The sun was warm but the breeze was cool. She traipsed along the park path with her book under her arm towards one of her favourite reading spots. Far enough away from the sporting areas that there wasn’t too much cheering, not so near the zoo that the smell was a problem. In fact here the air was soft and sweet, a patch of flowers in full bloom, carefully planted to be a pool of colour all year round.

She was part way through appreciating the scent when her breath caught in her throat. Like she had breathed in a bug. Or she was sleeping and slipped into an apnea. She pinched herself curiously. Definitely awake. She tried again. Nothing. Starting to feel concerned she concentrated on switching to another intake and outtake of gases, surely that would help?

But it didn’t.

There was no response from her power at all. Not a twitch, not a breath.

Real fear was coursing through her veins now and she reached out her hand to grab a stranger’s shoulder.

Call 911. she mouthed in silence.

How could she speak with no air? Her eyes widened as she realised she had nothing, no power to ask for him to help her. Now she was terrified. She fumbled for her phone and opened the app Jac sometimes used to translate complicated words by text-to-speak.

“Can’t breathe. Can’t talk. Call help.” The robot voice intoned as she made a reasonable impression of a fish out of water.

It was such a lovely day. Well, every day was lovely in its own right, but that one was particularly so. The sun was shinning, there was a cool breeze, and boy, did the flowers look marvelous. Bailey stood along the side of the park path admiring them, his previous destination forgotten.

His thought were lost for a brief moment until a stranger grabbed his shoulder. He turned to see a woman making a panicked expression and mouthing words. But what was she mouthing? And why was she mouthing it?

Oh! Were they playing charades? That was a bit of a weird thing to do with a stranger in the park, but he could roll with it.

"Uhm, crocodile! No, bat! Yeah, bat! Bats do that echolocation thing, right? Is that what you're doing?" Bailey guessed, quite proud of himself for coming up with an answer that fast.

Apparently, though he was wrong. They were not playing charades.

“Can’t breathe. Can’t talk. Call help," said a robotic voice from the woman's phone.

"Ohh, that makes more sense," Bailey nodded. "Yeah, yeah, call someone. Who do I call though? I could call my mom, but she's all the way back in Canada. That wouldn't be very useful. Maybe my dad could do something? I mean, I don't know what he could do to help you though."

He pulled out his phone and scrolled through the contacts with a frown. "Yeah, see, I don't have very many contacts anymore 'cause I just moved here and I haven't really made all that many friends yet."

Bailey glanced around for something to help her. "I don't really know what to say. Maybe you could just try... I don't know... Like taking a deep breath or something? Or breathing into a paper bag like they do in the movies?"

He was batty. Completely off the planet. But he was there, and she couldn’t do this alone. Was this what her nursing home patients felt like when she was sitting with them, waiting for the inevitable? No one wants to die alone. Especially not in the middle of a game of charades.

His mum, his dad, 911-like-she-had-specified, a park ranger anyone!

Then he was suggesting she take a deep breath and she would have huffed with exasperation if she had any air to sigh with. Maybe she was having an allergic reaction to the flowers? It had never happened to her before, but maybe? Or maybe a bee went in and stung her in the throat and she somehow didn’t notice. She fixed him with her best nurse stare and thought –really hard- at him. If ever there was a time to be telepathic this was it.

Then get me a bag then.

She cupped her hands over her nose and mouth and tried to re-breathe like she would instruct someone having a panic attack (which honestly was kind of where she was at right now) but re-breathing only really worked if you could breathe in the first place. She was certain it was impossible to do CPR on yourself, but she tried the initial steps of a first respondent anyway- she checked her mouth for obstructions (nothing in there, and she could move her tongue out of the way easily, so that wasn’t it) and tilted her head so her airway was clear (which was daft, because she had been fine until she’d stepped up to the flowers.

