Previously on Life is Strange: Eternity War...

"No matter what we try," she began. "You seem insistent on going down the same sad road as your cousin. What a waste."

"Ooh, you gotta learn to watch your back!" She shouts.

We have a laugh. Then she puts me down.

"Alright, you got me," I said.

"The only time you pull a stunt like this," I begin. "Is when you're trying to make up for something."

"You are too smart for your own good, you know that?"

"You're bailing on me."

"I know it sucks to leave Chloe behind like that."

"You have no idea."

"I found Uncle Bryan's stuff. Everything my dad sold. I tracked down the buyer. Whaddaya say we go and get it back? You ready for this?"

"Hell yeah."

"I spoke with Bryan Caulfield today about your secret. I want in."

"C'mon, Ms. Prescott," I said. "The deal was just to tell us what to find to get to it and that's it."

"Just? I'm sticking my neck out for you two."

"Yeah, Uncle Bryan promised you a lot of money for your trouble," I said.

"Yes, he did. But not nearly enough."

Principal Prescott pulled out the old letter she given by my uncle to read on her desk.

"You were told not to open that," I said.

"Yes," the Principal said. "I'm also told not to take bribes. A criminal offense to the faculty. But here we are."

"Alex - no," I panic. "No, hold on!"

My dying cousin gasps for air as she spits a droplet of blood from her mouth and slip back down from the ledge. I hang onto to her by her hand as tight as I could.

"Alex! Gimme your other arm!" I cry. "C'mon, reach!"

And then it happened. The grip on her arm grew lighter and lighter as she's released from my grasp, collapses down to the bottom, and then her lifeless body flushed away from me by the water current. Alex was dead. The guards had killed her.

"No! Alex!" I whale.

"We gotta move!" Fernando scolded, seizing my arm.

"No, no, she's still down there!" I sob.

"No, she gone. C'mon, the boat's just beyond the gate. Kristen's waiting."

"No! No, I can't! I can't - I can't leave her behind!"

"Max, you're cousin is dead! Either come with me or join her."

"No, she just-"

"Have it your way!"

I take one last good glace at the flooding water that flushed out my late cousin. This could not be for real. This was a nightmare. It had to be. Won't count on it. I had to keep running. For guards were still shooting at us.

"Alex...", I moan.

"The more things change, the more they stay the same," said Admiral Penske in his office. And here I am, thinking we'd won. But you bring down one enemy and they find someone even worse to replace him."

"What's left of the Prescott family I presume?" I say to her.

"With my mom as the new head of the Chrysalis corporation," she begins. "My dad executed on death row at Quantum Prospekt, my brother killed by a photographic nutcase, and my family's foundation shut down by US government jurisdiction over suspicions of our former ties with Neo-Chrysalis, the heard is thinning every day."

"And the harsher part is," said Cayce. "No one seems to be sorry the Prescott Foundation has ceased operations for the past three years. Allow me to be the first one to feel sorry. Or the second."

"You're the first Prescott I've ever seamlessly admired until now, Kris," I said. "Say no more."

"I appreciate that, David," said Kris.

"Jarvis asked you about that Vancouver job again," she said.

"Jarvis always asks me about the Vancouver job," I said.

"Look, Max. I really think you should take it."

"You know what, I don't want it. Really. I mean, he doesn't have the permits. And we agreed we're not gonna take that kind of work anymore. It's just not worth it."

"Okay, but...it...it doesn't sound that risky. Alright, if it's just the permits-"

"No way."

"You can call your parents."

I sigh.

"You haven't seen them in what, two years?"

"Chloe, look, can we please drop this."

"Okay, I just don't want you to not take it because of me."

"I'm not taking it because of me, okay?"

I hump over Chloe and tickle her bit as she laughs away. Like she did to me in my bedroom four years ago at my house in Seattle. Then she caresses her hand on my cheek when she calms.

"Hey, are you happy?" Chloe asked.

"Yeah, of course." I reply. "You?"

Chloe scoffed.

"Um..." she says.

"Um?" I frown. "Really?"

