Max shattered into a thousand pieces as the gunshot reverberated around the bathroom. The tears she had been holding in since she found herself back in the bathroom finally escaped, flowing down her cheeks and splashing onto the cold tiles of the floor. No longer concerned with staying hidden, she pushed herself onto her knees and crawled out from behind the stall, going unnoticed by Nathan as he staggered around the room, muttering to himself with his head in his hands.

Reaching Chloe, Max pulled her body up by her shoulders and rolled her into her lap as she leant back against the wall. Then, with her arms wrapped around her best friend one last time, she finally collapsed into her grief. Sobs wracked her entire body as her senses deactivated one by one. She could hear nothing but the roaring in her ears. See nothing through the tears streaming from her eyes. Feel nothing but Chloe's body pressed against her. She didn't see David Madsen storm into the bathroom. She didn't hear him tackle Nathan to the ground and zip-tie his hands behind his back. Didn't feel his hand on her shoulder as he collapsed to the floor, finally taking in the sight of his step-daughter.

What felt like hours later, they were escorted from the bathroom by a pair of police officers, through a crowd of students and teachers. Statements were signed, after the whole devastating ordeal was retold again and again. The hardest was telling Joyce. No parent should have to outlive their child, and having already lost a husband meant that she took it even harder. As Chloe had gone further and further off the rails over the last five years, she had tried to prepare herself for a tragic outcome, knowing that it was a possibility for anyone who lived such a lifestyle. But no amount of preparation could ever have been enough. The once kind and motherly Joyce was now a broken woman.

Classes were cancelled, obviously, leaving Max with nothing to distract her from her grief. Her friends tried to help, and though she appreciated their efforts, there wasn't much they could do. The small comfort she did find came from Kate. The soft-spoken blonde was affected by brutal events of the bathroom almost as much as Max, finally receiving confirmation as the story unfolded over the following days that she had indeed been drugged at the Vortex Club party. She would sit on the grass outside the dormitories, with Max's head resting in her lap, and read aloud passages from the bible. And even though Max didn't share the girl's faith, she found her voice soothing and the words meaningful.

The other students of Blackwell all reacted differently to the events that took place that fateful Monday afternoon. The few who had known Chloe found their own ways to get through their grief, be it passing around a joint as the reminisced on the time they had spent with her, or blasting rambunctious punk tunes through the halls of the dormitories as they thrashed away the pain. Those who had been close with Nathan struggled to come to grips with the revelations about his true nature. Their guilt at not knowing just how damaged he was, and not being able to help him, equally matched their guilt over what he had done to others and how they had treated some of those others.

All the while, funeral preparations were made. Max tried to be involved, feeling like she needed to take some of the burden off of Joyce, but never being able to contribute more than a few words through the numbness that had taken over her soul. Instead, David took the lead, dedicating all of his time to the task in an attempt to deal with his own guilt and grief.

But Max would have no recollection of any of this. Her body was already on autopilot as she lay in bathroom with Chloe in her arms, her mind returning to the moment by the lighthouse that she had left, where the golden sun shining over a peaceful bay mocked her and her pain.

Welp, that was difficult to write. I'm not one for Authors Notes so these will be scarce, I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank you for reading. I know this was short, future chapters will be much much longer, this is just a way to set up how things are as this fic begins. Fair warning, things will be pretty dark for a while, but the fluff is coming, I promise. The whole point of writing this fic is for me to work through the traumatising ending of the game, so the happiness is definitely on it's way.

Thanks again for reading. See you next time.