The flowers. She cast an accusatory glance at them and stumbled a few steps away from them. Maybe they were anti-mutant poison flowers, brought in by a psycho gardener intent on cleaning out the population. She didn’t want her headstone to read RIP Zinnia, killed by a flower. That was super lame!

The woman seemed a bit loopy, if Bailey was being honest. He watched her as she played around with her mouth, then her throat, and then put her hands over her mouth. What was that going to do to fix her breathing problem?

What actually would fix her breathing problem? Bailey frowned as he though of possible issues. Maybe it was the air around her? No, that couldn't be it, since he was breathing just fine, thank-you-very-much. Asthma? Surely she would just carry around a puffer or something. He was out of ideas, and solutions.

The woman was staring very, very hard at him, though, and he felt like he was missing something. But how would he know what to do? He was just a seventeen year old who worked in an ice cream shop! He had no training in any of that medical stuff!

Maybe he was supposed to do better with his bedside manner? Yeah, that could very well be it. She probably thought he was being a bit rude. "Oh, sorry. I'm Bailey. What's your name?"

"Oh right, you can't answer 'cause of the not being able to breathe thing. That stinks. I'm sure you have a really nice name. Has this ever happened before? Do you know what to do? Is there someone I can call to come get you? How long can you not breathe for? You probably can't answer any of that, can you?"

How long could people actually hold their breath for, though? Bailey's brother had once claimed that he could go a full ten minutes, but that sounded pretty fake. How long had he been talking to the woman for? A few minutes at least.

Bailey turned a little pale. He did not want to have to deal with a dead body. There were other people around that could help her. Other people could definitely do more than he could. 

"W-want me to get that guy at the juice stand?" He offered, mostly so he could pass off responsibility to someone else.

Her brain supplied her name, even though she couldn’t speak it, it was like saying ‘don’t think about pink elephants’, the brain just does it thing. Would her dying thoughts be about pink elephants? The boy rattled off his name and a jumble of questions, some of which she knew the answer to, some of which she didn’t. It simply made no medical sense. And when it made no medical sense then usually it was mutation. Perhaps she was getting a new type of gas exchange. This was sort of what it felt like when she was switching types of exchange, but on a much, much bigger scale.

She felt vaguely that the record for breath holding was something like 11 minutes, or longer if the person prepped themselves with breathing straight O2 before starting the clock. She couldn’t remember what she had been breathing, but her normal resting rate was CO2 to O2, so her mutation might be a boon or might be a bust, but for now it felt like it wasn’t anything at all. Had it been 11 minutes already? Maybe six or seven? It felt like it had been forever, and also that is was speeding past in fast-forward.

Her heart was racing, and she knew in normal people that would be sucking up their supply of oxygen in their blood, draining them of the force to live. She plopped onto sitting on the brick wall and tried to think calming thoughts to slow her heart. Her impulse was to fan her face, but it felt somewhat foolish when air was the problem in the first place.

”W-want me to get that guy at the juice stand?”

The kid offered to get assistance and she nodded meekly. At the very least if she was going to go it shouldn’t be someone so young who had to carry that alone. She closed her eyes and focused on her lungs, trying to activate them, to get some reaction that wasn’t burning pain from them.

A gasp was swiftly followed by a stifled sob. It was over. Thank goodness.

Bailey ran off immediately after getting confirmation from the woman. He in no way wanted to have the responsibility any longer. He ran as quickly as his legs would allow, which was not something he usually did. On most days, it was rare for him to go faster than a light jog.

He reached the juice stand in a matter of panicked seconds and tugged at the arm of the man like a child missing their parent. He could barely get a sentence out to speak to the guy as he caught his breath - which made him feel rather bad about talking to the woman for so long while she couldn't breathe.

"Help," he began breathlessly, "there's a woman over there who can't breathe! C'mon you gotta help! C'mon, c'mon!" As if saying that would make the man put aside his business for a complete stranger any faster.

"Alright, kid, I'm coming, give me a break," huffed the juice man.

