I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart: I am, I am, I am.

It happens when I try to go to sleep. I don’t know why, I would have thought that being more relaxed would make it less likely to happen but I’m wrong. I can feel it as soon as I try to lie down and shut out the world. I breathe in deeply and it’s as if my lungs are infinite, no matter how much I breathe in, it is never enough and my lungs keep wanting more, pushing me to inhale and inhale. I choke on the air, because I know that it’s too much, the rest of my body knows it’s too much – but my lungs don’t care, they crave more, always more. If I called the Name of the Wind to fill my lungs, they would never be satisfied, they would be forever filling, growing, expanding never happy with what they’ve got. But I have to stop myself, shut off what my lungs are screaming for because I’m choking on all of it.

My heart is beating like a drum on the inside of my chest; I can feel it beating faster than normal, which makes me panic, causing me to give in to my lungs once more and gulp at the air, drawing in more than my body can handle. With every breath in, I choke; I cough and splutter with the amount of it trying to feed down my throat. The more I choke, the more oxygen wants to get in. I panic, my heat racing, using up the oxygen that’s coming in. But I know I can’t go on breathing like this forever. Panic has taken over and it’s hard to stop.

I have to sit up, distract myself so I’m not thinking about it, because otherwise it will just continue. It eases after a few moments and I lie back down again, trying to fall into one of my many dream worlds where dragons are real and medieval times were a lot more hygienic.

Things can creep up on you slowly, so slowly you don’t even realise its happening until it’s too late. What you thought was never-ending and unbounded  has been cut in half, you’re suddenly struggling to pull in half a breath before your lungs give out, full to bursting point and unable to hold even a smidgen of what they once craved.  

You’re stuck between limited and limitless and all of the empty air in between.