Alma lay at the bottom of a pit in a cave. Her eyes were closed. She gripped the quintescope. She couldn’t breathe.
Suddenly, someone was next to her. “Are you okay?” a voice said, a voice she didn’t recognize. “Just breathe. Breathe with me. Ready? In—one, two, three, four. Hold your breath. Now breathe out slowly—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Ready to breathe in?”
At first, Alma didn’t think she was breathing. Then, she realized that someone was. Someone was lying on the cold stone ground, filling and emptying her lungs.
And slowly, slowly, she started to realize that someone was her. She started to feel like she was herself again.
Her heartbeat slowed and slowed. Her hands stopped shaking. The whir of thoughts that had been so fast and terrible that they weren’t even real words but only the never-ending clamor of dread and fear quieted.
She breathed. She breathed along with the voice. Over and over.
And finally, after what seemed like a long time, she felt not entirely better, but okay enough to open her eyes.
Sitting on the ground next to her was Dustin.