Chloe chuckles.

"C'mere," she said.

I kiss the girl of my life on the couch as I lean down over her.

"It's good to see you again, Max," said Alex.

"Oh my god, Alex!" I cry.

"Whoa! Alright, alright," she says calming me as I give her nice big hug. "Take it easy. Take it easy."

"How?" I ask crying a little. "I thought you - I saw you get shot!"

"Yes, you did," she admits, removing the corner of the shirt to show her bullet scars. "Right...there..."

"Where...where have you been all these years?" I start asking. "If you've been alive this whole time, why didn't you come find me sooner? How'd you even get here? Find me?"

"Alright, alright, slow down," she says. "Okay? Have a seat."

"A girl who can rewind time. A girl who saved another girl from a dorm building roof at Blackwell. Saw the video. A girl who won the Arcadia Bay Versus Max Caulfield case. Saw the news. A girl who saved Portland from the end of the world on a Chrysalis tower. That actually happened?"

"Yeah, that ah...that actually happened."

"C'mon, man, what did I miss?"

"Jesus, Alex, where do I start?"

"Start with the best part."

"I mean what can I say?" I say finishing my story for the past hour. "Another maniacal egomaniac stopped once and for all, and uh...we made it out alive...barely."

"Unbelievable," said Alex.

"Yeah, yeah it was. I wish you could've been there."

"Max...I'm in a lot of trouble here," begins Alex.

"What?" I ask, getting off the porch to speak by the railing next to her. "What are you talking about? What kind of trouble?"

"Do you remember Joanna Prescott? Our high school principle back in Seattle? Joanna is leading some secret shadow cult. A secret organizational society of some kind. One that enlist families of some sacred influence. Including the Prescotts. They call themselves the Herd of Whales."

"Oh no," I said. "No man. Listen, I can't. I'm out."

"What?" Alex frowned.

"No, I just don't do that kind of thing anymore. Besides, there are plenty of other guys that are much more equipped to handle this kind of thing."

"Like who?"

"Anybody - Rachel Amber," I said.

"No," said Alex.

"Or David Madsen. No really, they're my go-to guy's for this sort of thing."

"No, no, no, absolutely not. I don't trust Rachel or David or anybody else you got on that phone with my life, okay? I need you on this one."

"Oh man. Alex, there's gotta be another way. I have a life now with Chloe. And I promised her I would never try anything like this again in a lifetime. Especially with my powers that I've also vowed to her not to use for this thing either."

"Bryan will be waiting and so will Fernando and Kristen who've I managed to get in touch with over the years as well. I swear, not once will you have to time travel even if you have to use a bit of your powers. I got you plane ticket to Vancouver. The next flight is in eight hours. Don't waste it."

"What is Ares?" I ask as the footage ends. "And who's the herd?"

"Unclear," said Penske. "Helmet cam stopped transmitting. It's been eighteen hours. No contact. ConDef's made no demands."

I speak with Admiral Penske in his office in the Chrysalis Seattle headquarters. I had been sent here by his orders as soon as Chrysalis command had received Captain Lyall's last transmission. Penske turned off the screen and turned his eyes to me.

"Continuum Defense Front doesn't make demands," I said. "They planted flag on our grass. They executed three men and their pilot was shot down."

"Commander Madsen, I implore you to use diplomacy in this office. Your not in Blackwell security or the ABPD anymore. Neither are you in the US marines. Take a different tact."

"Yes, sir. Who else knows about this?"

The admiral walk up to his desk to open the blinds for bright sight and a glamorous view of Seattle and the forth of July parade. Our conversation continues.

"Right now," continued Penske. "Joint Strategic Air Command and you."

"We stand by with our barrels in the sand and watch our fleet leak parade?"

"Commander Madsen, make no mistake. My instincts which are aligned indelibly with your own are that we need to engage."

"You told me there wouldn't be any cameras," I tell him.

"And you told me you were gonna wear something nice," said Cage. "Folks need heroes, Madsen. To give them hope. So smile, would ya? While we still got something to smile about."

