Gemma had never been fond of grocery stores. They were messy, crowded, and overwhelming places which brought people in droves only out of necessity. She had climbed into her rusted Toyota, mentally bracing herself for the Friday afternoon rush of shoppers before absentmindedly adjusting her mirrors and humming softly to the radio. It was a short drive, but she took no notice of the time, instead raking her fingers through split-ends and clicking her teeth in time to the music.
She parked and walked through the automatic doors in the sort of distracted haze that comes with an overburdened mind. As she wheeled her cart around sharp corners and in between mothers yelling at children and young men puzzling coupons, Gemma felt her jaw clenching and made an effort to keep it relaxed. Maybe it was the crowds— she hated feeling claustrophobic, pressed between so many bodies, fighting for the same air. But minor claustrophobia was only an inconvenience, and so she wedged herself between two girlfriends deciding on yogurt and shuffled into the produce section. She was met with a chill, not unusual considering the fragile nature of cauliflower, but shocking enough to cause her to stop abruptly, angering an elderly woman who had not been far behind. She felt as if her entire body had been plunged into deep water, cold and suffocating. She trembled underneath her thin coat before glancing anxiously at other shoppers who seemed decidedly less perturbed by the climate change. She considered a sudden fever as cause for the chills, and an almost childish wish for someone to take her temperature came over her. Strange, to be so suddenly affected by something as banal as the temperature. She had nearly adjusted to the cold when the temperature dropped again, this time singing her toes and fingertips with the icy sensation. Her breath caught in her throat and she felt in the pit of her stomach that something was decidedly and unequivocally wrong. The chill seemed to slow time; Gemma could see people making their way through the aisles with agonizing slowness, seemingly unaware of the unquantifiable wrongness which she was so tangibly experiencing.
As suddenly as the drop had occurred, it disappeared. Shoppers moved around her with only mild irritation, and the pop music which had been playing softly in the background when she had entered the store returned abruptly. Gemma glanced down at her hands, tracing the wrinkles on her knuckles with her eyes. Impossibly, everything was normal. Shaken but not deterred, she gripped the handle of her cart and stepped forward, until the cold brush of a hand against the nape of her neck stopped her feet. Gemma whipped her head around, but the only thing behind her was an arrangement of broccoli. She moved, faster this time, but stopped again when she felt the hem of her shirt tug away from her body. The absurd hope that she had merely caught on something crossed her mind, but the insistent tugging of the hem debunked her optimism. Far beyond feeling silly or paranoid, Gemma felt a stringent fear creeping into her consciousness. She was ready to abandon her cart in the produce section when a lascivious whisper curled into her ear— a quiet, menacing, breathy insistence, repeating the word “ataraxia” in each ear. The icy sensation had returned.
It occurred to Gemma that she ought to move, to get away from the thing which had so suddenly and violently grasped her, and she strained her now leaden body to move even an inch. Instead, she stood paralyzed, hands fastened to the bar of the cart and legs planted on the aging linoleum. She heard someone, perhaps, ask if she could move forward so they could get their groceries. The world seemed to shift around her, colors blurring at the edges and misting away into nothingness, like some nightmarish watercolor. A hand on her shoulder sent a shock through her entire body, and her body regained its agency. Time had returned to normal, and a twenty-something had their hand on her shoulder, asking quietly if she was okay. Gemma opened her mouth to reply that nothing was okay but her mouth could only form the shapes of the letters and emit a choking sound that caused the man to withdraw his hand quickly. She was now intimately aware of her erratic, racing heartbeat, signaling danger to the whole of her body, pumping adrenaline through her veins and rapidly forcing air into her lungs. She felt herself gasping as the icy fire which had scorched her appendages moved into her throat and lungs. Every shallow breath burned its way through her. She staggered backwards into a display, chest heaving uncontrollably and eyes wide with panic. There was a presence, she could feel it on her ribcage, squashing her air intake and grasping at her neck, forcing life out of her with every breath. It took enormous effort, but she stopped her breathing altogether in an attempt to halt the violation of her body. She grew lightheaded from the lack of oxygen, and a brief convulsion caused her to suck in too much air at once, sending her reeling once again. With frantic, searching hands she sought to keep herself righted, and she felt her nails graze something soft and warm— a person? But her vision was too scrambled to make sense of what was in front of her. There was a tearing at her clothes from all directions, and she felt the cold presence moving into her muscles until it spasmed out in all directions.
The unnamed thing was winning, Gemma knew. Her heartbeat was too fast, her breaths too shallow, and the cold sensation had permeated every inch of her body. The blurry smears of discordant colors began to fade at the edges until her vision focused on a single pinpoint of light in a field of darkness. Then, the darkness overtook her.
