Nina

A wave of invisible heat swept through me.

It started in my chest, climbed up my throat, and spread beneath my skin like an electrical storm. My hands were shaking, damp and strangely unfamiliar, as though they belonged to someone else. My heart was pounding so hard it felt less like a heartbeat and more like an attempt to break free.

There wasn't enough air.

Every breath felt like work.

Mom's voice reached me from somewhere far away, muffled and distorted, as if she were speaking to me from underwater. I could see her lips moving, but I couldn't make sense of the words.

The walls began to blur.

The colors.

The people.

Everything.

For a moment, I couldn't tell if I was awake or if the world had simply broken apart around me.

What's happening to me?

Is this a heart attack?

Am I dying?

I'm not even twenty.

This can't be happening.

The morning had started like any other.

Cold and crisp, carrying that particular kind of December air—sharp enough to sting your lungs, clean enough to make you believe winter had a personality of its own.

University break had just started, and, like every year, Mom—Victoria Morin—my sister, and I had our little December tradition.

The first Saturday of the month belonged to Christmas shopping.

We'd spend the afternoon wandering through stores, looking for gifts, trying things on, stopping for coffee, and inevitably buying things none of us had planned to buy.

The mall was packed.

Warm lights glowed from every storefront. Christmas music played softly overhead. Everywhere I looked, people were carrying shopping bags, searching for the perfect gift before the holidays arrived.

Outside, the cold bit.

Inside, everything glittered.

It was as if the world had decided to be softer for a few weeks.

We took our time.

Mom always said December wasn't meant to be rushed.

“Enjoy the moment,” she'd tell me. “It's the only thing you know you have.”

I used to roll my eyes at that.

But I always listened.

The three of us had always been a team.

Mom was the kind of woman who could walk into a room and somehow make everything feel steadier without even trying. Smart. Beautiful without effort. The kind of person whose smile could make a bad day feel temporarily manageable.

She had been my compass for as long as I could remember.

The person who solved problems before I even realized there was one.

The person who could take a mess and somehow turn it into something simple.

I'd spent my entire life assuming she would always know what to do.

That day, she seemed especially alive.

She walked beside me, peering into store windows and making quiet observations as if we were on some kind of secret mission. Every few minutes she'd stop in front of a display, study it with exaggerated seriousness, and then burst out laughing at herself.

At Zara, she stopped dead in front of an emerald-green coat.

She picked it up with both hands and held it against herself.

“Okay. Be honest,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “Is this elegant, or is this more of an I made some terrible life choices situation?”

I laughed.

“Definitely the second one. But an expensive version.”

She gasped dramatically.

“You're awful.”

She nudged my arm with her elbow.

“Your grandmother deserves something nice. Not… whatever this is.”

“My grandmother would happily accept cash.”

“Cash?”

She pressed a hand to her chest as though I'd personally offended her.

“That's not Christmas, Nina. That's emotional surrender.”

We both started laughing.

Just like that.

No effort.

No warning.

For one tiny, perfect moment, everything was exactly where it was supposed to be.

The warm lights above us.

The music playing somewhere in the background.

The smell of coffee and sugar.

Her laughter blending with mine.

I didn't know it then, but that would be the last completely ordinary moment I'd remember without it hurting.

The last intact piece of a life I didn't yet know was about to fall apart.

Because a few minutes later, everything would change.

It began with a little dizziness.

A warm wave moved through me, making me sway for a second.

I thought maybe it was the wine I'd had the night before.

Or the heat inside the store.

Then my heart started racing.

Not from excitement.

Not from exertion.

It was pounding wildly, violently, as if my body knew something I didn't.

My palms grew sweaty.

The coat slipped from my fingers.

I watched it fall in slow motion.

I bent down to pick it up, but my legs didn't feel like legs anymore.

They felt soft.

Unsteady.

Wrong.

The floor seemed to move toward me and away from me at the same time.

As if it were breathing.

As if I were falling without actually going anywhere.

“Nina?”

Mom's voice sounded distant.

“Are you okay, sweetheart?”

I tried to answer.

Nothing came out.

The air was gone.

Not because there wasn't any.

The air was right there.

My body just didn't know what to do with it.

I tried to inhale.

Nothing.