"All stations! Shots fired at Elliot Bay! Say again, shots fired!"

"This is not a drill! Divert and deploy all available assets immediately!"

"Brace for impact!" I warn everybody.

"Hold on!" Kris shouts.

And that's when we crash through the glass touching down into the shopping building. Praying for our lives that have hung onto dear life in a near fatal event of a crashing bird that lost it's wings. And then my world goes black.

"We're this fight together, Penske."

"It's a fight we cannot win. Not without help. We need to alert the pentagon. Inform the president and defense committee of this incident. We can convince them to help us. The only way we can provide ourselves the strength in numbers against Continuum."

"What if they don't listen?"

"We'll make them listen. Now go. I'll be meeting you at the Oregon. That's an order."

"We will, Admiral. Godspeed."

"You too, Madsen."

Chapter 1 Eye of the Beholder

Max - Age 21 (POV)

Alex - Age 25

Grey sky. Black trees. Shrouded ground. A decaying orchard where branches are vacant of leaves, the grass is relieved of green, and the air is moist with speaks of ash. I'm in the middle of an accursed forest that looked as if a wildfire destroyed it. Where am I?

I look around myself to see me surrounded by the foreboding environment of taboo and destruction. The trees in these woods were certainly waylaid of devastation and the atmosphere was indeed amiss of ash. What was I doing here in the middle of a scorched earth and dilapidated woodland? It felt so cold in the misty woods.

I turn my eyes forward to see it again. To see the mystic creature I've been seeing since the bay. Standing front and center with her head weaving at the grass and then raising her head to look me in the eye. My spirit doe has returned for me.

She spots me eye to eye from ten feet away. I give her a conspicuous look face to face from afar. Then she prances away. Galloping out in the open woods. I follow her.

I run to where my doe runs. Following her through the woods as she gallops. She comes to a stop by a porch between two scorched bark trees. That's where I stop to come closer.

When I get closer, she turns her head to me like a friendly face would. I give her a small smile in all optimism. I've never come this close to my spirit animal like this before and it felt beautiful standing next to her. Until a red light luminously beams down on us.

As the red light glares down on me and my spirit, an illusive roar was heard from above. That is when the doe fled from me and where I turn my head upwards to investigate where the light and the roar came from. The roar sounded like something out of the Tyrannosaurus Rex from Jurassic Park. The light came out of nowhere and had no source. Not even from the foggy skies I turned my head up to. Then the light faded and dispersed.

I open my journal to see strange pages drawn with graphic imagery. They make me barf just looking at drawing of everyone I know with their heads on sticks. Alex, Rachel, Frank, my parents, Joyce and David, my friends from Seattle, my friends from Arcadia Bay, Cayce and Kristine from David's unit, the Ambers, and of course, Chloe. Not to mention, my own head held up high by a malevolent figure with malicious armor, a horned helmet, and evil red eyes. Posing on top of a small hill above the head sticks like a Greek warrior. I stared at this drawing no longer.

Then I look at my phone to read text messages that only make me sicker.

Chloe: So that's why you ditched me for five years!

Chloe: You chose Alex over me for some stupid adventure to go on. I thought we were going to do that together!

Chloe: And now you've left me again. I wish we never saw each other back in Arcadia Bay again!

Chloe: You should've let me die! I hope you do!

Alex: Hey Max! Ready to go on an adventure!

Alex: Let's leave and never see Chloe again!

Alex: And die.

Ares: In time, you will know what it's like to loose.

Ares: To feel so desperately that you're right.

Ares: Yet to fail all the same.

Ares: War is coming, Max. Your death will be the end of it.

I put my phone away after the last text I read. I see the doe running again and that's when I start following it again. But where the doe takes me is nothing compared to what I see next. What I see next is a bloodbath in the misty woods.

First, I see my parents laid down on their backs against a tree with bruised clothes and grazed skin. Their face cut and blood dripping from their nostrils and lips. Both who have dropped dead. My parents are dead. Why are they dead? How are they dead? Why and how am I seeing them like this?

