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SHE STOOD ENTIRELY still, almost as though time had halted in its entirety, leaving her limbs glued to the ground. Though she could hear both Shane's and Rick's and another stranger's, it had been impossible to move. Not an inch to be seen departing from stillness nor rigidity. History was about to be written.
Shane frantically stood before Ellie, waving his hand in front of her entranced face in an attempt to awake her from the shock rattling her body like waves. His blurred hands waved frantically before her, but he received no reaction to his attempts at regaining her attention. The deep panic within her stomach begun to rise like flames spilling wildly amongst trees. Also she could do was keep her eyes glued to the ground.
Once Rick had sunken down beside his dying son, all Ellie had been capable of doing was stumbling backward, suddenly stuck in a trance of anxiety. Her chest thumped with a seething ache, almost as though the very organ keeping her alive had been desperate to flee the turmoil.
"Ellie, what the hell are you doing?" Shane bellowed loudly, waving his frantic hand ahead of Ellie's face at how she had suddenly frozen.
Ellie gulped loudly as Shane gripped onto her arm, prompting her to shakily breathe out, "Shane, I can't breathe!"
Shane recognised her breathing as an impending panic attack, slowly bringing Ellie down onto her knees, and held her shoulders softly, "Ellie, you have to focus on your breathing! Count in with me!"
>>>
"Ellie, keep your eyes on me! I'm here..." Luke yelled to his sister, desperate for a response as she breathed raggedly on the ground, "Do this for me, please!"
Ellie's trembling hand gripped onto Luke's, spreading with white from the intensity as she shrieked, "I–I can't!"
"Count with me, okay?" Luke declared calmly as he held her face in his hands, ensuring her attention had been solely him as he quietly counted, "One, two..."
Luke proceeded with the counting aloud, allowing a slight smile to grow at his lips as Ellie's quiet voice begun to count along quietly with each breath she took. Her crystalline eyes had never once left her older brother's, desperately searching for solace from all the anguish in her chest as she slowly breathed through the pain. Luke cupped at her head adoringly, praising her for her success as she had been slowly steadying her breath.
"Take it ten seconds at a time," Luke told her softly, his hand still holding her face as her breath became slightly more balanced, yet the fear was still thick within her, "If you can take it ten seconds, everything will be okay. Then you start another ten seconds, until it's over."