Again.

Still nothing.

It felt as if I were drowning in the middle of the mall, surrounded by perfume counters, Christmas displays, and strangers who had no idea that I couldn't breathe.

My skin turned cold.

Sweat slid down my back.

The world around me became unfamiliar.

Everything spun.

Everything tilted.

Am I dying?

My heartbeat thundered in my ears.

I pressed a hand against my chest.

A sharp pain shot through me.

Is this a heart attack?

Am I going to die here?

Between perfume and Christmas music?

Victoria grabbed my arm.

Her touch should have grounded me.

Instead, it felt unreal.

As if I were no longer inside my own body.

As if I were watching myself from somewhere else.

Calm down, Nina.

Breathe.

Just breathe.

But fear wasn't a thought anymore.

It was something physical.

Something alive.

A wild animal tearing through my veins.

A monster that had woken up and decided to take me with it.

I thought I was going to faint.

Mom pulled me into her arms.

She was saying something—soft words, probably—but I couldn't understand any of them.

My entire body shook.

Tears slipped down my face without warning.

My lungs begged for air.

The world kept spinning.

I wanted to scream.

I couldn't.

I was trapped.

Inside myself.

And no one knew how to get me out.

I don't remember how we got out of the store.

My feet weren't really walking.

Mom was holding me upright, practically carrying me, keeping me moving with a strength I didn't know she had.

The cold hit my face the moment we stepped outside.

It should have helped.

It didn't.

I still didn't feel real.

Every breath scraped on the way in.

Every inhale was too shallow.

Too sharp.

Too little.

I barely remember getting to the car.

Mom kept talking to me in that soft, trembling voice mothers use when they're terrified but refuse to let their children hear it.

“We're almost there, sweetheart.”

She stroked my arm.

“You're going to be okay.”

“This will pass.”

I didn't answer.

I just let her take care of me.

She fastened my seat belt with shaking hands.

When she closed the door, I saw her swallow hard.

Her eyes were wide.

I'd never seen fear look so strange on her face.

She gripped the steering wheel with both hands and drove straight to the hospital.

She didn't turn on the radio.

Neither of us spoke.

The drive felt endless.

Dad was already waiting when we arrived.

Julián Morin.

Tall, composed, with sharp features and the kind of calm that made everyone else feel safer.

He was the person who handled emergencies.

The person who never raised his voice.

The person who always knew what to do.

But that day, I could see the cracks.

In his hands.

In the way he wouldn't quite meet my eyes.

He opened the car door the second we pulled in.

“What happened?”

His voice was quieter than usual.

“I don't know,” Mom said.

Her voice broke.

“I don't know. It was like… something inside her just disappeared.”

Dad slipped an arm around my waist and helped me toward the emergency room.

Every step felt impossible.

The hospital was familiar.

I'd been there before.

But that day, I didn't recognize it.

The white lights.

The glass doors.

The voices behind the desk.

None of it felt real.

My heart started racing again.

The lights overhead seemed to move.

The floor tilted beneath my feet.

I started sweating.

Shaking.

My chest tightened.

No.

Not again.

Please.

“Breathe, Nina.”

Mom squeezed my hand.

“I'm right here.”

Dad guided us toward the waiting area.

He helped me sit down.

The chair was cold and hard beneath me.

I leaned back and closed my eyes.

For a second, I thought I was disappearing.

Then a warm tear slipped down my cheek.

“It'll pass, sweetheart,” Mom whispered.

She wrapped her arms around me.

For a moment, I believed her.

A nurse appeared in the doorway.

“Nina Morin?”

I looked up.

I nodded.

My eyes were wide with terror.

I wanted to say, Don't leave me alone.

I couldn't.

“Can we come with her?” Mom asked.

I nodded again.

Dad put an arm around my shoulders.

The nurse led us down a cold hallway that smelled like disinfectant.

Our footsteps echoed beneath the distant beeping of monitors.

We entered an examination room.

I dropped into the nearest chair.

Across from me, a mirror caught my reflection.

For a moment, I didn't recognize the girl staring back.

The door opened.

A thin man with angular features and observant eyes walked in.

He looked to be in his mid-thirties.

There was nothing particularly remarkable about him.

Except for the way he moved.