Next, I see Rachel and Frank posed dead on the ground like better angels. Frank posed dead the way he was when Chloe had shot him before rewinding and Rachel posed dead the way she was posed in one of her dark room shots and when she overdosed. Only with more brutal repercussions on their bodies than when they both died the first time. A blue jay was seen poking Rachel's corpse. Rachel's spirit creature to be exact.

Then, I see David and Joyce as well as two of David's squad members Cayce and Kristine lying dead in the dark grass. David was in military uniform with his face grazed and bloodied. Holding hands with his dead wife who held hands with her dead husband. Joyce's face was bloody and grazed too.

Cayce and Kristine were also in uniform and were both out of it as well. Kristine's eyes were still peeled open as she played dead with Cayce. There was even an eagle sitting down on David's corpse. A freakin eagle sitting on his body. Whatever that was about, maybe that's David's spirit creature or something?

And then, I see Rachel's parents James and Rose dead on the ground. I've never really seen the Ambers all that often as much as Chloe had when they were still living in Arcadia. Only when Chloe and I vacationed to Cali to see Rachel and Frank did I ever see the Amber couple. It was only just as terrifyingly shady to see them as corpses with torn clothes and grazed skin.

Even more people I knew laid down in front of me dead. Warren, Kate, and Victoria had dropped dead into a pile of corpses as well. They were just as beaten up and worn out like the rest playing dead. What was going on here? Why do I see more dead people than Haley Joel Osment in the Sixth Sense?

Then, I see Fernando and Kristen from Seattle. Wowser, I hadn't seen then in four years since I left the city for Arcadia and out of nowhere I have see them dead flat on the ground too? How many more people I know do I have to see dead in this shady vision of mine? No bueno as Fernando would say.

And then, I see my Uncle Bryan and cousin Alex laid to rest besides each other. This wasn't right. There must be an answer to all this. There's always an answer to every bad dream I've had since Arcadia Bay. The one place I thought I'd left all my post-trauma behind. And yet it's far from behind.

And finally, I see no one more than my roommate, soul mate, girlfriend, partner in crime, partner in time, and love of my life Chloe Elizabeth Price limped dead on the ground. Posing her death the way she did on the bathroom floor. And her spirit creature, the luminous blue butterfly folding it's wings and sitting on Chloe's body.

This time, I pause and kneel down to my girlfriend's body. Examining her lifeless face as I soften my fingers on her cheek and her dark blonde hair with a strip of blue. Then suddenly, her hand strangles my wrist as she jerks her eyes open and I gasp in a heartbeat. Chloe speaks to me with her mouth and voice weary.

"You...could have...saved us..."

That is all Chloe could say before releasing her grasp from my arm and her head falls limp again. Dropping dead again as her eyes are stone cold open and her nose leaks a droplet of blood. What occurs next is what occurs lastly before exiting this nightmarish trauma.

I hear the caw of a bird close to me. Seeing a crow or a raven whoosh past me as it flies to an armored figure up front. The raven lands on the figure's shoulder as the figure himself turns around to look me in the eye. And what I see is beyond shady. What I see is shady as shady can be.

The dappled figure is dressed in some medieval armor of Greek origin. His body armored with a chest plate, shoulders plated with spiked shoulder guards, and elbows padded with razor elbow pads. The figure's face was also masked with a helmet with long horns and his eyes were also glowing scarlet red. The figure glanced down menacingly at me as the dark bird sat and stood on his shoulder. My face is pale with fear.

After facing the armored figure, he steps aside from me to reveal an even more tantalizing. I see my spirit doe nudge her head against my body. My beaten, grazed, and worn out body with a sword punctured to the heart like a fork on a steak. My dead body with my bruised, scarred, and bloody face with cold open eyes. I drop my jaw, lift my brows, and cup my lips with my hand. Shaking in terror.

Next thing I see is fire igniting on the skin of my impaled self before me. Flames incinerated my dead self like wood on fire. Turning it into a charred crisp. Which is nothing compared to the very last thing I witness.

