Stabbing Pain Under Left Shoulder Blade When Breathing Novels & Stories

I can breathe. The play moves fast, the lines pushing against each other, fighting for possession. I don’t hesitate, don’t hold back. When the puck slides loose near center ice, I drop low, cutting past a defender, taking it cleanly onto my blade before charging up the left wing. Someone shouts behind me, doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is speed, control, execution. I drive forward, shifting my weight, preparing to cut inside. Suddenly, someone slams into me. A hard check slams into my side, sending me flying. My shoulder smacks against the ice, pain radiating through my ribs, knocking the air from my lungs.

That was where I laid him down. He didn't stir. His breathing came shallow and uneven, and now that I had light, I could see how bad it was. I'd patched myself up enough times to know my way around an injury. I cut his shirt open with the kitchen scissors and made myself look. One rib on his left side sat wrong beneath the skin. A deep bruise spread low across his stomach, dark and ugly, the kind that came from a hard, flat blow. If I was unlucky, he was bleeding somewhere inside, somewhere I couldn't reach.

🫶 LEXI 🫶 A sharp, burning pain exploded through my left shoulder. "Ahhh!" I cried out and collapsed onto my knees, clutching the spot as though something had pierced straight through me. It hurt. It hurt so much. My breathing became ragged as wave after wave of agony shot through my body. "W-Why...?" My fingers dug into my shoulder. There was no wound. No blood either. Then why did it feel like I'd been struck? My eyes lifted to look at him.

The sudden release of tension was physical, almost violent. His chest was heaving, the thin black training vest damp and clinging to the sharp lines of his ribs. His breath came in rapid, ragged plumes of white mist that swirled around his face before vanishing into the freezing gloom. Beneath the fabric, his left shoulder was screaming—a deep, hot, throbbing ache that radiated from the fractured collarbone straight down to his chest. The black athletic tape had held, but the sheer force of the triple Lutz’s landing impact had stretched the adhesive to its absolute limit, pulling the raw skin beneath it taut.

Every exhale is too shallow to matter. I press my palm to my sternum because the motion feels like something. It does not help. The pressure only grows. A sharp, stabbing ache shoots into my left shoulder and down my arm. My body jerks with the force of it. Darko. I can’t feel him at all, like he's completely gone. The bond that has been steady since I was a kid is fraying. Panic wedges through the pain. He is not just weak. He is not there.

I let my head rest back against the wall, eyes closing as the pain in my shoulder throbbed steadily. “Hold on,” I murmured under my breath, not even sure if I meant it for her or for myself.

Then it strikes. For just a split second, there's a dull stabbing pain on the left side of my ribcage, right under my scars. The scars I got that day. I fumble for just a moment, but I find the right cords, and I continue singing, praying my voice doesn't waver. In a moment the pain is gone, dwindling into nothingness like an echo. I scan the crowd to see if anyone noticed, but there's no reaction. They're just sitting there, spellbound, oblivious to my momentary freak-out.

She hit the button on my bed to raise the head of it. I did an internal inspection as my body moved. My left hip was painful, but nothing I couldn't handle. The extra pressure of sitting was irritating my chest, but I figured that's what Gail was there to help me with. I also finally felt that incision where they had to drain everything out of my chest. "Exhale, dear. Holding our breath is a natural response to pain, but since your injury was in your lungs, you're going to have to be extra careful with the breathing part of all of that."

The blade. A sharp breath escaped from my lips. I honestly would have thought that it had all been a bad dream but then I was struck with a massive pain that shot through me. It stretched from the top of my head and traveled all the way down my body, settling mainly in my lower chest and right side of my face. I tried to push myself up but immediately cringed at the unexpected pain that spiraled in my wrist. I attempted to place more of my weight on my other arm and had better luck.

I was stabbed from behind. The sharp numbing pain causes me to fall on my knees as I begin to feel myself running out of breath. I tried breathing in and out deeply as I was curling on the floor on my side. Every time I breathe in, there’s a pain in my chest that was stabbed and every time I breathe out, it hurts too but a little amount of air was coming out from me. The pain was too excruciating and it was severely torturing me from inhaling and exhaling. My visions were getting terribly blurry and I can feel myself tremendously scared of the situation I was in and what this person is after. I see a silhouette of a woman dressed in white who was standing in front of me but I can’t see her f