Calmly.

Deliberately.

As if nothing in the room could rush him.

Which, considering the chaos inside me, felt almost impossible to understand.

He closed the door behind him and looked at all three of us.

“Good afternoon. I'm Dr. Elias Navarro.”

He greeted my parents first.

Then he held out his hand to me.

I tried to take it.

My fingers were cold and clumsy.

He didn't seem to notice.

Or maybe he simply didn't care.

He sat across from me and placed a closed folder on the desk.

He didn't open it.

He looked at me instead.

Not with pity.

Not even with concern.

Just patience.

“Nina,” he said quietly, “before we start, I want you to tell me what happened. Use your own words. You don't have to explain it perfectly.”

I opened my mouth.

Nothing came.

How do you explain something you don't understand yourself?

I stared at him.

My eyes filled again.

“I don't know…”

My voice broke.

I swallowed.

“I thought I was going to die.”

Silence.

The doctor didn't write anything down.

He simply nodded once.

“Okay.”

He waited.

“Do you remember what you were doing right before you started feeling sick?”

I looked at Mom.

She squeezed my hand.

“We were shopping,” she said. “Everything was normal.”

I took a slow breath.

It was still difficult.

“Then I got dizzy. My heart started beating really fast… and then I couldn't breathe.”

Saying it out loud made the fear come rushing back.

“Did you feel pain in your chest?”

I nodded.

“Yes.”

“Was it pressure, or more of a sharp pain?”

I thought about it.

“Pressure.”

He wrote something down.

“Did you lose consciousness?”

“No.”

I hesitated.

“But I felt like I was going to.”

He nodded again.

He didn't look alarmed.

He didn't look unconcerned either.

He was simply listening.

Mom finally spoke.

“Doctor… she was terrified. I've never seen her like that.”

He turned toward her.

“I understand how frightening that must have been.”

Then he looked back at me.

“Nina, I'd like to ask you a few more questions and run some tests. Not because I have a specific diagnosis in mind yet.”

He paused.

“But when the body reacts this strongly, we need to rule certain things out first. Then we can figure out what's going on.”

He didn't tell me it was nothing.

He didn't tell me to relax.

And strangely, that helped.

He wasn't dismissing me.

He was trying to understand.

“Come with me, Nina.”

His voice was gentle, but there was no room for argument.

I stood slowly.

My legs still felt unreliable.

I followed him down another long hallway.

Mom stayed close.

Dad followed a few steps behind.

He took us into a small examination room.

Nothing dramatic.

No movie-like equipment.

Just fluorescent lights, a computer, an examination table covered in paper, and the unmistakable smell of alcohol and disinfectant.

I sat down.

The doctor pulled up a chair.

“I'll examine you first and ask you a few more questions. Okay?”

I nodded.

He gave me a faint smile.

He checked my blood pressure.

Listened to my breathing.

Asked when it had started.

Whether I'd eaten.

Whether I'd slept.

Whether I'd had any alcohol.

Whether anything like this had ever happened before.

I answered as best I could.

I felt embarrassed by how impossible it was to explain.

How do you say I thought I was dying without sounding ridiculous?

When I finished, he closed the folder.

“Because of the chest pain, I'd like to run an ECG and some routine blood work. Just to make sure everything looks okay.”

The word ECG made my stomach tighten.

Not because I understood what they were looking for.

But because some part of me was still waiting for someone to tell me the worst.

A nurse came in a few minutes later.

I lay back.

The paper beneath me crinkled.

She placed small, cold electrodes across my chest and beneath my collarbones.

Then she attached the wires.

I felt exposed.

Cold.

Afraid.

I stared at the ceiling while the machine printed a long strip of black lines.

The doctor studied it.

His expression didn't change.

He didn't say anything.

Just nodded.

“All done, Nina. You can get dressed. We'll continue with the blood work.”

I fixed my clothes and stood.

My hands were still trembling.

My parents followed me as we walked to another room.

We stopped in front of a blue door without a window.

The moment it opened, the smell hit me.

Alcohol.

Disinfectant.

That sterile, cold scent that always seemed to carry something unsettling beneath it.

Everything inside was white.

Not peaceful white.

Not bright white.

Clinical white.

The fluorescent lights hummed overhead.