Bailey dragged him back over to the woman and pushed him forward, standing a little ways back so that he wouldn't be blamed if anything happened. He watched anxiously as the man bent down to see what was going on.

She opened her eyes and took deep, calming breaths. That was an awfully unpleasant experience which she had zero desire to repeat. Her brain was already making a list of all the tests she should go and book in for, and no doubt all of them would have the same result – ‘sorry, mutant, we don’t know how to help you.’ More research needed ^TM.

The kid was hurrying back a disgruntled looking man and his juice-stained apron and she took the moments that they were returning to her to take her pulse. Higher than normal (even with her calming breaths), but not disturbingly so.

The man bent at the waist to look in her face and she smiled weakly. He smelled like orange peel and apple juice. She could go for a juice actually. Or perhaps a coffee.

“Thank you for helping, I seem to have lost my ability to breathe for a bit there. It was really scary.”

Tears snuck up in her eyes unbidden. She could be as strong as strong when dealing with other people and their medical problems, but not being able to fight or flee her own body meant the crash from the adrenaline was pretty harsh. It really wasn’t what she had been hoping for on her afternoon of reading.

“Um, are you ok now?”

The man fumbled as he patted her shoulder. It was one thing to help someone who was having a problem, but what to do –after- was very rarely trained. Shock and panic were almost as hard on the body as flesh-and-bones injury.

She needed to sit down. And have some sugar.

Oh she was sitting, how about that. Sugar it was then.

“I don’t know, it’s never happened to me before. I think I might get my Dad to come and pick me up. Can I buy a juice from you? Oh hey, thanks Bailey- was it? For getting me someone.”

She was blathering, she could tell. She stood up, somewhat shakily and the juice man hovered his hand near her shoulder awkwardly. This was New York, you can’t just touch people.

[juice]“Sure, on the house. Come sit on that bench.”[/juice]

He indicated a bench near to his stand and she moved towards it. Which took her right into the field of Bailey.

Do you want me to buy you a juice? She went to say. But couldn’t. Not again! She reached out for the juice man, for Bailey, for someone to catch hold of her and keep her grounded. This was really not fair.

Again?

Seriously, again?

The woman seemed to be having the exact same problem as before! How many times did one thing happen to one person?

Bailey held her steady when she reached out arm, but instantly regretted it. Then he couldn't let go! He'd look like a complete jerk if he did that! But he also really, really did not want any more of that responsibility stuff. It had sucked enough the first time.

He glanced around quickly for the juice man, for anyone to come and take over again. There was no way he was going to stick around if this was going to keep happening.

Luckily, the juice man came trotting back, holding a container of his product. Bailey sighed in relief and handed him the woman, backing away quickly.

"It's happening again," he told the man as he backed away, fully intending to go home. He had almost turned completely around, when he realized that it might look bad if he did so. Someone might think that he made the woman that way. So, instead he stood and watched from a little bit of a distance again.

The juice man huffed as he caught the woman. "Again? You sure you don't have any health issues, missy?"

She hadn’t refuelled all the air she needed before it was gone again. She grasped for aid and the kid took her arm. She turned her face towards him to thank him. She hoped she didn’t look as panicked as he did.

”It’s happening again,” There were not nearly enough exclamation points there for her liking. Juice man took over holding her upright and she looked at him with a detatched interest. It looked like he was talking to her. This time the blood was rushing in her ears far too fast and she didn’t hear the words the juice man was directing at her, he sounded far away, and somewhat underwater. Like an announcement at the pool while she was swimming.

She liked swimming, the laps trailing away behind her, the air sucking into her lungs as she turned her head to gulp in the sweetness that was life. It had taken her a long time to perfect the underwater flip at the end of the pool to turn and head the other direction. Something about seeing everything go upside down and feeling your inner ear protesting which way was ‘up’. Which was sort of what it was doing now. The garden bed was standing on its side, and the ground was rushing up to meet her. If she’d had the presence of mind to care she’d’ve been glad she was still standing on the grass.

