Let me preface this with: I'm slightly autistic.
About a year ago this month, I was having a nice day at my girlfriend's house chilling and hanging out. She has an indoor pool. The house was fairly large, as she still lives with her parents. I don't mind this, because she's amazing girl.
The two of us were hanging out in the living room, far from the pool. Her parents were in the family, which was fairly close to the pool. We were hanging out, while her 20 month old brother came and went. A little while later we realized that he had been absent for a while, and went to look for him. We went to get a to drink, as well as look for him. When we reached the kitchen, her parents asked "Where's William?"–An innocent enough question, he was quite energetic.
"We thought he was with you." I replied.
The whole house erupted into chaos, searching for the boy. I kept calm, and casually scanned the whole house. Every time that I passed the pool I got an eerie feeling, but ignored it because it WOULD be too much. When my girlfriend entered the pool room, I was standing there–trying to decide whether to report my feeling– and then I heard a deafening scream.
My worst fears for this situation had been realized, William was floating lifeless inches from the bottom of the pool. She dove in after him, and I left the room–I knew I couldn't handle the coming chaos–and watched the whole family pour into the room. When I saw my girlfriend's sister go to the phone, I silently thought "Good, they're reacting rationally."
But, her sister stood there–screaming to the other room to answer the 911 operators questions–so I grabbed the cordless phone and gave it to her. My girlfriend ran out of the house in a sheer panic, and I stopped before she left the driveway. After a short bout of wailing cries, I recommended that she go back for her brother–as she was a trained lifeguard.
She went back, and did all she could. I knew it was already too late, his face was blue when I saw him. I didn't dare follow her in, because I would do more harm than good. When the police and paramedics arrived, they wisked away William, and his sister and mother–leaving only my girlfriend and I at the house.
I tried my best to comfort her, but she was distraught like I've never seen. I was numbed, unable to comprehend this horror–until the first fire flies came out soon after, and I cried out about how he would never know the joy of capturing one of the glowing insects.