Chance was only vaguely aware of the way his sneakers were filling with cold, stagnant water, and barely noticed how the raspberry bushes lining the drainage ditch snagged at his jeans and scratched his bare arms. After headlights passed overhead and the rumble of a lone pickup truck was a distant memory, the scrawny teenager pulled himself back up to the winding strip of cracked and pitted asphalt.

He turned away from the dark, pine-scented shapes looming over him just as a stiff breeze hissed across the field of tall, dried weeds on the far side of the road. The bright harvest moon made it look like an ocean of silver waves. In the middle of that ocean was an island of shadows in the shape of an abandoned two-story house. The goosebumps Chance felt wasn't just caused by of the chill of the night. It was more than the cool breeze that made him shiver.

It was the house ... the house where his best friend had died.

Once he was fairly certain there weren't any more cars coming, he shifted his backpack to a more comfortable position before running across the road and wading through the waist-high tangle. After clumping up a short flight of crumbling brick steps, he slumped down in the shadow of some unidentifiable clutter on the wide front porch as he tried to catch his breath.

He glanced across the field and sighed with relief when he saw the road was still empty, then pulled himself back to his feet and examined the door. The gleam of something between the boards nailed to the frame caught his attention. He cautiously reached in, then smiled when he recognized the cold, hard shape in his hand. It turned easily when he gave it a twist, and the door swung open with a soft, drawn out squeak.

Smiling at the unexpected luck, Chance squirmed under the boards blocking the doorway, then closed the door behind him. Once his eyes adjusted to the dim light that peeked through the tears in the heavy drapes covering the windows, he noticed a staircase against the far wall. He also saw a half-open door against the same wall, and shuddered.

The echo of his footsteps was muffled slightly by the dust on the bare floorboards as he walked across the huge, empty room. With a conscious act of will, he turned his back to the ominous doorway and began climbing the creaking, groaning steps.

At the top of the steps, bright moonlight was shining through an open doorway at the far end of a short hall. His heart began thumping as he ran towards the light, but he stopped short when he reached the threshold. A shiver crawled up his spine as he let his eyes scan the all-too-familiar room. It was the room that had been invading his dreams for almost half his life.

He whispered, "I'm here, Hope."

Eventually, he was able to move his legs again, and slowly made his way over to a narrow bed. Noticing the thick layer of dust there, Chance held his breath and squinted as he pulled back the thick comforter. This didn't help him a whole lot, because he wound up gasping with surprise when he heard a chain falling to the floor.

Coughing and wheezing, he stumbled towards the window. After doing everything he could think of to get it open, he eventually discovered the window had been nailed shut. Fortunately, one of the panes of the window had been broken, and the light breeze drifting through it helped clear the air.

Once the dust had mostly settled, he made his way back to the bed and found the chain he had heard falling. One end was attached to a leather handle that was looped around one of the legs of the bed. The other end was attached to a leather collar just big enough for a cat or small dog.

Looking closer at the collar, he noticed the buckle seemed to be locked with a tiny padlock. the opposite end of the collar looked like it had been cut in half, but the cut felt very rough and jagged. A flash of something drifted across his mind's eye, but the memory left him before he could make any sense of it.

He shook his head and sighed, then shrugged off his backpack and pulled a carefully wrapped package out of it. After stripping away the paper bag and clingy plastic wrap from a huge cupcake topped with pink icing, he set the cupcake on a slightly crumpled paper plate. He then poked a slender white candle into the top of the cupcake, pulled a lighter from his back pocket, and lit the wick.

"Happy birthday, Hope. Sorry I wasn't able to bring a whole cake," he said as he settled himself beside the bed, then watched the flame flicker for a few minutes. "Sorry you weren't able to have any cake at your birthday," he said as he blinked away the sting in his eyes. A crystal teardrop, glistening in the moonlight. slid down his dusty cheek. "Sorry I wasn't able to get here sooner."

A gentle smile crept across his face as he thought back to the first time he'd met Hope and the way she had befriended him, accepting him without conditions or expectations. The smile grew as he remembered how excited he was when she had invited him to her birthday party, the surprise he felt when he arrived and discovered he was the only boy there, then the joy he felt when he eventually realized nobody was treating him any differently from the rest of the guests.

The smile faded a little as he said, "I guess you're probably wondering why I'm here. Part of it is to wish you a happy birthday. The other part is to let you know ... I'm running away."

Chance hung his head as he said, "I know it probably sounds like a dumb idea, but things turned pretty bad for me after you were gone. It eventually got to a point where I just wanted to give up; I wanted to die. Tonight, I almost did."

He sighed and looked up at the slowly dwindling candle. "Then I thought about you, how you always seemed so full of life, the way you always seemed to encourage others to find the best in themselves, and how you'd feel about me wanting to end it all. That's when I decided I needed a change, not an end."

A strong gust of wind blew across the bed, making the candle flame gutter. Chance grinned slightly as he said, "I guess we'd better blow out the candle before the whole cupcake gets coated in wax. You ready to make your wish?"

