Maxine's back felt shredded. Between her shoddy blanket, hard floor, and her inability to hold onto sleep, her body ached but her back was the centre piece of the pain; followed sharply by her head, which felt as though it had been punched repeatedly over the course of the night. It had been enough to drive her from the hideout once the morning light began to in, and wander crookedly through the garden of rust and tangled metal; there was no point lying on unwelcoming stone floors when rest was out of the question.

She had the dreams again, she know she did. They woke her several times in the night, yet she could never truly recall them despite the sharp clarity.

Maxine had tried, boy had she tried... but the dreams eluded her, each attempt to grasp them, study them, yielded only the briefest of success before they slipped free of her grasp like a wet bar of soap. Pop, and then gone. To say it was merely frustrating would not do it justice; she wanted or perhaps needed to remember them, remember why they forced her screaming back to reality... but like quicksilver, they were both poisonous and slippery.

She wandered for some time before she found a place to sit, and she had been there since... listening to the birds chirp and caw. It was comforting to a certain degree, much like the spot she had come to rest upon. Maxine wasn't sure why but she had felt drawn here, lead by invisible breadcrumbs, and had collapsed carefully to the grassy earth to rest the moment she arrived. Here she seemed the centre of a swirling breeze, cool and sometimes cold but yet... reassuring?

Maxine couldn't place it, but being sat here felt grounding, steady; Inevitable, almost. In this turbulent time, when even her memories seemed mercurial, Maxine took what she could get.

After all, she had to take something... she still couldn't believe it. 2008? Had the world gone mad? It couldn't be, it was just the sick joke of a twisted security guard and that was all it was. That had to be the case. And yet...

No. No don't even go there, Maxine.

A distraction would've been hella welcome. Hella? Maxine felt weird, the word had just risen from the back of her mind and slipped itself past her filters... ugh, it didn't matter, it was just a word; grumbling she shrugged the intrusive blurt off and hugged her knees close.

After last night, there was literally nothing else she felt she could do. Not after she found her phone.

She had eagerly tried to put her mobile to good use despite the spider web crack that had spread itself across the length of the fragile screen. The poor thing looked like it had been licked by lightning, and it offered no solace; nor did it offer anything useful really, it didn't even offer a date and time... just a heap of zeroes where the digits and month had been.

Maxine tried her best not to think about that either, and after a few attempted calls being met with utter silence she pocketed the device and cursed the fact she had found it. Another little taunt from the Universe.

She had tried to call Victoria first with far more concern and longing than she realized. But Maxine knew... When in doubt? Shake up the hive and point at the thing you don't like... a douchbag guard came immediately to mind. It was good to have the Queen Bee in your corner; but the hive was silent. Nothing.

Next she tried to call Nathan, 'The Prince of Blackwell' as so often seemed to fit. With daddy's ill fitting crown he could be relied on to throw his weight around for her... and bludgeon those in his way with the very mantle he didn't seem to want. Maxine understood why, she'd heard the phone calls between him and his father. Nothing.

A period of despair separated the final call from the others. How could they not be there? They were her closest friends, they took her in, brought her up from a cliché geek to a god damn Queen amongst the student body. They had consumed everyday of her life since the day she stepped through Blackwell's doors... they were her safety net. They promised they'd be there.

But they were gone, and despite the fact Maxine knew she had no right to be upset, not after five years, she was morose. It wasn't until Maxine was plunging into that abyss that she realised there was another chance, another option! A forgotten net far below she hoped would catch her in her fall; taken for granted, but there.

Her parents, all the way up in Seattle. All the way in a life she didn't want to return to, choking on wallflower vines.

She didn't want to go back to that; she wanted to go to her actual home, back to her dorm... but deep within, a primal part of her had already hit dial before the Vortex swept Maxine back under its sway.

Alone and upset, that part of her blown deep down reared its head; that part she hated, that wanted what we all want when we're hurting, frightened and lost in a big scary world. A world that seemed ill content with anything but your misery; Our families.

But once again... Nothing. Not even a dial tone, same as the others. Maxine wasn't surprised, nor was she panicked. Saturnine eyes unfocused and she just sat there in her spot, welcoming the chill as she went numb to the world.

Wowser... I-I'm totally fucked, aren't I...?

Maxine's hands slipped from beneath her gradually, lowering her back gently onto the surprisingly warm earth to stare into the azure of a cloudless sky. She settled into the long blades of grass, feeling it brush against her earlobes and fingers... hoping the ground would swallow her up and take her six feet deep where no one would ever find her. Where she could just forget the world and maybe, just maybe, wake up from the dark.

It seemed more likely the Junkyard would become her home now... how apt, lost within a maze of other broken and unwanted things; but of all the relics left here to fade from memory, it was the old school bus she often found herself staring at. It's once proud canary color had long since been corrupted to sun baked mustard; pock marked with moss-like patches of rust and flaked away paint.