I hear a unanimous whale from the misty sky. A monstrous whale from above. And from above is a moon shaped creature bigger than Godzilla and scarier than Kong. It wasn't just moon shaped, it was an actual moon. Half a moon with the other featured with a large organic mouth and gargantuan tentacles. Open it enormous mouth with it's vast teeth and behemoth roar.

My eyes and face are broken in fear. Struggling to bear sight of this bizarre nightmare even worse than every last nightmare I've ever confronted. I could take this no longer staring off into the eye of the beholder.

And then back to reality.

July 5th, 2017

5:37 AM

Flight 425

Canadian Airspace.

Wowser...that...was so surreal.

A dark forest, spirit animals, the death of the people I loved, an armored bedeviling figure, and a moon monsters. Not to mention the death of myself. Whatever I had just, it was surreal as surreal can be. At least I'm back to the real world again as always whenever I'm in the twilight zone. Exactly why did I see everyone I knew dead like vermin with shredded clothes and scathed skin? Why?

I'm wide awake on the seat of the plane we took hours ago to fly to Vancouver. Where Uncle Bryan and my friends from Seattle would be waiting for Alex and I. As well as Rachel and Frank who asked to meat us there at the airport since they were already in Vancouver. Our flight had been delayed due to the Seattle attack interfering with airspace and couldn't leave until 11PM.

Speaking of the attack on Seattle, Chloe immediately text me about it asking if I was watching it. I immediately replied if my parent or her parents made it out alive. She said both my parents and hers made it out okay and are taking refuge at a sanctuary on a Chrysalis freighter. The Oregon to be precise. Then I text my parents to make sure they were okay myself and my mom replied though they were alive and well, my dad busted his knee during a crash landing. Rest assured, I'm not an orphan. Relief confirmed.

I turn my head to my right to see Alex sitting next to me passed out on her seat. As well as all the other passengers in their seats. Most of them taking a nap. I turn my head to my left to see the planes left wing and engine hover fifty thousand feet above outside my window. It was still dark out, but there was only half an hour till morning. But there were more important thing to think about the sleeping passengers including Alex and the dark sky we were flying in.

What have you done, Max Caulfield? You and your precious roommate make exodus from Arcadia Bay. And for what? To abandon the hostilities and calamities from your accursed home town? Or for your family secret to walk on your doorstep five years after she was shot in front of you? Either way, you've just broken the one promise you were sworn never to break. Which you did.

Here's one thing about irony. I abandoned my soul mate after her dad passed. Only to replace her with my distant but closest relative of mine from my home away from home. Four years later, she's shot to death in a filthy sewer. Eleven months later, you witness your best friend from five years past get shot in a filthy john. Just to save her from being killed and reunite with her after five years apart. Another four years later, your cousin returns from the dead out of nowhere like Rachel before her. After another five years from be separated from your other soul mate. It's a shame I never had my rewind power to save Alex before Chloe. Otherwise, Alex and I would not have met again like we did back at the gallery.

History repeats itself when it comes to reuniting with the ones we let go. Rachel becomes friends with Chloe to step inside my shoes for her hence the way Alex stepped inside Chloe's shoes for me. Only for both of them to just die out nowhere and to eventually come back from the dead for us. Evidently, no one stays dead in our lives when we don't want them to. And so the irony breeds. Albeit fate is stronger than irony.

I still loathed myself for not only breaking my promise that I was done with this unnatural life to Chloe, but for lying to her about the Vancouver and hiding my family secret to her even before we left the bay. Though Alex had crossed paths with Chloe before, that was years ago during our camping trip when we were kids. Two years before William's passing and my migration from Arcadia Bay. I doubt she still remembered.

I was more worried about how she would react to all this if she found this out. I of all people knew that despite Chloe's changes made in her life, she still wasn't the person to let grievances slide as easy as cherry pie. I knew her well enough that I needed to make saving her on that cliff from four years back pay forward. And to never resurge the things that triggered her inner turmoil she suffered since I was gone. Which I may just have.

"Attention passengers, this is your Captain speaking. We're still flying above Washington, but we're about fly over the border and enter Canadian airspace. We'll be in Vancouver in less than three hours."

