She's still young when she first learns the bitter burn of tragedy.
Her father dies and leaves her to her own devices, and hell if there is an afterlife then she loathes whatever god watches over the long dead masses- she loathes the god that abandoned his creations on this horrible planet, and she loathes the god that doesn't let the dead visit the living.
But as if matters weren't already horrible, she just as quickly learns that her best friend is moving away.
She's angry- no, more than angry. She's lava, with an inferno blazing a trail through her veins and heat rolling off her tongue in waves. Her eyes glare like the sun, burning through the walking corpses of people she once knew. Her heart is the earth's core, molten metals and crackling heat that she wishes would just spill out and swallow her whole.
But she's been wishing that for years now.
Eventually she builds herself armor, all leathery and hot against her skin before she builds it up into something better- something easier to project herself in, something less obvious. And when she's done with that armor she releases her steam across the bay's quaint little town. She burns her name into the earth and chars the city to smoke and ash with her actions and impulses- but underneath that armor she knows she's just a little girl wearing a mask to cover her fear and doubt. She's just a terrified child, afraid to feel pain and express emotion outside anger and contempt.
But she has all the (otherwise useless) time in the world to tune up her act.
Years move past with flicks of a lighter and clinks of cheap beer bottles meeting one another.
Time isn't relevant to her when her world is void of meaning, so she figures that it must be a miraculous gift from that god she loathes when a fallen angel tumbles into her life.
Her angel has a name, beautiful and ever ringing in her ears- now more so than ever.
Her angel is named Rachel Amber, and she's a star shining bright white lights across Arcadia Bay.
Rachel's light is gentle and healing, unlike the smoke and flames that start crawling up her throat and out her lungs whenever she so much as hears the wrong thing from the wrong person.
And she vaguely wonders, in the back of her head, if she's ever met someone with such a comforting light before- because Rachel's is familiar, but she can't quite put her tongue on it. So instead of worrying about it she forgets that too, letting it fall to the back of her skull with a half assed greeting from Arcadia Bay's local dragon.
But as soon as the words leave her mouth she's second guessing herself, because she can feel the way Rachel's eyes analyze her- quick and piercing.
Rachel is the first of few to draw her sword and chip her armor, all with a simple "Hello" and a smile.
It's no wonder the girl's name is whispered all over the bay, because one word from THE Rachel Amber and she can feel herself diving forward into her feelings once again, and which one it is she has no clue yet but she's not sure she wants to work it out any how.
All she knows is that she's in for one hell of a ride.
And one hell of a ride it was.
Rachel falls out of her life just as easily as she fell in, and when she does she leaves Chloe with shredded armor.
Chloe is different now.
She's got short blue hair and an act so firmly drilled into her mind that trying to hear anything from before her change is like an attempt at gas-lighting her.
She's had almost a full five years worth of adventure because of a simple greeting exchanged what feels like eons ago, and for all she knows that's EXACTLY how long ago it was.
And she's not entirely sure if it's the drugs or the alcohol that drive her to thinking back to the last time she heard from her charismatic companion, but when she realizes how long it's been she freaks.
After a few months she feels like a lost little kid again, shaking and sobbing on the inside while her stony front remains ever bitter.
Her fire is steadily coming back, crawling like (now familiar) smoke up her lungs before snaking out in steady roaring streaks and splattering screams.
Her fire is back and better than ever, but she's had years of pushing to know there are new ways of dealing with it.
Her fire is back, and all she can do about it is make hastily scrawled lines on paper with screeching lead until the white noise in her head turns into echoing mutters and snide remarks from long ago. Until she finds herself tugging at her armor and her flesh beneath it, filthy nails making white hot trails down her flesh as she waits for everything to shut up.
She can't sleep.
She can't dream.
She can't think.
All she can do is move around on autopilot, trying to snag dollar bills and drugs off every willing customer for her various services.
All she can do is steadily start to hate herself and everyone she's ever know, swallowing back fire and broken screams until she runs into quite the troubling situation.
She's got a gun against her ribs and a lunatic raving just inches from her face, making her skin crawl and her stomach heave with disgust and fear.
She's afraid, but she wonders if a bullet could really end all her problems so quickly and efficiently.
(She wonders why she hadn't thought about bullets before.)
But suddenly the fire alarm is blaring and she reacts on impulse, pushing that freaky little Prescott dirt bag off of her before he can leave a greater imprint on her pale paper skin.
She catches a glimpse of brown hair in the background before she runs off, voices rattling in her skull as she makes her escape.
Not too long after she's falling back into old habits.
She's trying to make a get away in her truck when she sees that prick again, and she sees a familiar face beneath him, struggling to free herself and fearful of the damage this boy can cause.
She nearly runs him over (she really wants to), and soon the name she's looking for slips off her tongue just before the brunette can recognize her as well.
A brief exchange of names and a command and they're zooming out the parking lot and down the streets, hearts becoming birds locked tight in flesh cages.
One's heart is bleeding and locked away, and the other's is feeble yet free.
She remembers that this is the warmth she was lacking before and after Rachel's era in her life, and she's chocking back the same damnable feelings once again as an idle conversation strikes up between the pair.
Max is the last to pull out a weapon and tear off her armor, but she is certainly the most careful above doing so.
But Chloe's only concern is that when the dagger is drawn to rip the imaginary steel away from her flesh...
Is if her old friend will be afraid of what she finds lying underneath. Blood and gore, blackened and infected. Surely the damage is too great to fix.
(And she quietly hopes that this gentle star will try and heal her anyways, in ways that Rachel never could successfully do.)