Inhale, Exhale

Here was a man with blondish hair, messing all over the place. His body was all wrapped up in a white shirt, cargo pants and boots, as brown as the wood of the trees surrounding him.

Sweat poured on some part of his face, streaming down to his neck and the upper part of his shirt. His hand did not hesitate to grab the bottle from the side of the bag he was carrying. He felt a ringing in his pocket, and picked it up, talking to whoever was calling him.

"Oh it's you." the man said, he was putting the phone on loud speaker as he continued to walk.

"Brian, why didn't you tell me you were gonna go outside and jogging?" a groaned voice spoke. "I mean, I'd do it too had you let me know."

"Angus, you almost never exercise." Brian said. "Even if I told you that I was jogging you'd be tired after stepping your foot onto grounds that isn't your home."

"Come on man, cut me some slack."

"Cut you some slack? Dude, you've been slacking even before we ever met back in school!"

"No." Angus countered. "I've been making videos."

"I'll admit you are making something but that isn't really exercise, let alone seeing new things outside."

"Look, I promise I will go outside sometime." Angus said to his friend. "Can I ask a favor though?"

Brian rolled his eyes. "Let me guess, you want me to buy you a cheeseburger on my way back."

"Oi!" Angus chuckled. "Not like that. You're at the forest right? Could you score some footage."

Brian looked around the environment he was in. "There's not much here."

"I know I know, but I wanna try some editing of my own, you know, like a first person video."

"And you want me to get the footage."

"Yeah something like that. Doesn't have to be super long. Just a few minutes will do, but if you can get something interesting, that'd be awesome!"

"Yeah" Brian said as he closed the phone and proceeded to switch to his camera. "Like anything interesting's gonna happen". He started to walk with the camera facing forward. On his screen, he could see what was in front of him. His feet stepped on the ground, making contact with some fallen leaves and occasionally some grass.

The wind blew past by him, then a breath went into his ear. His mouth was still closed.

He stopped for a moment, the phone still in hand with the camera recording whatever was in front of him. Strange, he thought, for a second I could have sworn I heard a-

Another breath, this was louder than before.

"Oy!" his feet felt the ground was slightly rising. A small wave of the ground formed under him, giving him a small boost upwards. "The hell?"

He sprinted a few inches away from his position, carrying on recording. He stopped midway to see a surface of the ground. The surface was in the midst of breaking, creating a hole to the ends of whatever is at the end.

Angus will freak over this, Brian thought as he recorded the hole. The hole made a movement upwards, as if it was breathing.

Wait. it hit him in the head. WAIT.

"Earth is breathing." he realized as he started to back off. He made a run for it.

As his legs tried to carry him out, the ground starting to breath again, but they were much harder and he swore he heard rumbling piercing his ears. The breathes of the ground were equilavent to that a living creature. Inhale, exhale. Repeat.

The earth under his feet went low as he fell into a temporary place, and he flung a few feet in the air as the earth exhaled.

He landed on the ground face first. Bringing his head together, the breathing stopped.

"Damn nature." He said as he recovered his phone, fallen a few inches away from him. "You can be scary sometimes."