Trauma ➸ Audrey Jensen [1]

4 ➸ lungs

four ; lungs

♕

HARLEY

It's cold. Your arms are sprawled out in this small room filled with water, but why? What does it mean? You can't move, and your lungs are getting that feeling again.

My lungs felt like they were going to collapse, and I tried to wiggle around as much as I could to keep my lungs from opening. I started to choke on water, and had no air to go to. My lungs did the opposite of what I wanted, opening up to get some air, only to suck in water.

I sank to the bottom of the box, desperately searching for a way out. This can't be happening, this can't be happening. I felt nothing but the metal, and the water that quickly started to rush into my lungs at that moment.

I started choking on the water, and I could feel the sudden stop in my breathing, and the pain in my chest as the water filled up my lungs. I was drowning, and it was dark. I felt around the room, feeling that I was in a metal box.

I could feel myself wanting to scream for help, but the screaming would kill me faster. I felt like I was shriveled up, being tortured horribly, and not just drowning. I couldn't hold my screams in anymore, and let them erupt.

I screamed, pounding on the metal as the last round of water flooded into my lungs, taking over my entire body as my eyes rolled back, I was dying.

___

My entire body shot up in a split second, and I gasped for air once I realized it was only a nightmare. A nightmare that I would never stop having. I began to find it hard to breathe, as I knew that I was having a panic attack. The more I struggled to breathe, the worse it got.

It got to the point that the air had stopped flowing to my fragile lungs, and I flopped off the bed as I tried to make it to my foster parents room as quick as I could. I tried to scream for help, but nothing was working. My words were trapped in my throat, and I could barely move. I was so scared. The dream wasn't that long, but it felt so awful.

I found myself on the floor, Palm against my forehead as I struggled to breathe. I was crawling over to the door, trying to mumble but nothing would come out, nothing was happening. It was almost as if I was in another nightmare. My lungs finally opened up again, desperate for air, and the air finally rushed In.

I took a deep breathe, finally trying to speak. "Help," I whimpered, as my body was still unable to move, but the air went back to the slow flows that it always had after my major panic attacks. I silently cried, feeling the tears leave my cheeks, and hearing the tiny splashes of them hitting the cold floor in the dead silence of the night.

My body gave in, and I collapsed on my back with a thump, being as still as I could for my muscles to come back to reality and realize I wasn't In a dream anymore.

I took slow, deep breathes, trying to contain myself from having another break down, because truly I couldn't keep them from happening anymore.

My body finally snapped, coming back into reality when my arm jerked as I was trying to move it, and I released a sigh of relief as I stood up and slowly made my way back to bed.

I made sure to take slow steps, as I didn't want to scare myself back into another meltdown. It would happen frequently, and the shit show would cycle all over again without me knowing what to do.