Hi, chapter 1 has arrived! I checked this one over and over again for mistakes (English is not my primary language) but it's possible there are still mistakes somewhere :) I hope to dog this is living up to expectations, if not, do tell me in a review! Now that that's of my chest, please enjoy this chapter!
Also I forgot to do this in my prologue so I'll do it now: disclaimer, I do not own Life is strange or any of its characters
"Beep bee-" the sound stops abruptly as I smack my hand onto my alarm clock. 5 am in the morning is way too early to be awake, especially if you barely had some sleep. There was something that kept me awake, a certain feeling of ignorance. Something is going to happen, but what? And when? I want to stay in bed all day just laying down and think, since it's my day off, but now I'm awake and duty calls, so I get up to do my daily tasks. Right as I was about to take my first bite of cereal, my phone rings, and I know it's business. I check the caller id to see that it's my father. I sigh, put down my spoon and answer the call.
"What's so important that you have to call me at 5:30 am?" I can't help but sound a little annoyed, which my dad immediately noticed.
"Morning to you to Max, had a bad night?" he said.
"I'm sorry dad, morning to you to, and yes, my night consisted of me trying to sleep, fail, try again, fail again, and that for about 6 hours straight. But that doesn't matter, why did you call?" I try to change the subject, because knowing him, he might start to ask questions, which I really don't want to answer right now.
"Ah yes, I'm calling you for a mission meeting, today at 10. I'd like my best team on it, so are you available?" I try to hide a grunt. So long day off, until we meet again. As I was about to answer, I got interrupted.
"Oh and there is no point in calling Kate, since I already did that and she agreed." Dad and his evil tricks
"Sure, I'll be there, but there better be some damn good coffee, because I'm going to need it." I can practically hear him smile on the other end of the line.
"Only the best for my daughter, see you soon kid." He says before ending the call. It's this early in the morning and already things are going great, note the sarcasm. This only raises my suspicions of what today has to offer.
I arrive at HQ, greet the guards and enter the conference room. Everyone was already there, Kate, my father and Brooke, his secretary. She's a nice girl, but she has some weird obsession issues. Two weeks ago she found out that Warren, one of our computer geniuses, had asked me out to the movies, which I politely declined (because I don't swing that way, if you know what I mean). Apparently she didn't like that, since she has been bothering me about it every time she can.
"Max! You've arrived, great now we can start." My father exclaims before turning towards a big screen. It showed some pictures of women, dead women to be precise.
"In the last 2 weeks, 3 young girls have been found in the junkyard, all of them being murdered in the same way, by overdosing." I raise my eyebrow What does overdosing girls have to do with us?
"I don't want to be impolite sir, but what do these girls have to do with us?" Kate asks, proving we are on the same wavelength here.
"I was expecting that question, but please hear me out first" I look at my partner to see her face becoming slightly red from embarrassment. She's so cute it almost hurts. "We believe that the person connected to these cases is not human. Of course we have no proof of it yet, the only clues we have are the syringes found next to the bodies." I see Kate cringe, the poor girl hasn't been on many missions that involved death, and it always got to her somehow. I have no problems with it, I was trained for this kind of situation, while Kate was thrown into it.
"Now the question: why do we think that there are monsters, more specifically demons, involved with this?" the pictures on the screen change, and we can see one body in close-up, and I immediately understand my fathers' suspicion.
"As you can see, all of the bodies have these markings in their necks, the place where they were drugged" The picture showed said markings. Those are definitely demon marks, but the ones on the three girls has a very weird pattern, one I haven't seen yet. Thanks to my studying days, I learned a lot about all different kind of signs, so I'm a little worried about this one.
"Do we know what kind of demon this is? As far as I know this mark is unknown to the SID libraries, or at least the one here in Oregon." I say, and my father looks at me with a worried look. "We don't know exactly what kind of demon it is, so that's why-" He got interrupted as Kate suddenly stood up, knocking over her chair.
"I know this sign! It's HIS sign, oh no this is not good, not good at all." She looks at me, but that look in her eyes was enough to set me on edge. She stumbles towards me and grabs my shoulders. "Max, we have to stop him, we have to! He'll kill us all if we let him continue!" I take her hands into mine in a way to comfort her.
"Kate calm down, tell us everything you know. When you're done we'll go catch it ok? Just calm down." I feel her falling down, knees giving in to the sudden adrenaline loss.
"I can't tell Max, not now. Please just let us go, I'll tell you everything later, but right now I really can't." I look at my father, who is just at surprised at Kate's sudden outburst as me. After a few seconds, he found his voice again.
"Kate, I can't let you leave until you told us everything you know about this demon." Helping Kate up, I answer in her place. "Dad, she's in no condition to tell us anything right now. Let us go investigate the crime-scene for ourselves, we'll contact you as soon as we found something. As soon as she's able to tell us, she will. Please just let us do this." Let it slide dad, can't you see she's hurting? "Maybe you can ask the Marshes? If Kate knows this sign, they might know it as well." My father sighs, before giving me an answer I didn't expect. "Fine, but tell no one about this, I trust you Max. Make sure you find something, otherwise I have to remove you two from this mission." I nod, take Kate's hand and pull her towards my car.
We have been driving for five minutes and neither of us has said a word. Kate is probably too scared to say something and I don't want to force her. A few minutes later we arrive at Arcadia Rust. Right when I'm about to exit the car, I feel a hand on my arm. "Max wait" I turn myself towards her. "I'm sorry, but this is very personal to me, and it's a difficult subject to talk about.. but if you really want more info, you can ask my parents, they will be able to tell you something more about it, I just can't say it". Her eyes start watering, she really has trouble with telling me, or anyone else for that matter, poor Kate. "It's ok Kate, I can see this is bothering you, but you know I will always support you, so tell me when you're ready" I give her a comforting smile, which she seems to accept since she gives me a small smile back.
