Avalon

•50•

Let It Go

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Do you feel cold and lost in desperation?

You build up hope, but failure's all you've known

Remember all the sadness and frustration

And let it go. Let it go

Neal could no longer hold his racing heart. Something weird was happening and he couldn't tell exactly. His emotions were seeping into the rugs and tablecloths around the room. His fear, stabbing through his heart, was eating every strand of air away. He knew a panic attack when one was coming. This promised to be incredibly strong. Mostly it was something too much to explain. It was just the way it was. Neal suffered terrible panic attack every once in a while and often so debilitating he couldn't recover by himself.

Mostly the physical side of it. As his air intake was cut off and suffocation made threats.

Neal knew what a suffocation meant, been there done that, three times at least. Depression eating away all his happiness, a very often occurrence.

Fear so strong he'd pass out from sheer force of it, something that happened frequently enough to be scary on its own.

Mental disorders were Neal's secret fate. Not even Mozzie knew the extent of his prison stays and what Kate actually meant. When she was gone everything else was too.

When ones life gets taken apart like that they develop some thing. In his case something went wrong in the making. Or that was what he believed in after many times of it happening.

Right now once he left the room full of people that could change his fate in a flash he felt relief washing over. The weird man in the wheelchair who looked like he wanted to get out of there as soon as possible and possibly have a drink to wash it all away. He'd felt some weak but present connection to him and that was scary. Like there was something he'd missed long ago and has lost capability to find it once more. It was a creepy feeling but so far less things made sense. Even their meager attempts at making Neal comfortable enough and useful were like hits with a metal rod to a heart. Sometimes. Not always.

So Neal kept trying to do the job he'd been doing for a few years now and not to fall over once the day was over. Time seemed to slow down here and days far more longer. But there was no way to tell for sure. The time telling was a hard thing Neal still had no concept about. But he did his best to grasp it so at least the job wouldn't suffer. Because that was his life now, for the rest of how long was he destined to live. And he felt the emptiness pulling the void in his chest larger and deeper until nothing would be left.

Panic was hitting hard now and he felt his way to the restroom with a shaky hand on the wall. He had no idea if was even remotely near the said room or completely opposite direction by the the time his legs faltered and he stumbled on something on the ground, again, and heavily dropped down. It wasn't as painful as he expected but close to feeling numb as his body felt these days.

For a while he struggled through his panic attack and tried to remember what was the protocol. His air intake wasn't doing good. The air leaving his lungs couldn't even out the lack of air struggling in. So Neal was crumpled on the carpeted floor among the soft glowing things and wheezing like some asthmatic person. He didn't let his thoughts going back to the vault that day when he actually had no air to breathe but somehow it still came back gripping at his chest and the panic was heightening until he couldn't see anymore.