Breath

     

Breath

     She held her breath and counted to ten. Nothing. Just the silence of the night. Occasionally a song or two would be sung by the crickets beside her windowsill. She used the steady ticking of the large grandfather clock to keep track of the time. Holding her breath in those ten second intervals, spending the moments in between trying to quietly refill her lungs with the air they so desperately begged for.

     One, two, three.

     She could feel the burning begin sooner each time. A deep fire rising deep within her chest.

     Four, five, six.

     The rest of the body joined the tortured lungs. The tingling toes refusing to move in the slightest. Her chest growing tighter still.

     Seven, eight, nine.

     The uncertainty began to cloud her mind. How much longer could she keep this up? The last time she dared peek it was a mere two forty five in the morning. The sun would not show itself for at least another four hours.

     Ten.

     The air wanted nothing more than to rush in and fill every crevice of her lungs; but she couldn't allow it. She suffered through the pain, taking small steady breaths trying, unsuccessfully, to breath without sound. She had noticed the other breathing occupying the room with her about an hour ago. Denial filled her mind. All doors, all windows, were, just as they always were, locked. She waited, listening. She had satisfied her mind when it happened, it was small, almost unnoticeable but it did happen; or at least her ears told her so. For a split second, perhaps less. The intruders breath fell out of sync with her own. Proof that she was, indeed, not alone.

     Then a more familiar safe sound caressed her ears. The distant church bells tolled thrice. Three a.m had arrived and she with it. How much longer must she wait for that burning ball to illuminate the sky, to deliver the sanity she now refused herself? Then suddenly the noise returned. A footstep? No, it mustn’t be. Then another, this time echoed by the walls surrounding her. Her certainty of the intruder was growing more palpable by the moment. One step, two step. Each fleeting second acting as a cruel torturing lifetime. She waited counting the steps. Three, four; then nothing followed.

     She strained her ears listening for the breathing. She held her breath once more. The reprieve the steps had given her lungs was much needed. She exhaled slowly and at that precise moment heard the distant sound of a human exhale not of her own. Another missed beat by the intruder. Her mind now persuaded beyond a doubt she began to draw up the necessary plans to save her life. So many options came to mind. Would she take the prowler by surprise? Just lie still enough until he was within grabbing range? Perhaps that would give her enough time to escape. Would she continue to lie there and praying for the sun to come? Her brain churned, and to her fear, she began counting the steps once more. Louder they grew, clanking heavier and heavier, and, as if on cue the nothingness returned.

     One last time she would inhale. This time she would hold the air within her lungs for as long as possible. If she were to make a move she needed proof beyond the certainty that she thought she possessed.

The inhale; the counting. One,two. No signs of anything, or anyone for that matter.

     Three, four.

     The burning within her lungs returned; faintly at best.

     Five, six.

     Her ears picked up yet another step. The silence she provided with her entrapped lungs helped her hone in their direction. They were coming from her left; of that she was now certain. The sound was slightly muffled providing further proof that he, she or it must be behind the dressing partition.

     Eight, nine, ten.

     She dare not make a sound, dare not allow her oxygen starved body to twitch in the slightest manor. She needed the element of surprise on her side. Just lie here, she told herself. He must think you asleep to approach so boldly. She shut her eyes tightly to sell the illusion. She now solely depended on her ears for her survival.

     Eleven, twelve.

     Her lungs begged for air but she could not allow herself to give in. She must remain absolutely silent, take in her surroundings without distractions if she wished to survive. The steps grew closer, her chest tighter.

     Thirteen.

     She found it almost humorous that in such an awful situation her mind still traveled to the thought of the unlucky nature of the number. Superstition, the most entertaining of the human weaknesses.

     Fourteen, fifteen.

     He, or she or it was close, almost touchable. She felt the breeze of the exhale flow over her. Again the nothingness consumed the room once more.

     Sixteen.

     The burning in the lungs, is this what hell feels like?

     Seventeen.

     The loss of feeling in a majority of her extremities.

     Eighteen.

     The loss of feeling slowly turning into persistent, stubborn itches and tingles.

     Nineteen.

     The last of her of her defenses, her hearing, was beginning to fade.

     Twenty.

     She could contain the poison in her lungs no more. One fast and low gasp for air and her eyes flew open. Panic. She had waited too long. Only a ghost of a blur awaited her. It was as if she were gazing at the world through an elongated tunnel. And there, at the end of the tunnel they appeared. A pair of dead pale eyes staring back at her. Her brain and lungs could bear no more of the stress. As the eyes at the end of the tunnel regressed her body began to convulse. Her brain had begged for oxygen like a candle slowly dying, but she had refused to listen.

     They found her the next day. The official cause of death was asphyxiation. Per law they eliminated any possibility of foul play. There were no forced locks, no windows left ajar, no signs of another being ever having been there. A natural death, in the most unnatural of ways.