Page 7 of Challenged

“Youknow why weare here today,” he continues, no hint of a question in his tone. “Then let’s begin.”

I gasp as I wake. It feels like I’ve been underwater, like I’m sucking down air into oxygen starved lungs. My heart pounds so hard, my chest hurts, and my vision is narrow, blurry, the panic making my head light, woozy.

Breathe, just breathe.

I count my breaths in and out, closing my eyes against the outside world for a moment. Try to pull myself out of the fog ofsleep and into reality. Recall what drama or deadline is causing me stress enough to trigger the familiar Screening anxiety dream.

Nothing rises to the surface of my mind, leaving me all the more uneasy and strangely disoriented. My bed doesn’t feel right underneath me. The chill in my dream has followed me into real life. A low thudding sets in at the base of my skull, radiating up through my brain.

I nearly groan. Clearly, I’m coming down with something, and I just do not have the time or energy to be ill right now. Not with so many proposals on my desk, so many projects to filter through.

Even as I think this, something in the back of my mind tickles at me, the sense of foreboding, of wrongness, ratcheting up again.

I need to get up, get a hot shower. Take some aspirin. Shake whatever the hell this is off.

I stretch my arms, then push myself upright, rolling my shoulders and neck before opening my eyes.

Except, what actually happens is my eyes blink open and nothing else moves. My whole body is frozen in place, my arms and legs barely registering in my awareness. Only the thundering of my heart makes me certain I still have a body beneath my neck at all. I just lie there, staring up at a dark ceiling overhead, the strip lighting dim as though running on backup power.

Not my bedroom. Not even my house.

Where the fuck am I?

My heart pounds even harder. I still can’t move anything except my eyelids, and I blink them rapidly, as if that little movement might encourage the rest of my body to wake the fuck up.

Then a face peers down at me. A young woman, blonde, pretty. Her eyes widen, and she glances back at someone else.

“Uh, I think she’s awake.”

Footsteps. Another person approaching. The chime of electronic buttons being pressed, and then a flood of warmth rushes over me. It should be pleasant, but I’m so cold it burns.

I try to open my mouth. My jaw moves, but the only sound that comes out is a low moan.

“Hey there, try to stay calm. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but you aren’t hurt. You’re going to be okay, I promise.”

The voice is brisk, no nonsense. Female, again. I try to look in the direction it came from, and my head twitches a little, just barely turning.

“It’s going to take a little while for movement to come back,” the voice continues. “Your body needs to finish warming up. You might feel some pins and needles, and it might get quite intense, but it will pass. It’s just your circulation restarting.”

It had stopped?

I think of that breath I took on waking, like I hadn’t taken one in a long time. The ache in my chest from my pounding heart - or perhaps from something else. Have I been resuscitated?

What… what the fuck has happened to me?

I’m breathing hard, my heart racing, the only way my panic can manifest while I’m still frozen. Some machinery starts beeping, loud and insistent and medical sounding, which does nothing to reassure me.

“Hey, try to slow your breathing down,” the no nonsense voice says. Footsteps rush to my side, and then she’s leaning over me, looking down into my eyes. If the buzz cut wasn’t giveaway enough, the size of her makes it obvious she’s military tier. At least six four, and filling out her clothes with pure muscle. I’ve only ever seen military tier people from a distance. Guarding events, patrolling political buildings. On TV. I’ve neverspoken to one of them before. Her presence only adds to my confusion.

“That’s it. Just look at me and breathe. In two, three, four. Out two, three, four. Okay? Breathe with me.”

She lifts her hand towards her face and pushes it away again in time with her breaths, accentuating them for me. I follow her, and by the third or fourth breath, I feel a little more in control.

“I know this must be confusing and frightening for you,” she says, touching a hand to my arm. It scorches my cold skin. “But you’re safe here. You’re not hurt, no matter how much it might feel like you are right now. My name is Brooks, okay? I’m going to look after you through this process, and you’re going to be just fine.”

She keeps talking, a constant stream of reassurances and pleasantries as she taps on buttons on some computer just outside of my field of vision. I can hear the clack of keys pressing, hear electronic beeps. I try to turn my head and I’m rewarded with the tiniest bit of movement. Enough that I can see I’m lying in some sort of metal tube. Electronics run down the inside of it, pulsing with soft blue light.

“Wha…” I try to speak, but my lips feel fat, like I’ve been punched in the face. Little more than a puff of air escapes them.

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