When Breath Becomes Air Audiobook Novels & Stories

JORDAN The door creaks open. Voices spill into the bathroom—louder, closer. My entire body jerks. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t move. And I—I can’t breathe. My heart slams against my ribs as the men enter, laughing, dragging the reek of cigarette smoke and sweat with them. I press myself tighter against Alaric’s chest, trying to disappear. I expect him to push me away, maybe toss some smug comment at me, or reveal me just to watch me squirm. But he doesn’t.

Her hands are warm as they grab my shoulders, firm but gentle. "Breathe," she whispers. "Breathe, Miss. In... out... come on, with me." I try. I really try. But my lungs refuse. The air won't come. I shake my head, tears falling freely now. Clara cups my face with both hands. Her eyes are sharp, steady. "Listen to me. In through your nose. Out through your mouth. Now. Do it." Her voice is calm and strong. A thread pulling me out of the dark.

“You promised… you promised you wouldn’t leave me…” There's silence, a moment that stretches too long. Too dangerously long. And then…. “Come on… come on…” a doctor mutters from inside. And suddenly, I hear a sound. A different sound. A broken rhythm…..beep, beep,beep. My breath stops, then crashes back into me. Air rushes into my lungs like I’ve been drowning. “He’s back,” someone says. And I completely break. A sob tears out of me so violently I can’t even breathe through it.

A vast, cavernous space that she could feel but not see, and in the center of the space, something was breathing. She could hear it. A slow, rhythmic sound, like the tide, like a heartbeat, like the turning of the earth. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. And with each breath, the dark became a little less dark, until she could see the outline of what was before her.

I fight myself and try to convince myself there is air, that this is not really and to keep breathing. 'Breath, keeping breathing.... breath!' I tell myself, but its no use, with each breath I take is shallower and shallower, containing less and less air. 'For fuck sakes, Breathe!' I shout at myself, 'breathe, come on, fucking hell, BREA...'

“I am breathing.” “Not like that.” I open one eye. “There are different ways to breathe now?” “Yes.” I close it again with a muttered, “Of course there are.” Kade’s voice lowers. “Slow it down. In through your nose. Out through your mouth.” I do it. At first, it feels pointless. Then… something shifts. The pounding of my heart starts to steady. The ache in my muscles doesn’t disappear, but it dulls at the edges. “Now,” Kade says, “listen.”

I tried to regulate my breathing, the way I’d seen the monks do in the documentaries Seraphina used to watch, but my lungs felt like they were pulling in thick, hot wool. Thump. Thump. Thump. The truck hit a series of bumps. My head cracked against the cedar lid. I tasted copper. "Stay calm," I whispered, the sound of my own voice echoing weirdly in the cramped space. "Leo. Luna. Evelyn." The names were my only anchor. But the air was thinning. Every breath felt more shallow than the last. Carbon dioxide began to build, a heavy fog in my brain that turned my thoughts into slow-motion ghosts.

The images cling to the corners of my vision refusing to fade. The air feels thick, pressing down on me, choking me as if it wasn’t quite real, hands trembling uncontrollably. “Breathe Tish, inhale, hold exhale.” I hear Kim’s gentle voice guiding me. My breaths come shallow, jagged at first, like I am learning to breathe again slowly. I loosen my grip on the mattress, willing my pulse to slow down. Eyes closed, I breathe in the faint scent of rain filtering through the small cracked window, mixing with the stale air of the room. “Breathe in and out.”

There was a rushing noise in my ears, and I felt lightheaded from the lack of oxygen. I felt a hand on my back, and it began to rub over my spine in circles. It was so startling that I had to focus on it, and that helped to drown out the whooshing in my ears just enough for me to hear Axel’s voice. “Breathe with me, Kara, come on,” Axel was saying. “Come on, you can do it. Breathe with me and follow my words. In and out. Okay? Okay, breathe in and hold, one, two, three, four, five, now exhale. Yeah, just like that, you can do it, come on. It’s okay, you’re okay. Breathe, Kara, breathe. And hold, one, two, three…”

A man wearing a white uniform nodded obediently and immediately went to prepare all the things he would need during his journey from Chicago to Las Vegas. Meanwhile Jesse McLean looks so serious watching the face of a woman who somehow managed to turn his feelings upside down. "Krystal Cunningham, never let your dad down." Jesse McLean hissed softly in front of Krystal's peaceful face with various life support devices attached all over her body. “Sir, those Agent have sniffed our movement. What should we do now?”