It's time.
Those words replay over and over inside Max's head, a haunting mantra that reminds her of the decision she has made, but can't go through with just yet. Max stares at the photograph with puffy eyes. Her nose and ears are cold to the touch, lips cracked and burning, numb fingers grasping the photograph's edges loosely. She wants to let go, to let the photo slip away into the storm, an accident.
But she can't. She doesn't want Chloe to live a life of guilt, guilt that will consume her slowly, chipping away at her each day until it devours her whole. The guilt of living each day knowing that every rewind to save her has accumulated into a reckoning, knowing that some divine power will kill everyone if she isn't dead. The guilt of living only because others are dead. That's no life.
Max breathes in. Max breathes out. Okay. It's time. It's time.
She focuses, despite the hissing winds, despite the bullets of rain, despite the clattering sounds of destruction that begin to rip the town apart. She focuses because that's all she can do right now, because that's what will make things right.
It has to.
The image of the butterfly and the bucket no longer seems like mere instant film. It's vivid. Real. Max no longers shivers from the cold. Her dampened clothes have been replaced with dry ones, and the lighthouse cliffs have been replaced with stoic walls that are confined in boundaries of unstable light.
She hides. Nathan comes. Chloe comes. They argue. Nathan loses control.
The gunshot reverberates throughout the bathroom. Max crumples as she hears Chloe's dying body thud against the floor. Tears and snot drip from Max's eyes and nose as the weight of her decision finally sinks in. She hugs herself tightly, rocking back and forth as Nathan's distressed whimpers fill the gaps of air.
Unstable light surrounds Max.
It's worth it, she lies to herself. When she reenters a new reality, one where Arcadia Bay is safe, one where Joyce and David and Kate and Warren and Victoria are all safe, it will be worth it. Even if the cost is losing Chloe.
Right?
Max opens her eyes.
She's lying on the ground, thunder echoing throughout the darkened skies. A surge of lightning. Winds rip through the atmosphere at incredible speed, rain pouring down violently, the tornado approaching in the distance. The lighthouse towers beside her. Her clothes are soaked and her face feels like ice and her heart has plummeted into her chest.
"No," Max says, voice trembling. Her eyes are wide and her mouth is ajar as she watches the chaos around her. "This can't be happening! This was supposed to fix everything!"
Max falls to her knees. Her fists slam against the muddy grass, and she shakes her head furiously. Chloe's death was supposed to save everyone, but they're doomed anyway. Everyone will be dead. And there's no going back, no way of turning back the clock, no way of stopping this and stopping the death of Chloe.
It is hopeless.
Max screams. She pounds her fists against the ground, not caring if her fingers break or bleed. Max chokes out violent sobs, the sounds of her wails being swallowed up by the storm. She screams and she screams and she screams. She screams because she let Chloe die. She screams because Arcadia Bay cannot be saved. She screams because fate is cruel and merciless and has left her to rot.
She glances up at the sky. A boat whirls into the lighthouse, causing the structure to collapse as Max sits vulnerable below. Her entire life flashes before her eyes, and she raises her hands to protect herself, and white light blocks out the world, and the world is still, and then the world is moving in reverse in reverse in reverse and then
Max jolts in her chair.
Whoa. That was surreal.
Mark Jefferson's voice projects to the back of the classroom. "Alfred Hitchcock famously called film 'little pieces of time.' But he could be talking about photography, as he likely was."
Okay. She's in class. Everything's cool, even though she doesn't know what happened. All she remembers is a storm and a lighthouse and nearly dying.
Was that… a dream? It sure didn't feel like one.
Weird.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -George Santayana
Fin.