How Does 'Breath' Explain The Science Of Breathing?

My adopted younger sister, Marissa Payton, loves pulling pranks on others. But I'm the only one who gets hurt in her pranks. Last year, she and our older brother, James Payton, locked me up in a cold storage room. Because of that, I'm afflicted with a case of severe asthma. James apologizes to me before telling me that he'll take me cave diving just to make it up to me. Marissa tags along with us on the trip. She keeps casting me malicious glances every now and then. Feeling rather uneasy, I quickly get into the water just so I can get away from Marissa. But when I'm 65 feet deep, I feel a wave of suffocation hitting me all of a sudden. It turns out that Marissa has secretly shut off the oxygen supply. I can hear Marissa's smug laughter ringing out from the underwater communicator. "Look, Jamie! I told you that Nat would fall for it again!" James' voice is filled with affection. "Leave it to you to be smart enough to think of such a prank to play on your sister, you little imp." My face has gone blue from the suffocation. I struggle with all my might in an attempt to turn on the bailout cylinder, only to feel my hands getting slapped away from them thanks to Marissa, who has swum over to me. She then whines into the communicator, "Look at how dramatic Nat is being, Jamie! She can't stand the suffocation at all even though it's only been a few seconds!" I hear James' icy and aloof voice reverberating in my earpiece. "Just hold on a little longer. Look at how delicate you are! It hasn't been all that long, yet you already can't stand it. How humiliating. You're not even in the same league as Mari!" This time, I can only stare at James in despair as my complexion slowly goes purple. Has he forgotten what happened to me? Thanks to their prank, my lungs have already sustained irreversible damage. It's getting more and more difficult for me to breathe. Finally, my vision goes black, and I collapse in the dark bottom of the sea. This prank isn't funny at all, James. This time, I'm going to die for real.

I had just been discharged from surgery for a collapsed lung when my boyfriend took me to a childhood friend’s birthday party. At the party, he yanked off my ventilator and used it to inflate party balloons. My chest seized violently, as if my lung had been torn open. Justin Miller turned to Sophie Shaw proudly and said, “See? This is so much easier than blowing them up with your mouth.” I gripped the doorframe. I was gasping as my vision blurred. “Justin, I need that to survive! I can’t breathe!” His expression darkened. “Sophie was kind enough to invite you to her birthday party. Know your place! Besides, she put in a lot of effort for this day and spent hours preparing for it. Are you really going to ruin the celebration?” I struggled to speak through the pain. “Is her surprise more important than my life?” I extended a trembling hand toward the ventilator, but Justin waved it aside. He said impatiently, “I already checked. You won’t die from holding your breath for just a moment. Don’t be so selfish!” At that moment, pain stabbed me in the chest, and I used every ounce of my strength to press the emergency call button my brother had given me.

Love can hit you when you least expect it. It could be a soft easy wind that caresses you and gets stronger over time till it absorbs into your body and heart. Other times it can hit you like a gale-force wind and take every breath you will ever have. Laken stole my breath. She was my gale-force wind, and I will gladly give her every breath I have just to keep her safe, alive, and mine. If I have to live without her then I don’t want my breath. I don’t want anything but her. I will go to hell and back to get her from the grips of death.

The first sign wasn’t the deaths. It was the air. When twenty-five-year-old ER doctor Naomi Sinclair notices healthy people collapsing for no medical reason, she expects to find a virus, a toxin, or something medicine can explain. Instead, every test points to the impossible. Her patients are breathing. Their blood carries oxygen. Yet their bodies are dying as if they never inhaled a single breath. As panic spreads across New York and all over the world, a powerful company called Aelion introduces a revolutionary device that seems to keep people alive when nothing else can. At the center of it is Aiden Vale, a calm, brilliant executive who always seems to arrive with exactly what the world needs. The more Naomi works beside him, the harder it becomes to ignore the connection growing between them and the questions she can’t stop asking. Then a scientist disappears after revealing a terrifying discovery on live television. Mysterious warnings begin appearing in Naomi’s life. Overnight, the impossible becomes ordinary, and she soon realizes the greatest threat may not be the people who are dying, but the reason they’re dying at all. As the air grows deadlier and the line between salvation and deception begins to blur, Naomi must decide who to trust before every breath becomes a luxury. But when the person holding the answers is also the man she’s falling in love with, how do you save the world without losing your heart… or your very last breath?

After four years of love, Eliana’s world shatters in a single moment when Mike walks away without explanation. Heartbroken and desperate to numb the pain, she makes a reckless decision that changes everything. One tragic night, a drunken stumble leads to a devastating accident that leaves her body broken—and her life hanging by a thread. But when Eliana wakes up, something isn’t right. She can see, hear, and move… yet no one can see her. Trapped between life and death, she watches as doctors fight to save her body while discussing a future she never imagined—one that may cost her more than she’s already lost. Alone in a silent world, she begins to realize that she may not be as alive as she thought. Just when hope seems lost, a mysterious stranger—the same man who saved her life—lingers close, unaware of the connection forming between them. As Eliana struggles to understand her new reality, she must confront the truth about love, loss, and the fragile line between holding on and letting go… before time runs out.

The day my husband's first love shows up at my house, I catch a faint, cloyingly sweet scent of gardenias in the air. My genetically-linked asthma flares violently at the scent of gardenias. As expected, halfway through the meal, my chest suddenly tightens. I can barely draw a breath before collapsing onto the couch. My younger brother sprints into my bedroom like he's lost his mind, grabs an inhaler, and shoves it straight to my mouth. "Tess!" he roars. "Why the hell is there gardenia perfume?" Everyone panics. My dad grabs a liquor bottle. My mom lunges forward, grabbing the woman by the hair. And my husband positions himself in front of her, protecting his beloved first love as she trembles. Amid the chaos, I muster the last of my strength. I reach into the crack of the couch, grab another inhaler, take a deep breath, and slowly push myself upright. I let out a cold laugh as I fix my gaze on the woman cowering behind my husband. "Finished with your little performance? It's my turn now."