing my hair out since I was fifteen, as Andrew had always told me how lovely my hair was and loved to play with it when he was bed ridden. Granted, he had been a lot older than me, but he couldn't have done anything else cooped up in bed all day for almost a year.

I had grown it out for him once he passed away. I had the ends trimmed off every year or so, but I had never cut off a lot. Now, my waist length hair wasn't even long enough to tie back. The slight waves curled delicately around my face, framing it beautifully. It was difficult to see myself in this way I felt as if I had lost a piece of myself. My identity.