Chapter 1

Chloe walked into her daughter Amy’s dark bedroom and sat on the neatly made bed, after opening the windows. She carefully looked around, with her weak flickering eyes, while breathing through the nasal cannula, because without it, she’d have a hard time breathing alone. Her illness has gotten worse, and her pain hasn’t shown any progress to recede. But tomorrow was always on her mind, for her hope hasn’t wilted yet. One day, I’d be okay, a song that constantly played in her head.

After Chloe inhaled the fresh air into her soft lungs, she scanned the room, and found it being too tidy clean. Everything was perfectly organized, which always made her quite surprised. A bright smile lurked on her face, and she felt her weak heart skip beats. The bed didn’t even have a tiny wrinkle on it. Amy arranged her books according to subject matters, on the small and slim black bookshelf. A desktop computer with a monitor screen sat in the middle, with two wireless speakers on the opposite edges of the study desk. The closet looked spotless, for Amy folded her clothes by colors and sizes. Her shoes were perfectly aligned on the shoe rack inside the closet. There were music band posters posted above the long drawer as Amy mostly loved listening to Hip Hop and Rock N Roll.

When Chloe turned her attention, she saw a well-framed, big photo album on the bed-stand. She opened it and looked through it. The album was filled with unforgettable memories they both shared. When Chloe saw Amy’s sparkling smiles on one of the pictures, she remembered the place she had taken it. It was a place she’d never forget, for they had gone to on a special cruise vacation, mother and daughter together. Suddenly, tears made their ways down to the corners of her red eyes, raging faster than a wildfire and dropped on Amy’s sparkling face. She wiped off the fallen tears and let her fingers linger over her daughter’s blushing face. For a second, she felt her hands shake in fear.

Chloe silently studied everything about her daughter and felt proud of Amy. She thought of herself as a lucky mother because being a teenager at Amy’s age, most of them are trouble makers for their parents. But Chloe felt super about her daughter, for Amy has always been an exception to the rules of teenagers; she was rather a child with a heart of an angel. Chloe often thought that she gave birth to an angel than to a human flesh, because she wondered about Amy’s brave and big heart.

Chloe sighed heavily once more and soaked in all the air in the room as much as her deteriorating lungs could master and stood up to head out. She knew the imminent darkness might’ve been near, yet she refused to close her eyes forever. Not just yet. Since the bad news had broken, she’s been struggling with her diagnosis and refused to go through all the recommended procedures by her doctors.

When she got closer to the exit, she looked outside through the clear window panes and saw the burning flames of the sun. She smiled happily, although she felt an excruciating sharp pain in her stomach.

She’s accepted that maybe science can’t fix everything, so they should then be left to fate.

https://theprose.com/book/2114/the-third-patient-collaborative-writers