The Suffocating Night

My name is Nora Xavier. I'm twenty-one and a junior in college. Tonight, I went with my boyfriend of six months, Simon Green, to a party his friends organized. The party was in a large private room at a KTV in the city center. As soon as I pushed open the door, a mix of barbecue smoke, alcohol, and cigarette smell hit me. I instinctively held my breath and couldn't help coughing a few times. My fingers quietly reached into my canvas bag — where I always keep my asthma medicine. Simon Green sat on the sofa beside me, his left arm draped over the backrest, his right hand holding his phone as he replied to messages. Hearing my cough, he turned his head to glance at me, his tone clearly dismissive: "Nora, what's wrong? Not feeling well?" "It's nothing, maybe a bit of choking. I'll grab some medicine just in case." I forced a smile, my fingertips already brushing the plastic outside of the pill bottle. Every time before an asthma attack, I get this feeling—my throat tightens, my chest feels heavy. I have to have my medicine ready to feel safe. But when I twisted open the cap and saw what was inside, I just froze. The pill bottle that should have held white pills was now half full of pale yellow liquid, sticky and clearly cough syrup. "Simon Green, look at this medicine..." I hurriedly handed him the pill bottle, my voice trembling with panic I couldn't hide. I clearly checked it before I left this morning—the bottle had a full dose of my asthma medicine. How could it have turned into cough syrup? Before Simon could reach for it, Maggie Parker, sitting on the sofa across from us, stepped forward. She wore a red slip dress, her hair in big waves, holding a glass of red wine. Her eyes were full of mockery: "Nora Xavier, what game are you playing? How does perfectly good asthma medicine turn into syrup? You didn't swap it on purpose, did you?" She said that, then snatched the pill bottle from my hand and shook it hard. The syrup inside sloshed back and forth with her movements, making a clattering sound that only made me more anxious. I don't know either—it was fine before I left this morning. My palms were sweating from panic, and my breathing was already getting rapid. The smoke in the private room grew thicker. Someone kept adding skewers to the grill, and the greasy smoke drifted right in front of me. It felt like a huge stone was pressing on my chest, making it hard to breathe. "Simon Green, I can't breathe—give me my medicine now!" I reached out and grabbed his arm, my nails digging into his skin, my voice full of desperation. I knew that if I couldn't find my medicine soon, my asthma attack would start. But Simon suddenly shook off my hand, frowning with impatience. "Nora Xavier, can you stop pretending? You just don't want to stay here, right? Do you really have to use being sick as an excuse?" "I'm not pretending! I'm really having an asthma attack!" I tried to explain desperately, but my vision was already darkening, and the music and laughter around me blurred. I felt my breath quickening, each inhale like sucking in tiny grains of sand that scraped painfully at my throat. Maggie Parker came over, snatched the empty pill bottle from my hand (I'd already shaken some syrup out), and sneered, "What are you pretending for? We're all here to have fun, and you're such a buzzkill." As she said this, she twisted off the syrup's cap and tried to shove it into my mouth. That sickly sweet smell wafted into my nose; my stomach flipped, and I instinctively tried to pull away. "Don't touch me! This isn't my medicine!" I shoved her away hard, struggling to reach the cell phone on the coffee table to call for help. I remembered that my brother's number was saved in the phone—if I could just get through, he'd definitely come to rescue me. But before my fingers could even touch the phone, the guy sitting next to me (later I learned his name was Sam Lee, an old friend of Simon Green) snatched it away. He stuffed the phone into his pocket, gave the others a knowing look, and laughed, "Nora Xavier, just stop messing around. Simon already said you're faking it. Keep this up and it's pointless." I slumped into the chair, struggling to breathe as the pain in my chest grew worse and worse. I could feel my lips trembling, and my hands and feet turning icy cold. Maggie Parker came over again, one hand pressing down on my shoulder, the other forcing my chin up as she shoved the syrup into my mouth. The sweet, sticky liquid trickled down my throat, some of it choking me. I exploded into a violent cough, feeling like I was about to suffocate any second. "Don't do this! Someone could get seriously hurt!" I shouted with the last bit of strength I had, tears streaming down my cheeks. But everyone in the private room either kept their heads down playing on their phones or looked at me with cold sneers; no one paid any attention. Simon Green sat nearby, still staring at his phone, his fingers scrolling quickly across the screen, as if nothing happening around him mattered at all. I looked at his profile, feeling icy inside; that sense of hopelessness was even worse than the pain from an asthma attack.