Whispered Kiss

Damania

"Woman. Enough. Gather strength. You are no weakling. Raise your head and focus on the predicament."

The emotionless resonance of my shadowed companion broke through my panic. I turned to look at it. A thought flitting through my system. Maybe this creature was my inner voice, trying to lead me in the right direction. Maybe that's why it didn't bare any outward appearances. No matter the case, it had a point. I wanted to feel like an utter weakling, hell, the urge almost overwhelmed me but in truth, I wasn't a total loss. Sometimes, the fight within me merely got buried beneath a load of bullshit. If I dug hard enough, I could use it. That meant something, didn't it?

I needed to pull myself together and be ready when the car stopped. You've had panic attacks before. You survived them. You can survive this one.

I forced my chaotic mind into a semblance of stillness and tried to remember what my therapy lessons taught me. What I used the most during other panic attacks. The three-step program! Yes. That's it. Breath in and out. List five things you can see. Do something.

With the thought found and cemented, I inhaled, filled my lungs with air, and exhaled. I repeated the method until my breathing became less frantic. From here, I moved on to the second step and focused my vision on the world around me. Internally, I spoke each object I saw.

Creature. Approaching dirt road. A clump of trees in an on an open landscape. Exceptionally bright blue skies. A brown-red barn peeking through the trees.

For the last step I slapped my cheeks, not too hard, and pinched my skin.

The technique didn't have an immediate effect but it did start the process and already I could feel myself breathing, thinking, and moving better. The pain in my chest started subduing and with my mental state more concrete, I could be conscious of what transpired around me.

The car made a sharp turn onto an uneven dirt road causing the entirety of everything inside, excluding my creature companion, to shake. It seemed as if we headed towards a clump of trees which grew around a barn, its burgundy colour faded and peeling away. The roof, which stuck out above the trees, lacked most of its colour except for a few patches of off-yellow. The state of the building lead me to believe it had been abandoned, yet my heart held a spark of hope. Maybe if someone lived there, I could manage to seek help.

The speed of the car slowed.

"Beware."

I turned to the speaker of the word, a snicker forming on my lips. "You keep warning me and you keep talking bullshit. You proclaim to be real and yet you don't do anything to help me. How about you get out there and save me?" I lifted a challenging brow and waited.

My companion didn't even twitch. He sat in the same spot, staring ahead of him. A sentinel being who had grown used to time and emotion flowing past him, indignant to its stings or meaning.

"I have many attributes, but none can be executed if you hold me captive between death and living."

His answer rolled through the air with its ever-toneless lilt. I shook my head in dismay and released a snort.

"How convenient." I knew I shouldn't have expected more.

Without another word spoken between us, we waited to see where our imprisoned trip headed, hoping for an opportunity to escape. The car turned onto another, smaller dirt road, heading straight towards the barn I spotted earlier. Except, up-close I could see the barn's condition and it didn't instil the same hope as before. One of the barn doors hung on old rusted hinges, ready to collapse to the ground while the trees grew wild, crisscrossing together and breaking through parts of the structure. A would-be driveway filled with cracks, weeds and shards of broken cement lead to another clump of trees. I couldn't see anything between the trees. No house. No people. No form of rescue.