Novel & Cerita Hold Your Breath Novel

I howl amidst the struggles of breathing and holding my fears. "Hold onto my hand!" He retorts, and I have no time to object, or argue. I clutch to his hand tightly, entrusting my life to it. "Close your eyes, and just breathe." He adds, but before I do so, a battalion of armed men emerges just a few metres from us, their guns aimed at us. I hold my breath. "Deep!" I whimper. "Relax!" He whispers back, looking me in the eyes as he adds. "And trust me."

My lungs stung, burning for air, but for some reason, holding my breath felt like the right thing to do. After what felt like hours and hours of calculated breaths and silent gasps, I started to hear the fading away of footsteps. I remained still until I was sure I couldn't hear, what sounded like, the dreadful resonance of a wedge shoe hitting against the wooden floor surface, anymore. If it really was a wedge shoe, it meant only one thing. It was a woman.

I had to escape from his snare somehow. I almost jerked up when his cold hand touched my neck. I held my breath and hoped my racing pulse wouldn't betray me. If this doesn't work then I'll be doomed. It had to work, it didn't matter how long I would hold my breath, I just had to survive. He moved his hand away from my neck and cupped my face, leaning closer to observe if I was dead or alive. I picked up that moment to execute my plan. Before he could realize what was happening, I sent a kick into his groin and pushed him off.

But when I knocked on her door, there was no answer. “Novel?” I called out her name, but silence met me. Panic settled deep in my chest. Luckily, the door was unlocked. When I entered, the room was empty, and my heart hammered against my ribs, until I heard the water running in the bathroom. When I stepped inside, my breath caught in my throat. It was Novel. She looked lifeless, submerged beneath the water. Fear gripped me as I hauled her out. “Novel!” I barked. She opened her eyes, but they looked hollow, lifeless.

I can barely breathe, panting and gasping hard, choking on my tears in my furious rigidity as I strain my limbs to keep him at bay “Please stop, look at me…. We’re not back in Illinois. Sophie, were in Manhattan, you’re in my apartment, baby. You’re safe…. Breathe, slow and steady, breathe with me; listen to me. Focus on my voice and breathe…” His soothing tone comes through the panic once more, connecting to me on some level and I lose all resolve. Fight in me dying as fatigue overtakes me and I realize I am held tight in his arms. His muscles, his strength as he holds me taut, so my body is immobile. Gasping and shoving with all my might and strangling myself with the inability to catch my

The night is so still that even the fire in the hearth seems to hold itself back, as if afraid to break the silence, and I wake without knowing why—just that strange pressure in my chest, like something unseen had called me. There’s no wind, no creaks out of place… and yet, there’s a different weight in the air. I sit up, let my feet slip out from under the blanket, and walk barefoot to the window. The glass is cold against my skin when I bring my hand close, but what makes me hold my breath isn’t the temperature—it’s the fresh smear of condensation, an irregular circle, as if someone had pressed their face to the outside and breathed onto the glass.

“Who gave them the right to act so brazenly? Who gave them the nerve?” Her voice echoes through the room, raw and jagged, like something breaking beyond repair. For a moment, all I can hear is her breathing—uneven, sharp, struggling to keep up with the storm she just unleashed. I don’t move. I don’t interrupt. Because this… this isn’t something you step into. This is something you stand through. Her shoulders shake as she drags in another breath, her fingers curling into fists at her sides like she’s holding herself together by force alone.

When they are gone, I slide along the pillar and ease forward. My heartbeat is loud in my ears so I force it to slow. The guard on this level has a torch and the habit of lifting it when he walks so I back two paces into a recess and hold. The heat reaches my cheek first. The light slides along the edge of the wall and across the back of my hand and I hold my breath until my chest burns. He turns and continues, flame drifting away down the hall.

#Dorothy’s POV# I think I’ve finally learned how to breathe in this damn place without completely losing my mind. Or maybe I’m just numb. Either way, I’m in the library… again. Holding a stack of books in my left hand and another in my right, trying to distract my body from remembering what my soul refuses to forget.

It’s as if I’m holding it as alpha drags his finger through the hair on top of my head. “Breath Cole. How often you hold your breath is quite worrisome.” I remain silent as I grab a hold of the mattress beneath me squeezing it in my hands as the persistent burn sitting at the base of my neck flares into an all encompassing fire raging through my entire body.