Whumpcember2022 Day 4: Shortness of Breath
WARNINGS: anxiety, panic attacks, imprisonment, demonic possession
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Nell held her knees close to her chest as she rocked back and forth on her cot, her eyes flicking around the cramped quarters of her dingy cell.
“Hey, it’ll be okay, just calm down.”
She turned, casting her wide eyes upon a girl across from her who was slowly making her way closer to where she held herself in safety.
Well, that wouldn’t do.
“Stay— stay away— from me,” she uttered through heaving breaths. She could feel her skin starting to tingle, a funny numbness twinkling at her fingertips.
“I just want to help you,” the girl said again, taking another step towards Nell.
“I said— no!” Nell shouted, picking up her pillow and tossing it at the encroacher.
“Why don’t you let me handle this one, dollface?” a different voice crooned. Or at least, Nell thought it was a different voice. It also kind of still sounded like the girl in front of her. Shit, was she already going insane?
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck—
Nell felt her chest tighten, her breaths shortening as panic overwhelmed her. It was as though her head was buzzing, filled with thousands of bees that just wouldn’t shut the fuck up for two seconds so that she could think straight. Her hands and feet went cold, and the feeling of nausea worked its way up from her stomach to a nicely formed lump in her throat.
“Oh, yeah, because you’re such a people person,” the girl from earlier jeered. Nell could practically hear the eyeroll.
“I happen to have thousands of years of experience with people, thank you very much,” the second voice sniffed, sounding very much offended.
As entertaining as this was, it couldn’t pull Nell from the full blown panic attack that was threatening to consume her at any moment. She hugged her knees tighter to her still.
“Fine, fine. Have at it then. But you’ll owe me one,” the girl responded. Something sounding similar to the release of a long-held breath echoed through the small cell, but at this point, Nell’s head was shoved firmly down between her knees. She was determined to make herself as small as possible to keep her freak out level to a minimum. Surely that was the solution here.
The sound of a throat clearing drew Nell’s attention, but she kept her head down. She was safe here. Everything was fine. And as long as she kept her head down, she could convince herself to believe that.
“Hey, uhm, kid? Hangin’ in there?” the second voice asked.
“What kind of a stupid-ass question is that? Does she look okay to you, Nar?” the first girl snorted.
Nar hissed back in response, “Will you shut up? I told you to let me handle it, this is me handling it. And don’t call me that. It’s Narkissa.”
“Sure, sure, fine. Whatever,” the first girl answered sardonically.
“Sorry about that. Ignore Sadie. She’s… Anyway, where were we?” Narkissa continued, closer this time than she had been earlier.
“Just— just leave me— alone,” Nell stammered between sobs. “I’ll be f—fine.”
Narkissa laughed, “Yeah, you’re doing so well on your own, clearly.”
Nell didn’t think that dignified a response, so instead, she spent her energy focusing on her breathing and figuring out how the fuck to take in a deep goddamn breath. Since when did that become the hardest thing in the world?
“Listen, I want you to look at me, okay? Can you do that?” Narkissa asked, her tone kinder and more pleading than a moment before. That alone convinced Nell to pull her head out of the hole she’d been hiding it in, but when she did, she was even more confused than before.
The first girl, the girl who’d been coming toward her earlier, was standing before Nell now. She had long, blonde, beautiful hair, her ears, neck, and wrists were dripping in expensive jewels and diamonds, and she was dressed like one of the mean girls in, well, the movie Mean Girls. But this voice that was talking to her now, it wasn’t that girl’s voice.
“A—are you two tw—twins?” Nell asked haltingly, her chest still gripped in the iron vice of hysteria.
Narkissa reared her head back in confusion, “What?”
“You and S—Sadie. You look i—dentical,” Nell explained, peering around Narkissa to get a good look at Sadie, just to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. And that’s when she realized: she and Narkissa were the only two in the cell.
Nell raised her head up from her knees, looking back at Narkissa with a look of complete perplexion.
Narkissa pursed her lips, squinting her eyes as though she were contemplating how to answer. She took a deep breath, then said, “Right. That’s sort of a, uh, long— well, not long. Weird. It’s sort of a weird story. And I promise to tell it to you if you listen to me right now. Deal?”
Still utterly bewildered, Nell just nodded her head, her curiosity winning out over her frenzied dread for the moment.
“Good. Okay, I want you to just focus on me. Can you do that?” Narkissa asked, squatting down in front of Nell. She nodded her head again in response.
“Okay. We’re gonna breathe now, together. Ready? Deep breath in, in, in— good, now out, slowly, slowly. Good. You’re doing good, Nell,” Narkissa reassured her. At the back of her mind, Nell wondered how she even knew her name, but the thought quickly left her when Narkissa spoke again.
For a few minutes, they sat there, breathing together, slowly, deeply, Narkissa never allowing Nell to break her focus. Eventually, Nell’s heart rate slowed down to something more reasonable, and the tingling sensation receded from her nerves. She warmed, and loosened the death grip she still had on her knees.
A few awkward moments passed before Nell spoke up, tentatively obliging, “Thank you. I appreciate what you did.”
Narkissa stared at her for a beat, her eyes flicking between Nell’s own, before she hastily stood, flipping her hair nonchalantly before turning and walking back across the cell, swaying her hips the whole time as she flippantly tossed over her shoulder, “Whatever, I only did it because you were starting to annoy me. Don’t get too attached.”
Nell stared after her, her head tilting as she tried to figure out what that immediate change was about. Then, she called out, “What about that story you promised me?”
Narkissa threw her head back, hissing, “God, you’re so needy. I don’t have time for this. Sadie, you deal with it.”