As it was she didn’t have the presence of mind for anything. She lay in the grass and blackness enveloped her. Unconscious was the best way to re-boot the breathing cycle.

Crap.

Crap, crap, crap.

Craaaaaaaap.

The lady had apparently given up on not being able to breathe. And by that, it meant that he world had apparently faded to black and she was lying on the ground unresponsive.

Bailey's worst fears had come to pass. The woman was dying, he was going to have to be responsible. He was still a minor, so it wouldn't go on his record, he reminded himself. Or was that only in Canada? Or was it only in cop shows?

His heart started to beat faster. He was not prepared to deal with something like that. What if he was actually arrested!? He couldn't go to jail! What if there was a whole court case? He didn't even do anything wrong, but he was going to go to jail because some woman couldn't breathe! 

The juice man was with her, checking her pulse and snapping in front of her face. There was a whole crowd that had gathered around to watch. There were people with her, so he definitely didn't need to stay. If he backed away slowly, people likely wouldn't even notice if he wasn't there. Then he couldn't be blamed for whatever happened!

So, he did just that. Bailey backed his way through the crowd, fully intending to book it when he got the chance. He had a future, after all! He had to think of himself in some cases, no matter how terrible it made him feel.

Being unconscious wasn’t like sleeping. There was no dreams, no passage of time, just nothing. Then all of a sudden, everything again. The murmur of the gathered crowd, the sweet smell of grass and flowers, the sunshine streaming down on her. She gulped in lungfuls of air and made to sit up. The juice man was there and a pile of other people peering down at her. Oh dear, she had made a scene.

Once upright she skimmed the crowd for the kid, but he seemed to have scarpered. He wasn’t anywhere in the immediate vicinity anyway, and she could breathe again. Her groggy mind latched onto those two seemingly unrelated facts as she recited her name, the date and her Dad’s phone number so he could come and pick her up.

Maybe she was allergic to the kid. Was it even possible to be allergic to a person? She had never heard of such a thing in her studies before. Perhaps he had a pollen mutation, or something which reversed her own mutation (can you imagine?). The potential that it was purely her mutation keeping her alive hadn’t crossed her mind. She always thought if there was a cure that she would have reverted back to ‘normal’ breathing. Not that she would ever take a cure, to be sure, but she knew lots of mutants would.

“I’m ok, just a little woozy.”

She took the offered juice and sipped it, the sugary beverage doing nothing to soothe the surge of adrenaline. There was going to be so much paper work. The fact that she was a mutant and didn’t fit any of the test parameters meant that she was pretty sure that at the end of the day there would be no conclusion either, just the recurring unknown- potentially mutation related.

Oh, come on.

The woman started to wake up again as soon as he moved away. Bailey stopped as soon as he heard the sound of relief from the crowd. The woman was going to be okay.

But why was she going to be okay? It seemed that each time Bailey got farther away, she seemed to get a little better. It was weird, it was almost like when he shut off someone's powers. As soon as they got six feet away from him, they could use them again. But that wouldn't happen with breathing... Would it?

Bailey frowned as he looked on from the back of the crowd. What if his powers were getting stronger? What if before long he was completely stopping all function in those around him? What if he started killing people?

The teen wiped his brow anxiously. He had actually begun to sweat as he thought about the possibilities. Worst case scenarios spun through his head and push their way to the front. He was going to kill his entire family and everyone in the entire world and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Or maybe... Maybe the woman's powers had something to do with breathing. Yeah, that made much more sense. And it meant that he probably wasn't going to be killing anyone just by standing next to them. He took in a deep breath and prayed that that was the case.

He glanced around and tried to look calm. No one knew what he did. Technically he hadn't done anything wrong. He had simply stood too close to someone. As long as he didn't look suspicious, he would be fine. He decided to stick around to make sure that the woman would get help, but not stay within six feet of her.