the beginning of a story

Last Wednesday night at around 3 am, Joan's eyes inexplicably flew open. She knew something was very, very wrong. Or at least she felt it. Her stomach was twisted into knots and she felt how you would normally feel when you have just been delivered horrible, life changing news. But nothing horrible or life changing had happened. She was overwhelmed by an unbearable sense of dread, but had no idea why. She tried to go back to sleep, hoping that it would go away, but the feeling persisted and she ended up spending the rest of the night staring at the uneven bumps on the ceiling and worrying about...well, absolutely nothing. What is happening? Why do I feel like this? She asked herself over and over. Nothing is wrong. You are fine. She repeated, over and over. There was no reason at all that she should be feeling this way. While her life was certainly not glamourous and filled with never ending fun, nothing really ever went wrong her her. In terms of looks, she was above average, and had a very nice, straight nose and somewhat pretty blues eyes if she put her makeup on right. She had enough friends that all liked her a lot and had never really had any problems with men. She even had fairly good sex pretty regularly. She should be alright. But the next day, things had not gotten better. Joan went to class. It was just a normal day, and she even got back a paper she had written with a solid A- on it, but still the mysterious feeling of unease consumed and distracted her from everything she did. She went out to dinner with her friends, something that she normally would have enjoyed, but was so caught up in her bewildering anxiety that she mostly just sat there, quietly staring into space. She continually felt like someone had just told her that she had a month left to live, but of course, this was not the case. A week later, and nothing has changed. She can't shake this all consuming worry, nor its accompanying stomach pains and dull headaches, from her being.