The Fear (The Walking Dead / Daryl Dixon)

Chapter 48 - Shock and Fear

Haven't edited this, sorry :p

It was when the coughing started that things started to go down hill... well... the slope got steeper at any rate. It wasn't that I hadn't already been coughing, but this... this felt like the end. Like my last breath had been taken and half way through it someone shoved a cork down my throat and now all that was left was to wait for the pains of suffocation to start. I knew all about that. The sledgehammer that would begin to pound in my head, the high pitch ringing in my ears, the desperate reflex as I tried to gasp for air, but would fail as my throat glued itself together. But I only knew of it in theory I certainly never experienced it and the idea that I was about to made the panic set in.

You can try it if you like. Try closing your throat off and make a motion to breath without taking in any air. It will show every tendon and vein as the skin suctions in around your throat. It's a silent motion, how could you make any noise when your voice box is trapped on the inside. Now imagine yourself doing that without control, your body's own reflex that you couldn't stop. Your chest thumping in fear and anguish, the pain beginning in your starved lungs. Hands reaching and clawing at your throat as if it would help. You might as well be underwater.

I would have rather face 50 walkers on my own then that moment. It's a very particular kind of panic. Half shock, half terror and no ability to do anything. I stopped hearing, there was no sound anymore and slowly sight began to go with it as if looking down a tunnel, the light at the end the only thing I could see. Tunnel vision it's called.

Frantically moving is all I could to as if I'd magically find a position that makes everything comfortable again. That allows me to finally gasp for air.

Then everything went dull and numb and for the first time I slept... or passed out rather. But once I was unconscious the panic subsided and my throat opened up as oxygen found its way to my lungs. It was just another cough like any other, but I had over thought it I realised as I woke from unconsciousness. The pounding headache and ringing in my ears was my only proof that it had been real... or maybe it hadn't. Maybe sleep had finally come and it was just a nightmare, the headache just another symptom.

I honestly didn't know the answer. But that fear. That fear had been real, the panic had been real. Dream or not.

Another cough came. This time it did make a sound, it was a convulsive, heaving, wretched sound.

"Sit up." Glenn ordered as he came into the room, helping me sit and then keeping his hand on my back for support. With shaking hands I took the cup he placed in my palm and took a drink.

My voice was strained and broken and there was a crackle in my throat with every breath, but I managed a "thank-you." He nodded and I started to lean forward, the upright position too exhausting, but Glenn grabbed my shoulder and pushed me back up again.

"To much pressure on your lungs, remember."

"Smartass." I smiled back, thinking on what I'd told him earlier. "How's Henry?"

"I took over from Sasha for a while, Hershel's back in there now. He sent me to you."

"Sounds like it's my turn."

"You don't have to."

"Yes I do. It's good to be doing something anyway." I managed to get to my feet and wander into the next cell, kneeling down beside my father. "I got this."

He nodded, placing a hand on my shoulder and stood up. I pumped the oxygen until it was time for another shift change and Glenn took over again while Sasha had moved downstairs to her cell for some rest. I couldn't go and lie back down again, not in that cell, not alone, not again. So I walked out onto the balcony and started slowly pacing. The funny thing about jelly legs was that they may not have felt capable of holding you up, but they just naturally bent on their own and once you got used to it, it took half the work from you.