We exit the car and I look at the scene in front of me: an abandoned junkyard, filled with broken cars, beer bottles laying around a campfire and other kinds of garbage. I can't see why people would want to party here, it must be freakin' scary in the dark. In the distance I can see the police banners marking the crime scene. As we are walking towards it, I see the silhouette of a person. It's a man, probably in his late twenties, and looking at his clothes he looks pretty roughed up. He's standing next to the marked spot and I have this gut feeling that he might know something more about the victims, or at least about one of them. I start to approach him, ignoring Kate's silent warning.
"Good morning sir" he turns around, confirming my suspicions. I pull out my SID badge "Max Caulfield, SID. Can I ask you a few questions?" I feel uncomfortable, it feels like his eyes are staring straight through me. "Rather not, can't you see I'm grieving here? I'd like to be left alone." I frown, sure I can understand you want to grieve over a loved one, but at a crime scene? What a creep. I try another tactic. "I'm sorry sir, but you aren't allowed to be here, so can I ask you to leave the scene? If you want to grieve, it's better to go someplace that holds memories." He walks towards me slowly, looking very intimidating.
"If I want to be here, who are you to tell me I can't? He growls, showing off his fangs and realization hits me. This guy isn't human. "You SID hipsters don't scare me, I can kill the both of you before you can grab your fancy phones to call for help" I step back. I can hear Kate starting to walk towards me "you stay there if you want to live blondie" the sounds of footsteps stop, I bet Kate is terrified, but I'm too focused on the man in front of me to turn around.
"Please stay calm, we don't want to kill you and I know that you don't want to kill us either. And if you do, you'll have the full department on your ass." I see him struggling, it looks like my words made him think about it. Or maybe not. "You can't tell me what to do bitch, people have tried to do that before and you know what happened to them? The same thing that's going to happen to you!" he launched forward, catching me off guard, I'm too shocked to do anything. I can hear Kate shout my name, but for me time seemed to slow down for a second. This is it, I'm done for. Sorry dad, it looks like you'll need to look for another successor, because I'm sure as hell not going to make it. Right when his teeth are about to tear my face off, his breath smelling like pot and alcohol, he is gone. I fall to the ground, what the hell just happened?
"Max! Are you alright? Are you hurt?" I can feel Kate falling on her knees next to me, grabbing my face to check it for injuries. "I'm fine Kate, what happened? Where is that guy?" she doesn't answer me, just lifts her arm and points towards my left, where the guy was standing. His head bleeding, probably from crashing into a wall. In front of him stood a girl, probably the one who saved my life. I took a moment to observe her. She has blue hair, covered by a beanie, a shirt with a skull on, ripped pants and a tattoo sleeve on her right arm. Even though she looks like a punk, something about her made me feel safe, despite the fact that I have no idea who she is.
"Fuck off Frank, leave these people alone!" the mysterious girl yells at the man whose name is apparently Frank. "No you fuck off Price! These people could have prevented Rachel's disappearance by destroying people like you! Monsters who do nothing but killing innocent people for fun!" Wait, but he's a monster himself, what would he mean by that? I stand up and look over at Kate, who is just as confused as I am. "That's bullshit and you know it! Like you've never killed anyone before, heck you kill people by selling drugs and occasionally by losing control, so stop acting like you are the victim here!" this girl obviously knows a lot about him, I might have to ask her to tell everything later.
"Please, stop yelling accusations at each other, we are getting nowhere with this" It's the first time ever I've seen Kate trying to intervene. Frank turned to look at Kate for a few seconds before turning his attention back towards me. "You got lucky kid, but the next time I see you, you won't have your guardian angel to protect you, trust me." Those were his last words before he turned around and starts to make his way out of the junkyard. As soon as he's out of sight, the girl walks towards us.
"Hey, you ok? Sorry about Frank, he tends to lose his calm when people start commanding shit." She says. "Yes I'm fine thanks, you seem to know him pretty well" I ask her and she grins "yeah, we go way back. Tell me, what are you two fine ladies doing in a junkyard?" wowzers, she's really pretty standing this close, I hope I'm not as red as a tomato right now, that would be so embarrassing.
"We are special investigators for the SID, you've probably heard about it before." The smile on her face is quickly replaced by a concerned look. "Figures, what are you doing here? It's not like there is something left for you to find." She looks upset, so I'm searching for the right words, but my brain feels like there's a storm raging through all my thoughts. "We have our reasons to be here. To be honest we have no clue what we're looking for, but maybe you can help us? I have a couple of questions that I would like to ask you" she sighs before answering.
"Sure, I can't assure you that I can answer all your questions, but I'll try my best. The name's Chloe by the way." She holds out her hand and I shake it. "My name is Max, this is my partner Kate, thank you for your cooperation." Suddenly she starts laughing.
"Dude, don't be so formal, that's hella uncool. So how about going to the Two Wales? It's a diner not too far from here, my mom works there so I can get free food, sounds good right?" I don't think it's a good idea to talk in a public place, but I think that's our only chance of talking to her.
"Yeah, sounds perfect. You can join us if you want, I'll drop you off wherever you need to be afterwards." Suddenly, her arm is around my shoulders, pulling me closer. Ok now I know that I'm blushing like crazy. "I'll never say no to a free ride, let's go!" she pulls me into the direction of my car. I'm sure Kate has this giant grin on her face. She's the only one who knows about my liking for girls, so she probably saw my face turning red. We all get in the car, me in the driver's seat, Kate next to me and Chloe in the back. I'm curious about what info she can give us about Frank or maybe about the murders, but I'm even more interested in her story. I guess we'll find out soon enough.