Chapter Text
I've known English for twelve out of the seventeen years of my life. It's the only common language I have between my peers; I should be able to form coherent sentences as I would any other day. But, for some reason, it's like I'm back to the five-year-old me, the kid who moved from Cuba to America without knowing a lick of the native language. I'm confused and scared, terrified that I'll forget it all. The English words are flying right out of my head, the Spanish trailing along behind them. I can't do anything but gape at everything before me, comparing the vastness of space to how claustrophobic the room feels. It's dark, and the air is too thin, and I'm alone. I'm desperately scratching, reaching for someone to hold me as my mother did. I can barely register the loud sobs that escape me, though everyone around me can hear them clearly. I know that they are there, those cries, but I cannot hear the sound in which they create. I'm confused and scared, terrified when someone opens the door. I feel someone close in on my side, making me release a shuddering breath that sends a violent shiver down my spine. It's too tight in here, and all I can think about it getting out, getting away, throwing it all away. All of these sensations, these feelings, this silent sound is too much, too aggressive.
Something encases me more, and I thrash my arms to try to move away. It scares me, how the feeling was so sudden and warm and cold all at the same time. I feel the soft way a voice is when it is whispering right in my ear, but I don't understand. I am being embraced, and for some reason, that only makes me panic more. Someone has found me, weak and fragile, and they will now think differently of me. They will tell the others, and I will be looked down upon as though I am useless. I already bring down the team, this wonderful team of elites that I have no part of. If they see me like this mess that I have crumbled into, they will replace me. I am simply dispensable; you'd think nothing less of a seventh wheel.
I can no longer catch my breath, it seems, as I am wheezing through the thick layer of pent up feelings that lodges itself in my throat. My eyes are wide and unseeing, lost in a sea being doused by torrential downpour. The voice beside me is raising in volume, desperately needing something, calling out to someone. More people enter the room, and I can't breathe at all. I can feel the tears, hot and painful on my cheeks. The next voice is commanding but oh, so, so gentle. The last voice was familiar, but I could be dead, six feet under, and still recognize this particular voice.
The arms around me are gone and, despite not wanting too, my breath releases itself in a state of very mild relief. A warm, rougher hand grabs my own, and I remember this feeling and latch onto it like a baby too its parent. It is the very definition of comfort, and all I can do is lean heavily on the person providing me this tranquility. It's not enough, I'm still shaking harshly and my breath is uneven and cracking. But this soft touch is something concrete, and I need that. There are no soft whispers in my ear, just quiet. The noise comes from around me, the people surrounding my bed as I am huddled in the farthest corner. My incoherent thoughts seem to slow, and my body's tense hold releases, but only by a little. I can feel my eyes close, not to sleep but in an attempt to ground myself. I focus on my breathing, to force it into a steady, deep pace. I focus on my heart, to try to get it to beat at the same steadiness it usually does. I focus on myself, and not my surroundings. I urge myself to listen, though, to make out what it happening. I can hear, hear one to tell the others to leave, and another, much more avid and angered voice, say no. Say that no, they cannot leave, not when I am like this.
Breathing becomes difficult again. It is my fault that these people are being distracted from their everyday events, the things they need to be doing. I am holding these people back because I am weak. My heart beats too quickly, now, and my breath has been taken from me again. I try to grab whatever is near me, and then, I feel a hand in my own and I grip it so tightly. I need something, anything to hold onto to keep me from drowning in everything that I know. The hand squeezes mine, and another sob wracks through my body and I can't stop it from happening.
There's a weight on my shoulders that is only getting heavier, pushing my body farther and father down. I am hunched over, searching for anything to stabilize myself. Everything is getting darker, I am getting dizzier. I am held fast, myself unmoving. It happens all at once, where there is something, and then
nothing.