Her body jerked, prompting Nell to her feet out of concern. “Hey, are you—?”
Before she could finish her sentence, Nell again heard the sound of a releasing breath and watched Narkissa’s body shudder again. Then, she turned back to Nell, a soft smile painted across her lips.
“Sorry about that. Nar is like, way dramatic. You’ll get used to her.”
The voice came from Narkissa’s body, but… it was the first girl’s voice. Nell’s eyes widened. What the hell was going on here?
She could feel her chest threatening to tighten again, but Nell took a deep breath like she’d done with Narkissa and just flat-out asked, “Okay… what— and I mean this sincerely— the fuck?”
With pity in her eyes, she sighed and answered, “Right, yeah. Nar always leaves me with the fun bit. Okay, so.”
She flipped her hair again and strutted back over to Nell, plopping herself down on the cot next to her. Nell scooted a good foot away when she did, keeping her eyes on her the entire time. If she was hearing voices in her head, Nell needed to keep an eye on her to make sure they didn't suddenly tell her to kill Nell right there on the bed.
“Hi, I’m Sadie. Sadie Schultz, it’s nice to meet you,” Sadie extended her hand, but Nell just stared back at her, unmoving from her spot. Awkwardly, Sadie retracted her arm, brushing her perfect hair behind her ear and continuing, “A long time ago, I was out partying with my friends— we were at this totally kick-ass bar in New York, it was on the rooftop of one of the fanciest hotels and it was incredible.”
Sadie twirled a piece of hair, lost in her memory of that night until Nell cleared her throat, prompting her to continue. “Oh, yeah, right. So like, we were partying and living it up, but I seriously had to pee. So, I went to the bathroom— and I was, like, totally smashed, so this part is definitely not my fault— and there was this totally weird guy in there. But I’m drunk, right? So I’m like, ‘whatever, must be the bathroom attendant,’ and I walk past him. But the dickhead grabs my arm and whispers something really pretty in my ear, and that was sweet and all but I was not interested. So, I ignored him and peed and came out and washed my hands and that’s when I saw this little piece of, like, old paper on the counter. I picked it up and read it out loud and then all of a sudden the room got super foggy and there were some major ooky-spooky vibes. This black smoke showed up and forced its way in my mouth and, long story short, that’s how I met Narkissa.”
She smiled like it was the simplest thing in the world to understand, but Nell’s head was reeling. So, Sadie got drunk and probably high from some random dude hanging out in the ladies’ room and made an imaginary friend?
“What?” Nell couldn’t stop herself from asking.
Nell heard the breathy sound again and watched as Sadie’s head shook back and forth a few times. If she was having a seizure, she was fucked, because Nell had no idea how to help.
“For fuck’s sake, Sadie,” Narkissa’s voice hissed from Sadie’s mouth. She made direct eye contact with Nell, then shut her eyes, holding them closed for longer than normal before opening them again.
They were coal black. Not just the iris, but her entire eye had gone completely blank, filled only with the void of darkness. It stayed long enough for Nell to blink a few times to try and get the hallucination to go away, but it wouldn’t. And then, as Nell stared, the black shrank back into the bright blue pools of Sadie’s irises, and it was as if it had never been there in the first place.
A chill ran down Nell’s spine as Narkissa spoke again, “I’m a demon, Nell. Narkissa, Grand Duke to the Under, pleasure to finally make your acquaintance. And I’ve been trapped in Sadie’s body ever since that infernal day that she summoned me to her in that accursed bathroom.”
“Oh.” That was all Nell could say in response. What else do you say to that? “Sorry you got tricked into and trapped inside of a human, that really sucks, man”?
She could feel her lungs shrinking, perhaps even threatening to implode this time as another panic attack began to overwhelm her. Were demons real now? Is that really what she was going to believe? And if she believed that, what else could be out there? Vampires? Werewolves? Faeries?
There was a new, endless supply of terror just waiting to overwhelm Nell at the most inconvenient of times, and she simply was not going to have it. She grabbed her pillow off the floor where she’d thrown it at Sadie, dropped back down on the cot, and threw it over her head.
“No,” she said. And nothing else.
“No?” Narkissa asked, clearly confounded.
“No,” Nell repeated.
“What do you mean ‘no’?” Narkissa snarled, clearly losing her patience.
“I can’t do this right now,” she responded, fighting back her desire to hyperventilate her problems away.
“Well that’s too fucking bad, sweetheart, because whether you like it or not, it’s real. And it’s not going away,” Narkissa spat, standing in a huff and pacing to the other side of the cell.
“Will you just calm down? It was a lot for her to take. Just like, give her some time,” Sadie attempted to soothe Narkissa, but she wasn’t having it.
“Calm down? Why don’t you shut the fuck up for once and give me one fucking moment of peace, huh?” Narkissa snarked back, stewing.
“Someone sounds upset that she’s been rejected by the pretty girl in the cell,” Sadie teased, her voice lilting.
“I hate you,” Narkissa jabbed, but there was no heat behind her voice.
“No, you don’t,” Sadie hummed.
Sadie walked back over to Nell, gently lifting the pillow off of her head. Nell looked up at her with big doe eyes, and Sadie offered a friendly hand.
“C’mon, sit up. We’ve got work to do,” she appealed, smiling wider when Nell accepted and did as she was told.
“Work? What work?” Nell asked, pleased that her chest was calming down of its own accord this time.
“Well, we’re all trapped in this cell, aren’t we?” Narkissa grumbled, rolling her eyes. “Let’s figure out a way to bust out of this joint.”
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