Child of Zeus {Interactive Story} (PJO/HOO/TOA)

FIFTEEN: Gods Bless the Goats

"No, no, no, no, no..." I cursed, hands still over my ears, eyes shut tight, shaking my head.

My palms got sweaty, my head was spinning, my heart was beating dangerously hard against my chest, my throat was so dry I couldn't swallow or speak any more. There was no way out. The walls were getting closer. I was crying.

Unbeknown to me, Johnny and Diana were screaming for my attention. I couldn't hear them past my hands or the blood running by my ears. I started choking, I couldn't breathe.

Gulping for air, in a total mode of panic, I thought back to the only two other times my attack had been so severe.

When I was nine, I was on an overnight trip with my class, and we decided to watch a movie there. The movie theatre was small, with only two movies able to play at one time. We were watching The School for Good and Evil, that had been turned into a movie from its book years earlier. It wasn't until we got to our seats and the lights dimmed that I realized that the uneasy feeling in my gut wasn't a feeling as much as a warning for what was about to happen.

I couldn't breathe, I even passed out and an ambulance had to come. I got laughed at by everyone, even the staff at the theatre. Later my Mom brought me to a psychiatrist much like Dr. Harriet, who diagnosed me with claustrophobia and that was that.

The second time was with Johnny. It was the beginning of the school year and we'd only just met, fast friends. He invited me out to go play a game with two other friends of his (later, they became my friends, too).

I hadn't told Johnny about my claustrophobia, which proved to be a mistake when we were locked in an 'escape the room' game.

The lights flickered and died, replaced by red emergency ones, and a loud beeping rocked my whole body. The escape room was set in stages, so as soon as we got out of that room we were in a smaller one. I lost it.

Johnny and his pals had no idea what to do as my heart raced, my mouth so dry I couldn't explain what was happening. The walls closed in around me, the three of them limiting the diminishing space as it was. The closer they got to help me, the more the walls moved in, the more trapped and crowded I was, and the worse it got.

I didn't pass out then, which later I thought would have been a relief. Because I didn't pass out I was having a claustrophobic attack for twenty minutes before the staff of the place realized something was seriously wrong.

Since those instances, I had more, smaller, attacks, like the one I had at the beginning of the train ride.

But those two occurrences had nothing on the pain and panic I was feeling now.

Suddenly it got ten times worse. The whole train shook around me, like the aftershock of an explosion coming from the pilot car. It didn't stop shaking, either. It thumped at planned intervals, as if something big was walking from the front of the train right towards us.

It's delirium, I convinced myself. I'm going insane. I'm going to die.

I felt my body lift from my seat. Even when I opened my eyes I couldn't see, and I wondered if it was because the lights had gone out or because of the lack of oxygen. I gasped harder, muscles tensing and body spasming.

"Y/N, please!" Johnny cried, voice breaking my barrier of silence, my hands having been pulled from my ears. "We're outside! Look! It's okay! You're okay!"

But we weren't. We couldn't be. I could still feel the shaking of the train around me. Without oxygen I was dying. I needed to be outside, where the walls weren't closing in around me, where it wasn't so hot. But there wasn't a way out. I knew that, I knew we were trapped. We were all going to die. And once we did, the world would, too. We failed. It was over.