Jake C. Wallace: Wednesday Briefs #2: The Hollow: Soul Seekers

Each week a group of authors participate weekly in Wednesday Briefs Flash Fiction. Each installment is 500-1000 words long and is posted to our blogs each week. After you read the latest in my story, click on the link at the end to visit other flashers.

Welcome my new weekly flash story The Hollow: Soul Seekers #1 . My previous story Diventando: Becoming has been pulled so I can prep it for publication. I will let you know in the future a date of publication.

Logan gripped him firmly by each shoulder. Levi could barely feel the pressure.

Floating…I feel like I am floating.

Blackness pushed into the edges of his vision. Beneath him, his legs threatened to buckle and send him crashing to floor.

“Levi?” Logan’s voice wafted away on an undetectable breeze. When Levi didn’t answer, Logan gently shook his shoulder and put more authority behind his name. “Levi!" Look at me,” he demanded.

Levi’s chin rested upon his chest, his eyes stared into nothingness. His head was heavy. The warmth of his brother’s hand beneath his chin caused Levi to lift his head. Forcing his eyes to work together, he focused on his brother’s face. Rigid hard lines and narrowed eyes, masked slightly by the shadow of his ball cap, spoke to the seriousness of his demand.

“I…I…c-can’t. The dam broke,” Levi barely managed as wave after wave of panic ceaselessly beat against him. He was losing the fight, the will to continue.

Logan nodded at his comment. “Listen. You’re breathing as if you just ran five miles. Slow it down.” Logan grasped Levi’s hand from where his fingers had been digging at his throat. Logan placed Levi’s palm against the center of his own chest. “Focus on my breathing.” Logan exaggerated the movement of his chest. “In…out…slow it down…in…out. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Nothing’s going to hurt you.”

Despite Logan’s coaching, Levi had lost all control of his body, which was now the domain his primal fear. Shortly, he would be evicted from his mind, thrown into the ether.

“Levi, you need to help me here,” Logan said tersely, annoyance edging in. Logan raised a hand to Levi’s cheek and lightly slapped Levi’s face. The slap echoed though Levi’s cheek bone, into his skull and cleared enough of the fog squeezing his brain to direct his attention. He tried to slow his breathing, but he was terrified something awful was happening to him and couldn’t slow it down.

“This isn’t working,” Logan muttered. “I think I’d better wake Da—”

“No!” Levi exclaimed. That thought brought a new wave of fear, one from an actual source. “Don’t…tell…Dad,” he begged breathlessly.

“Okay. Sit.” Logan guided Levi back to sit on the bed. Tenderly, Logan placed his palm on the back of Levi’s neck and pushed his head down. “Put your head between your knees.”

The action took stopped the rush of blood to Levi’s head and the roar faded in his ears.

“You’re okay,” Logan crooned softy as if Levi were a small child. “Remember, nothing can hurt you while I’m here.” Logan’s soothing tones entered Levi’s mind, seeking out the panic as if it were an antidote to Levi’s fear. “You’re strong. You can fight this. Focus on my voice.” Logan reached up and rubbed Levi’s shoulder. “Focus on my touch. We’ve done this before, Levi. You’re the one in control. You’re the one who built the dam. You’re the one who can put the fear back where it belongs.”

Levi’s shallow, rapid breathing slowed. Logan’s voice filled his head, but he doubted his strength to corral the fear threatening him. Levi couldn’t remember the last time the fear had fully escaped its enclosure. Levi shook his head slightly, doubting he could stop this panic attack any time soon.

“Yes, you can, Levi.”

The muscles in Levi’s chest relaxed minutely, and the feeling that he was suffocating receded slightly. A surge of hope came with that small victory, a surprising rise of strength. Logan reached across and placed his hand on Levi’s knee. Levi rested his cheek against the warmth of his skin. The fear and panic waned, their retreat like dark grey smoke slowly being sucked from a room.

“That’s it. You’re winning.” Logan whispered then sighed heavily, continuing to rub Levi’s back.

Breathing was easier and more purposefully. Replacing the terror was an overwhelming fatigue, rushing through every muscle of Levi’s body. The nerve endings in Levi’s arms, hands, legs and feet screamed their discomfort, assaulted with tiny electric shocks from the influx of oxygen from hyperventilating. No matter how hard Levi struggled, the muscles of his hands resisted making a fist, weak and useless.

Patiently waiting beside him, Logan was silent. Replacing Levi’s dread from the unknown fear was the dread of now having to face Logan. Not that Logan hadn’t helped him with his anxiety and panic in the past. His older brother had never questioned Levi’s irrational fears or their origin. He’d never made Levi think he was as crazy as he believed himself to be. He’d never let Levi down. But a nineteen-year-old man shouldn’t be scared to death of nothing. A nineteen-year-old gay man should be more afraid of stepping out of the closet. Unfortunately, Levi’s panic kept him in a very different kind of closet all together. If he ever broke free of his current closet, he’d be stepping into an entirely new one.

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