A young nurse looked up and smiled politely.

“Let's get a few samples, Nina,” Dr. Navarro said. “It won't take long.”

I nodded.

My body clearly didn't believe him.

The nurse pointed me toward a small bathroom to give a urine sample.

I went inside alone.

Closed the door.

Then stood there for a few seconds without moving.

I looked at myself in the mirror.

My hair was stuck to my forehead.

My eyes looked enormous.

I looked like I'd run for miles.

Not like someone who had been Christmas shopping an hour ago.

When I came out with the sample in my hands, I felt strangely exposed.

As if I were handing over more than a little bit of my body.

The nurse took it and directed me to another room.

There were several chairs with armrests.

A metal tray.

Empty tubes.

Gauze.

Syringes.

And then I understood.

Blood work.

My heart dropped.

Anxiety curled inside my stomach like an animal waiting to strike.

I've been terrified of needles since I was a child.

Not nervous.

Not uncomfortable.

Terrified.

Just seeing one was sometimes enough to make me feel like I couldn't breathe.

And now I was sitting there, already struggling to breathe, watching one come toward me.

I sat down awkwardly.

My legs were shaking.

The nurse smiled.

“It's okay, Nina. It'll be quick. Just breathe.”

Breathe.

People always said it as though breathing were a choice.

As though I could simply decide to do it properly.

I slowly rolled up my sleeve.

My arm felt strangely detached from me.

The nurse tied the tourniquet above my elbow.

The pressure tightened around my arm.

It didn't hurt.

But suddenly I could feel every inch of it.

Every vein.

Every pulse.

“Make a fist for me.”

I did.

She wiped my skin with alcohol.

Cold.

Then came the smell.

Sharp.

Clean.

Too close.

I started sweating.

“You okay?”

“Yes.”

The lie came automatically.

Dad stood beside me.

He moved closer and touched my shoulder.

“I'm right here.”

I didn't look at him.

I was afraid that if I did, I'd cry.

The needle went in.

A quick sting.

Then a strange pressure.

Something moving inside my arm.

I watched the tube begin to fill.

And then—

Heat.

It rushed through me.

Chest to throat.

Then cold.

Then an empty drop in my stomach.

My palms went damp.

My chest tightened.

My throat followed.

I took a breath.

Then another.

It wasn't enough.

No.

Not again.

I opened my eyes.

The ceiling light seemed impossibly far away.

The nurse was saying something.

I couldn't understand her.

My heart was racing again.

Too fast.

Way too fast.

I felt myself falling.

Not toward the floor.

Somewhere inward.

“Dad…”

His name barely made it past my lips.

He was beside me instantly.

The nurse pulled back.

“Nina?”

I couldn't answer.

The voices around me grew distant.

I felt myself being lowered onto the bed.

Someone lifted my legs.

Footsteps hurried around me.

Then Dr. Navarro's voice.

Someone mentioned my blood pressure.

I didn't care.

There was only one thought left in my head.

I don't want to feel this again.

And then I stopped fighting it.

I let myself fall.

---

I woke slowly, as if I were surfacing from the bottom of a deep, heavy lake.

My body felt impossibly heavy.

My mouth was dry.

I blinked against the white hospital lights.

For a moment, I didn't know where I was.

Then I saw them.

Mom sat beside me, her eyes wet, her hands clasped tightly in her lap.

Dad stood against the wall, his jaw tense.

They were both watching me as if they were afraid to blink.

As if the smallest movement might break me again.

“What happened?” I managed.

My voice sounded rough and distant.

Mom leaned toward me immediately.

She brushed my hair away from my face.

That simple gesture had always been enough to make me feel safe.

“Your blood pressure dropped suddenly,” she said. “You fainted. But you're okay now.”

I wanted to believe her.

I pushed myself up slightly.

Nothing hurt.

But I felt… empty.

As if something had left my body without asking permission.

Dr. Navarro walked into the room.

He looked exactly as he had before.

Calm.

Composed.

Folder in hand.

As if the chaos that had just happened had never existed.

“Hello, Nina.”

A faint smile crossed his face.

“I'm glad you're awake.”

He moved to the foot of the bed and looked through the test results.

