Free Beyond the Grave by Mara Purnhagen

proud….”
    My awkward attempt at optimism was cut off by a loud crash.
    I froze. My vision began to swirl, and my chest tightened. Bliss was looking past me, at the source of the noise.
    â€œSomeone dropped a bunch of lunch trays,” she said. “They’re cleaning it up.”
    I heard her voice, but it sounded as if she was far away. I was dizzy and having trouble breathing.
    â€œYou okay?” Bliss sounded concerned.
    I couldn’t answer her. Not here, I thought. Oh please, not here and not now. I felt that I should be able to control this. I knew why it was happening, so why couldn’t I stop it? That logical part of my brain was overridden by something else, though, something with a stronger pull. Because that was how it truly felt: as if I was being pulled down into something dark, something awful, and I needed to get out. I needed to escape from this room, which had no oxygen, and away from these people. I had to go somewhere, anywhere else. “Charlotte?”
    By now I was hyperventilating. “Don’t,” I gasped. “Don’t let them see me.” The dizziness claimed me and my head hit the table. Wet salad stuck to my cheek and I didn’t care. I wasn’t sure what I’d said to Bliss or what it meant, but I knew I had to get out of that room. In a flash, Bliss was at my side, propping me up.
    â€œCharlotte? You need to talk to me or I’m going to have to call an ambulance.”
    â€œNo.” I struggled to sit up, but I was still having trouble breathing. “Please, get me out of here.”
    I heard a male voice close by. “She okay?”
    â€œYeah.” Bliss was struggling to lift me from my seat. “It’s just her period. Those cramps can be brutal.”
    â€œWhoa.” The guy scurried away.
    â€œListen to me,” Bliss said into my ear. “I’m going to get you outside, but I need you to breathe, okay? Listen to me. Breathe in, breathe out.”
    I focused on her voice. I made myself breathe when she directed me to do so, and within minutes, I was feeling less dizzy. Also, I realized with confusion, I was outside.
    â€œWhat happened?” I held a vague memory of the cafeteria, but my mind was blurry. I had no idea how much time had passed, but Bliss and I were both sitting in the grass outside.My back was pressed against a tree. Bliss was across from me, dabbing a damp paper towel to my forehead.
    â€œI think you had a panic attack.” She squeezed excess water from the paper towel before pressing it against the back of my neck. “First one?”
    â€œNo,” I admitted. “Not even close. How did you know what was happening?”
    â€œMy mom used to have them all the time. It took me a minute to catch on with you, though. Do you know what caused it?”
    â€œThe sound of the trays crashing.”
    I told Bliss about my previous panic attacks and how they always occurred after a loud, sudden noise. The first one had happened when I was alone. I had spent a long day at the hospital with my mom and was exhausted, so when I got home I had curled up on the couch to watch a little TV. I was slowly flipping through the channels, hoping to find a decent rerun, when an action movie filled the screen. Men in business suits chased a girl through a warehouse. She stumbled, the men surrounded her, and she looked up as a board came smashing down on her body.
    The scene cut to a commercial, leaving the girl’s fate uncertain, but I was already sliding into panic mode. I immediately felt dizzy and nauseous. I bent over, trying to breathe but also trying to keep myself from throwing up all over the sofa.
    I wasn’t sure what was happening to me. My first thought was that I was sick, like food-poisoning sick, but when my vision began to blur, I knew it was something else. Later, when I typed in my symptoms on the computer, I figured out that I had experienced tunnel vision, a painfully