you’ve arrived @ panic station

cold sweat began to dribble down blažena’s forehead. all around the city people strolled or sat on a bench & read their infopapers, hearts beating serenely & eyelids low in peace.

this was the problem: if one dug deep down into the subterranean bowels o’ the factory one would see that the panic plasma reactor was running low on the snapping panic, the hair-raising fear, the hypertension-sending stress, & the boiling anxiety that powered their whole operation. if it ran out, e’erything would shut down: the hospitals that kept people healthy, the the transporters that got people where they need to be, the funscreens that kept people forgetting ’bout their fleeting existences.

& there blažena stood, heart in rapid palpitations & skin becoming mo’ & mo’ piscine, with no idea how she could find mo’ panic to refill their desperately short stores @ a time like this.

Prompt:

situation, warning, unit