“Everything looks normal. There's nothing here suggesting anything serious. Your blood pressure dropped suddenly.”

He paused.

“It was a vasovagal response.”

I stared at him.

I didn't understand.

Mom frowned.

“What does that mean?”

“It's a reaction from the nervous system,” he explained. “Under certain circumstances, your blood pressure can drop very suddenly. It can cause dizziness, sweating, and sometimes fainting.”

The words sounded clinical.

Logical.

But they didn't explain what had happened to me.

“Why does it happen?” Mom asked.

The doctor looked at me.

“Nina… have you been under a lot of stress lately?”

The word hit differently.

It wasn't medical.

It was personal.

I didn't answer.

Stress.

The word stayed suspended between us.

And then—

from somewhere that didn't make sense—

I heard it.

A laugh.

Her laugh.

It sounded so real.

Not in the room.

Behind me.

My breath caught.

I turned slightly.

Nothing.

I blinked.

The sound was gone.

“I don't know,” I whispered.

Mom looked at Dad.

Dad looked back at her.

It was quick.

Almost imperceptible.

But I saw it.

They had both thought of the same thing.

Mom looked at me again.

“Is this about Catalina?”

The name fell into the room like something too heavy to belong there.

I shook my head immediately.

“No.”

Too fast.

“It's not that.”

The doctor said nothing.

He simply watched me.

As if he could hear everything we weren't saying.

Mom lowered her eyes.

Dr. Navarro closed the folder.

“I want to give you a few instructions before you leave.”

He took out a sheet of paper.

“I want you to check your blood pressure twice a day for the next few days. Once in the morning and once at night. If anything unusual happens, write it down.”

He placed another paper beside it.

“This is a prescription. You don't need to take it regularly. Only if you experience another episode and need something to help bring the symptoms down.”

Dad nodded.

“Avoid overexerting yourself for the next few days,” the doctor continued. “Get enough sleep. Eat properly. Take short walks. Nothing strenuous.”

Then he looked directly at me.

“And I'd like you to see a specialist.”

Mom looked up.

“A psychiatrist.”

She hesitated.

“Not because I think there's anything seriously wrong with you,” he added. “But what happened today doesn't always have a single physical explanation. Sometimes the body reacts when the mind has been carrying more than it can handle.”

He wrote down a number.

“She's someone I trust. You can call her when you're ready.”

Silence filled the room again.

This time it wasn't awkward.

It was heavy.

The kind of silence that comes when everyone knows something has changed, even if no one knows exactly what it is yet.

The doctor gathered his things.

“For now, you can go home.”

He stood.

“And if this happens again, come straight back to the emergency room.”

He paused.

“Physically, everything looks fine.”

It should have sounded reassuring.

Instead, it felt like a warning.

When he left, nothing in the room changed.

The air simply stayed still.

Outside, December went on.

Inside me, something had shifted.

I didn't know what.

Not yet.

But it had.

When we got home, I climbed the stairs slowly, each step feeling heavier than the last.

I went straight to my room.

Mom asked if I wanted dinner.

I said no.

I lied.

My stomach was a knot.

I closed the door behind me and sat on my bed, still wearing my coat.

The room was dark.

I didn't turn on the light.

I just sat there.

Staring into nothing.

Listening to the faint sound of my own breathing.

Your body needs rest.

That was what Dr. Navarro had said.

But rest wasn't what I needed.

I needed to understand why my own body had betrayed me.

I couldn't stop thinking about the feeling of suffocating.

The floor shifting beneath me.

The needle entering my skin.

The terror that hadn't come from anything outside of me.

It had come from somewhere deeper.

Somewhere hidden.

Somewhere I couldn't reach.

What if it happens again?

What if I can't control it?

What if it isn't just my body?

What if it's me?

The diagnosis made sense.

A vasovagal episode.

An isolated incident.

Exhaustion.

Emotional overload.

It was logical.

Reassuring, even.

But I didn't believe it.

Not because the doctor was wrong.

Because I knew I'd felt something else.

Something darker.

Something I couldn't name.

And that was the real fear.

Not knowing what to call the thing that was slowly tearing you apart.

I lay down without changing clothes.

I closed my eyes.

I didn't sleep.

I just stayed there.

Waiting for the next tremor.