He paused expectantly, as if listening for an answer, then said, "Okay, on the count of three, let's blow it out together. One ... two ... three." He closed his eyes and blew until his lungs ached, feeling only slightly guilty as he added his wish to his friend's.

It wasn't until after the little ceremony was over that he noticed how the cold was seeping through his damp jeans and socks, or how much his legs ached from walking through most of the night. He was also feeling hungry, but he decided to wrap up the cupcake and tuck it back into his backpack so he'd have something for breakfast.

His teeth began chattering when he stripped down to his underwear and draped his soggy clothes over the footboard. Once he crawled onto the chilly bed and pulled to comforter up to his chin, his body heat had warmed things up, and he began relaxing under the fluffy cover. He let out a half-hearted yawn as his heavy eyelids slowly closed. Within minutes, he had drifted off to sleep.

=-=-=

Hope kicked the stifling covers down to her feet as she sat up in bed. Part of her groggy mind wondered why she had gone to bed in a dress and why nothing around her looked familiar, but most of her attention was concentrated on the more urgent need to get to the bathroom. The jangling sound that followed her as she shuffling across the floor was unexpectedly familiar, but it wasn't until she felt a tug on her left ankle that everything came back to her.

She stood very still and held her breath, but couldn't hear Uncle Jim moving around in the other room. Letting out her breath, she walked over towards the window, being careful not to step on any glass with her bare foot. When the chain holding her to the bed grew taut, she stretched her neck out to look over as much as she could of the yard behind the house. There were a few tire tracks in the grass, but the car was still gone.

Hope's shoulders lowered slightly as some of her tension was released. It looked like Uncle Jim hadn't gotten back yet, which meant she still had time to follow through with her escape plan. After picking up a useable looking shard of glass, she hopped over to a clear area before plopping down on the floor.

Once she had shifted the collar around so she could see the deep groove she had cut into the leather, she wrapped the hem of her dress around one end of the glass she had picked up, then began digging at the collar with the other end. There were already a few places on her ankle where deep scratches had turned her white tight pink. She did her best to not add any more.

Being intensely focused on her work, she didn't notice the sound of a motor until it was practically under her window. When she realized her uncle had arrived, she began digging furiously at the collar. In her panic, she had exchanged caution for haste. Her hand eventually slipped, and she howled when the glass took a gash out of her foot.

"Hope!" shouted her uncle from downstairs. When she heard him pounding up the steps, the girl stood up and swung her left leg, yanking at the chain, but the collar held. Suddenly, Uncle Jim's bulk filled the doorway. His eyes seemed ready to pop out as he asked, "What the heck happened to your foot?" He glanced at the broken glass, then asked, "And how'd the window get broken?"

the girl stopped struggling with the chain and said, "I threw my shoe out the window."

Uncle Jim's brows rose in surprise. "Why in the world would you do that?"

Hope thought about her struggle to get free. At first she had tried pulling the handle of the chain off the bed, but she didn't have the strength needed to lift the bed up. She next tried to undo the buckle on the collar, but she couldn't figure out how to remove the small padlock holding it closed. She had tried pulling her foot out of the collar, but she couldn't get it past her heel. Eventually, she had decided to try cutting open the collar, since it was thinner than the handle. She broke the window so she could use the broken glass for that purpose.

All of that would require more explanation than she was ready to give, so she just replied, " 'Cause."

The man nostrils flared as he huffed with frustration."I've had just about enough of your attitude," he said as he started walking towards her.

The girls heart climbed up into her throat when she saw the look in he uncle's eyes. With speed born of terror, she darted around him and ran for the door. Uncle Jim swung around and tried to follow. Two things happened at the same moment. Hope's uncle tripped on the chain, falling flat on his face, and the collar around Hope's ankle finally broke.

Momentarily stunned by her freedom, she looked over her shoulder and watched her uncle pull himself up from the floor. When he looked up at her, there seemed to be more worry than anger in his expression. "Hope, I know you don't have any reason to trust me, but you have believe me when I say there's some dangerous places in here. If you try running around in the dark, you could wind up--"

Hope didn't hear the rest of what he said. She was too busy running down the steps. When she was halfway down the staircase, she heard him shouting her name, and nearly fell the rest of the way when she tried running faster. Once she reached the bottom, she stumbled through the dark, feeling her way along the wall until she felt a door. The thunder of her uncle's footsteps was almost on top of her when she swung the door open and ran into ... nothing.

For a timeless moment, a breeze blew all around her. She squeezed her eyes shut against the inky darkness and silently prayed, "Please, let this be a dream."

=-=-=

Chance woke to the sound of screaming. It wasn't until he closed his mouth that he realized where it had been coming from. His heart thudded in his chest like a kangaroo trying to bounce out of a cage as he eased himself up to a sitting position.

"Who are you?" asked a shaky voice from directly behind him.

Chance swung his head around to see ... himself. "Who are you?" he asked in return.

"I'm Hope ... I think."

Chance stared at him for a moment. "How can you be Hope? You don't look anything like her."

The doppelgänger looked down at himself, then back up to Chance. "I guess I don't, but you sure do."