It felt wrong, to see it here like this. Maxine found herself staring at it, unable to look away as old thoughts swam in her mind's eye... of times riding on a bus just like this. Shy Max, shrunk on herself on the way to school... but she was not alone on those rides, she was never alone; by her side always was that smiling face, framed with that strawberry blond hair.

Nervous Max never had to ride alone, because Chloe would never let that happen... she would be there, arm around Max's shoulders, letting her in on a secret booty that she had learned about. Chloe... always the good friend, the best friend. The friend that was always there.

Unlike me.

Those were better times, simpler; no cliques, just her and Chloe against the world. The sky then was as bright as it was now... but it didn't feel bright anymore. Those were better days, and lay there breathing in the scent of earth and dust Maxine longed for it with every inch of her soul. But they were gone now, and here Maxine was trying to make sense of it all. Alone.

She had always wanted to make things right with Chloe, to see her in the wake of what happened... but that felt inconceivable now. The thought of never getting that chance felt so impossibly like fact that it made Maxine's eyes sting with perplexed tears. It wasn't fair.

There was a hole in her mind, and it ached from the absence. She just wanted to know what was missing. She wanted to know why this, any of this, was happening.

The truth was right there, she knew it, locked away somewhere in her skull beneath the layers of storm clouds and shards of moments; trying to look through their broken remnants offered nothing but hurt. Yet she could just make something out... she saw sand.

And like a knife in the eye she paid the price for digging deep, and resisted the urge to thrash as the white hot pain seeped to the front of her head. Yet despite the pain she held a slither of hope.

She remembered something. But what did it mean? What di-

"Don't forget about me..."

Maxine bolted upright in fright as those words punctured the veil of silence and breached the hurt she felt, drifting on a breeze so soft there was no telling where it had come from. Had she imagined it? No, no that couldn't have been it... it was too real, and she knew that voice. She knew that voice anywhere.

"Chloe?" Maxine called out instinctively, dredging herself up from the roots she had hoped to grow, shaking off the dust as her adrenaline rose "Chloe where are you?"

There was no reply. Chloe can't be here. Words so resolute yet without basis they frightened Maxine more than the voice she heard. Head clasped in her hands, Maxine shook and desperately sought to prove herself wrong, hoping, praying to see Chloe again... but there was no one there. No one but herself.

In the emptiness of the forgotten space however, Maxine could almost see her... walking around with a swagger and a smirk. There was no chair, nor crutches... this was not the Chloe she knew, but it was the one she couldn't help but imagine; a punk with a bottle in hand... and cerulean locks.

This was not her Chloe, and yet this vivid figment felt right, made her smile in the face of the dread building in her gut. A nascent sense of something terrible began to dawn on her... perhaps a memory she wouldn't want to remember beginning to bloom here, now, in this moment. Maxine didn't know, and as she began to tremble she found her legs carrying her swiftly away from the broken serenity of her spot.

She had to get away and she felt it again; a pull, a lasso tugging her... or perhaps a hand nudging her along. All she knew is that she couldn't stay here... she had to be somewhere else.

She had to see it with her own two eyes. She had to try and figure this out... and as far from Chloe's spectre as she could get the better.

The Lighthouse was always gorgeous this time of year, stood strong against the vibrant rays of the sun, but as Maxine walked the scenic path of the beach, she couldn't look at it.

It didn't feel safe, didn't rouse the nostalgia she hoped. Instead it stood not as a hopeful beacon but a monolithic unknown. It felt calamitous and imposing now. Stay away, her gut warned... and stay away she would, as she didn't feel so inclined to test fate.

Instead she kept her gaze down, focused on the flowing path as she slowly made her way along, pulling her dirty hoodie tighter around her as the wind picked up just a touch.

The path was all hers. In the time she had spent aimlessly trundling along its length, she had not seen a soul in sight... even the beach was without life, yet that felt oddly correct. It had held her attention to ransom enough to slow Maxine a halt though, just for a moment, and truly study it.

Its golden span was pristine, lapped by calm tides that cast the faintest of vapour on the wind, chilling everything that drew close. Maxine didn't mind anymore... eyes too focused on aimlessly searching to be bothered in honesty.

The beach was missing something, and it wasn't people, it was something else. It filled her with the most bizarre form of Deja Vu to be stood here, like it was only yesterday she was here... she could almost hear something, something deep and melodic, and it was only the feeling of something brushing against her leg that stopped her from zoning out entirely.

A cat was purring against her, affectionately vying Maxine's attention. Where it came from she had no idea, but she was already bending down to stroke it before she knew what was happening.

"Hey kitty... what're you doing out here, puddy tat?"

