As the tedium of the summer season wore on with its persistent sweltering heat, blithe children splashed in gurgling creeks and chased each other across grassy fields. The shrieks and laughter of the youthful filled the days while the crepuscular creatures that prowled under the veil of darkness dictated the sounds of night. The ephemeral spell of blissful daydreaming and immortality cast over this time refused to fade until the impending threat of school closed in and snatched all the magic away.

  On one blistering afternoon, in mid July, Chance was called away from his friends and received news that not only broke the false illusion of summer but shattered his entire reality. One laconic message that he would never forget passed on to him by a person he could never remember. It altered his entire future. His family had been in a horrible car accident.
  In a daze, Chance was guided to a car and taken to the hospital. He found himself in a waiting room where he was greeted by a kind lady he didn’t know. She had bent down in front of him, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder, and explained what had happened to his family.
  Hardly any of it registered in his mind. He heard bits and pieces of her story about an old man falling asleep, his mother dying on impact, his father dying on the way to the hospital, and his sister, Hope, being in critical condition.
  The last part of the lady’s recounting of the tale snapped him out of the haze within his mind and returned him to the present. The slightest sliver of light existed amid the endless sea of murkiness. Hope was alive.
  The first few days after the accident were the most miserable Chance would ever experience. It was a blur of hectic activity and agonizingly dull idleness. Doctor’s explained to him what had happened to Hope and what procedures she needed to undergo in a language he couldn’t believe was English. In between gibberish-speaking doctors, he spent many hours staring at a beautiful watercolor painting of a tiny swallow delicately perched on a grand maple tree with gracefully sweeping branches resplendent in red leaves.
  All the while, his mind wandered to what ifs and all the things he should’ve done or said. What if his parents hadn’t let him stay over at a friend’s house at the last minute and he had been in the car as well? What if Hope didn’t survive the surgery? He should have told his parents he loved them when they dropped him off. What if Hope lived, but was permanently damaged somehow? What if he and Hope had nowhere to go, now that their parents were gone? He yearned for a chance to say goodbye. He wished he had been a better son. His mind was either so full of a  swirling mass of thoughts he could hardly see, or it was so empty he could barely move.
  Chance became abstemious, merely nibbling on whatever was forced into his hands. He barely slept, dozing only a few hours at most every night in a waiting room chair. He was so lost within himself he never even heard the nurses muttering about a headstrong boy who refused to eat, sleep, or go home.
  It was five days after the accident when Hope finally woke up. During the first two days, she had had two surgeries, and on the fourth day, they deemed her condition stable enough for her to be moved out of ICU. It was the fifth day that was forever etched into Chance’s mind like engraving on a placard.
  The relief and pure elation he felt when she opened her eyes was unlike anything he had ever experienced before. For fear of her disappearing and leaving him as their parents had, he clasped her right hand tightly within his own and didn’t dare let go. He couldn’t keep his first smile since the accident from tugging at his lips. At least until pain and grief cut deeply into his momentary joy and took hold of his heart once more.
  Hope watched the smile fall from his face, closed her eyes, and heaved a deep sigh. Without opening her eyes, she placed her other hand over Chance’s.
  As a single tear slid down her cheek, Hope whispered, “You didn’t let your precious Hope die, and I had my special Chance to survive.”