After the captain spoke on the intercom, Alex started waking up from her nap after six hours on this flight. That's when I talk to her on the plane.

"Sleep well?" I ask.

"Yeah...", she yawned. "Pretty much. How 'bout you? Are Ryan and V okay?"

"They made it out of Seattle alive. Thanks to David and his Chrysalis unit. And Joyce made it out of there too. I just woke up from a bad dream. I've slept better."

I sigh. Alex stares at me in concern.

"Hey, Max," she says. "I'm sorry you had to see that attack on the news like that. I really am."

"It's not just that, Alex," I say. "I should've told her the truth. I feel like utter shit I didn't. She deserved to know."

"Max, I'm kinda glad you didn't. You told her you're on your way to Vancouver for that Vancouver job thing. We're on a plane to Vancouver right now. She'll never suspect your lying. It's not like she needs to know. It's for the best she doesn't know. For now."

"For now? Don't tell me what's for the best for her. You do not know her like I do."

"It doesn't matter. In fact, the less she knows about this, the less danger she'll be in. There are a lot of things about the herd they don't want exposed to anyone and danger is the consequence for that."

"Chloe may not matter to you, Alex, but she does matter to me. But if it means keeping her out of danger, that's fine by me."

"You know, you never told me why and how you made it back to Arcadia Bay when you were excepted. Why leave Seattle back to Arcadia just then? How did you make it back there?"

"During second semester of Junior year in Cleveland, my parents were looking into some boarding schools in Oregon for me to register and when they found out Blackwell had a program for photography, that's what made me want to go back there. Over the summer, I was accepted. Then I packed my things, said goodbye, took a bus back to Arcadia Bay, and finished my senior year there. I think you would've liked it there. A lot better than Cleveland. You never told me what you've been up to when you were away. What happened?"

"Let's just say happened between dad and I is complicated. Maybe we can explain when you see your uncle again. How's that sound?"

"What are we going to do once we land? You and Uncle Bryan have plan to handle this heard thing of yours?"

"We've always had a plan to settle the score between us and the herd. You'll know the plan once we get there. Fernando and Kristen are meeting us at the airport. Bryan will be meeting us at the house. Isn't that Rachel girl and her boyfriend Frank meeting us there too?"

"I text Rachel a while ago and she said they'll meet us there. They just got off tour from the show they performed in. They'll be waiting."

"Hey, Max."

"What?"

"I know you don't agree to what we're doing, but it's nice I get to see my little cousin again. It really is."

"You too, Alex. You too."

"After five years, you're still Max Caulfield."

That's what Chloe said to me once. The day I first rode in her truck that Monday. It's what Alex is saying to me now that we've seen each in parallel to the reunion I had four years ago on that fateful October.

I lean against my window staring off into space. Gazing at the dark early morning sky. Dwelling on my shitty-ness I brought on myself for breaking my promise to Chloe for Alex. And now I was dragging Rachel and Frank into this mess which I know the two would never accept. Considering Rachel promising the same. At least David helped Joyce and my parents get to safety in one piece. That's at least something to be proud of.

Even after three years of a normal life, I'm still asking myself the same question. How do you know which way is up when your whole life has been turned upside down?

Note: Here we go again my fellow readers! My next installment to Eternity War. I'll have you note that I'm posting this in solid of the release for Before the Storm Episode 3: Hell Is Empty.

For those confused about Max's vision in this beginning chapter, let's just say it's a little foreshadowing of where Max's story goes from here and what's about to come next for her final chapter in the trilogy I've set for her. And if you think it's foreshadowing the death of everyone at the end, I can only confirm that only fate will decide that hypothesis and not spoilers. And yes, I have figured out a way for James and Rose from Before the storm to appear in this story if you've caught them in Max's dream. And yeah, the raven from BTS was in this chapter too.

All I can say now is that enjoy the finale to Before the Storm everyone! Which will release tomorrow for everyone and has released today for some players. I may just download it and play it tonight or tomorrow. CAN'T WAIT!

Until next time, stay golden!