The nightmares were what woke me, a continuous fear that pulsed through my veins. I woke up with a scream and sweat soaked the twin bed I was in. I sat up immediately, while tears spring into my eyes. Everything hurt, my body, my soul, my head. Every single sound echoed throughout the house as I tried to slow my breathing and calm myself down. It was to no avail, instead the walls began to close in and my breathing quickened. I ran my fingers through my hair hurriedly as an indescribable panic rushed through my body.
I couldn't breathe.
Why couldn't I breathe?
My brain raced and the rational part of it knew I had to calm down, but the emotional part refused to stop and I tried to form a tangible sentence to cry for help but it was useless. I stumbled out of the bed and to the wall and laid both of my palms against it. The walls weren't closing in, the walls weren't closing in, the walls weren't closing in.
The door knob jiggled and sent me back into a frenzy of anxiety that I had just begun to escape beforehand. She was here. She was here. She was here. She found me, she was here to take me back, to punish me for pushing her husband away.
"Cashlin," a voice came, "let me in."
Male. The voice was male. It wasn't her.
"No," I choked out loudly, "st-stay away."
"It's me," he said, "it's Ares. You know me."
"No, no," I couldn't comprehend a more detailed sentence and could only muster a few words.
A pause.
"Alright."
The sounds of a body as it slid against the door filled the room. I was in hysterics by then, tears streamed down my face while my chest heaved painfully. And I inhaled oxygen and exhaled carbon dioxide but I was not breathing. My lungs might have been moving and my heart might have been beating and my eyes might have been seeing, but I was not breathing. My muscles have air being pumped to them but there was no air inside of my lungs that gave me the ability to truly breathe. And my eyes stung and my breath came out in wisps and sudden, unpredictable gulps.
"You're okay," he told me, "you're okay."
You're okay. You're okay. You're okay. You're okay.
And those were the only words that got me through that night and the rest of the month.