The cat purred, pushing fondly against Maxine's hands much to her delight while she checked for a collar. The feline was decidedly without one, and the urge to adopt the little critter became almost overwhelming; it sprung away lightly before she could act on this however, and left Maxine to grumble with dissatisfaction as she watched it scamper ahead.

Scamper ahead towards a group of girls she had failed to notice earlier, crowded around a bench a good thirty feet before her. Jeering.

Maxine tensed at the sight; it was all too familiar to her. Days in Seattle flashed in her mind's eye, those days without Chloe in her corner, filling her with spite. A spite that turned to anger when she saw through the bodies, to the girl at the heart of it all, and the hand that flew across her cheeks with a clap.

"Hey!" Maxine yelled instinctively, her heart hammering as she hurriedly began to move forward despite herself. She could almost hear Victoria yelling at her to stop being crazy "Leave her alone!"

Heads swivelled to face her in an instant, their eyes quickly darting amongst each other before the crowd dispersed like a pack of disturbed vultures. Maxine couldn't lie, to see them flee from her made her feel charged. Powerful. God how she loved that feeling... It was like being with the Vortex again.

Quickly they disappeared up the path, calling back insults when they were at a safe distance; Maxine didn't pursue, slowing to a halt by the bench instead. Fucking bullies...

It looked like a crime scene. A backpack was strewn on the ground with torn school work and books laid splayed out with their pages cast about them like litter. Those absolute bitches... Maxine thought as she checked to make sure the girls were gone, seething. It was just her now, her and a girl she didn't know.

"Thank you... you didn't have to do that" the girl said, her face veiled by long and flowing chocolate hair as she bent down to collect the ruins of her stuff. Maxine joined her, helping collect a few books.

"It's okay... I hate bullies" Maxine's voice was soft, empathetic. She'd been this girl once before "Are you okay...?"

"Just another shitty day in Arcadia Bay, right?"

The girl looked up at her then, and Maxine blinked. She was beautiful. Had Maxine not spotted the two long blue feathers dangling from both ears, then her gaze would have remained locked entirely on those mahogany eyes. She knew those feathers; the sight of them was jarring, like the air was fluctuating around them, but... "Hey, you alright?"

Maxine came back to reality, cheeks burning "Yeah, yeah sorry" fumbling with the books she had collected the other girl chuckled quietly, brushing some hair behind her ear "So... do you know those asswipes?"

"No, not really anyway... they're just some jockstrap sniffing bitches hoping the Vortex Club will notice them" The wave of shame that washed over Maxine was almost enough to drown her, but girl continued "It's okay though... I'm kind of used to it by this point. I came here hoping to a bit of a break from their shit before class but... yeah. Didn't pan out"

"Blackwell can be rough..." the words were laced with something else, distant... Maxine didn't want to think about it. Was that the kind of stuff that happened? That she didn't see? I mean, I know we could be assholes, but... Jebus... No, no it couldn't be the case.

"You go there? I haven't seen you around"

"I... I used to" it was all Maxine could think to say, rubbing her frail arm after handing the girl the stuff she had helped collect. A lot of seemed salvageable, fortunately. Her story didn't however, if the girl's expression was any indication "I-I... I Don't think I was cut out for it"

"Shame... a few people like you there would make it tolerable" the girl chuckled again, a sweet and quiet thing, and Maxine felt the tips of her ears warm just a little "Hey... I should probably get to class, but, do you think that maybe you'd like to walk with me? If you're not busy or anything?"

"Um... well, I-I..."

"Oh c'mon, walk with me... let me get to know my dashing knight" the girl smiled, and Maxine felt her hesitation crack under pressure.

"We'll... it's not that I don't want to- I'd love to!" Maxine blurted, catching herself much to the other girl's amused smile "But the dickhead guard there hates me, like super duper hates me"

"Oh, Leonard" the girl said with a weary tone, rolling her eyes "Yeah that jackass hates everyone... don't worry though, you won't get caught, I promise. I have my ways"

Maxine didn't doubt that for some reason. The girl had an all too familiar air about her... she found herself believing in her. Wary though Maxine was, what did she have to lose? She was literally living out of a god damn shack in a junkyard... still she felt apprehension. The girl was a stranger; this whole town felt strange to her now in fact, but... fuck it.

At the very least, maybe it'd get her past Leonard... into Blackwell. That alone was too much of an opportunity to miss; she was very much looking forward to choking the life out of Vic and Nate for being so unbelievably vacant in such a dire time. Fuck those guys, like seriously.

"Yeah... yeah okay, sure. Why not?" The way the brown haired girl smile said it all, and fighting the urge to bashfully fidget, Maxine averted her gaze "I'm Maxine by the way"

"I'm Sacheen... It's nice to meet you, Maxine"

Together they walked, watched by a cat in the nearby bushes as its tail swished contentedly. It looked like Maxine was heading to Blackwell one more time. It just felt nice to have to normality back... for as long as it would last.