"I Tried To Change The World" by Jetta
Chloe descended first, landing on the roof of the boy's dorm with all fours like a cat. Wincing as she rotated her wrists and shifted her feet in those black combat boots after she had stood up, Chloe held out her arms for Max to jump into. They both knew that while Max had been taking fitness classes that she was still relatively small in comparison to the blue-haired tattoo artist. The sky had retained its otherworldly hue, glowing like the sun but minus a visible source of the light. Chloe noted to herself that it was as though there was neither "day" or "night", but rather places in the town and surrounding area of this limbo world that were statically fixed on certain times.
"C'mon, hippie," Chloe said, returning her attention to Max as the other woman stood at the roof's edge, "I'll catch ya."
"C-Chloe, I dunno about this," Max stammered out, shaken by her experience with Kate and the overall idea of jumping from the roof. Flashbacks to when she had saved Kate played over in her mind as she backed up against the brick wall, "Wowser. Isn't there somewhere I could climb down?"
"Quit being a chicken and come on! We need to get to investigatin', Sherlock," Chloe teased, chuckling when Max gave her a dirty look and the middle finger, "Max. I swear I will do my hella damnedest to catch you. Take a leap of faith, for me?"
"That is so not fair."
"Life's unfair. Now jump, goddammit! Max, babe, just jump-!"
Chloe was nearly caught off-guard when Max finally descended from the roof, letting herself drop like a deadweight rather than the action hero-esque leap Chloe had taken. Fuck, I'm not gonna catch her! Chloe thought, jumping forward just in time to catch the photographer before she would have landed. Oh! Oh, thank fucking God! Damn it, Max. You would've broken your fucking legs, dropping like that!
"Don't drop like that, dude!" Chloe admonished her partner as she helped a wide-eyed Max to her feet, "You could've seriously hurt yourself. Tuck an' roll, babe. Tuck an' roll."
"I-I made it…," Max said, her face a mask of shock as she looked up to where she had stood and back to Chloe, "Don't wanna do that again."
"Well, hopefully we won't hafta. Now c'mon. Let's get into your room."
Sliding open a window that led to a hallway which conjoined sections of the girls' dormitory, Chloe let Max take the lead as they walked through the building in search of Max's room. The air was still and dust was visible through light emanating from the windows. It was exactly like how it had been when they first reached Blackwell – time stood still in this place. At least for now, Chloe thought as she bumped into Max's back.
"Dude, what the-?" Chloe asked, rubbing her nose as it'd hit the crown of Max's head.
"I'm…I'm scared, Chlo. What happens when I open this door? More time-reality bullshit craziness?" Max asked, turning to look at Chloe with one hand on the doorknob, "I don't want to get separated again."
"We've got this," Chloe said as she took the doorknob in hand as well, her hand over Max's, "We'll open on three. One…two…three!"
The hallway was dark, dark like it had been in town. There were leaves, broken glass, and debris on the floor, with some of the doors open and some of them shut or jammed after breaking. Turning on their phones to get some light going in the dimness, Max led the way forward with Chloe right behind her. If I'm right, Max thought, I should be the first door on the left from here. Lemme see…hmm…gotcha! Max found a dry erase board with her name halfway worn off lying in front of the closed door. Afraid to open it, Max paused with her hand just inches from the handle. Looking over her shoulder at Chloe, gulping, Max nodded and opened the door. Standing in the doorway, Max darted her hand through empty space and back out again before sighing in relief.
"We're gonna have to keep an eye out for those doorways. Probably windows, too. Fuck, we're just going to have to overall be more cautious," Max said as she led Chloe inside her room.
"Y'know, I never got to check out yer space, Max," Chloe said, looking around, "I gather it's been in better condition than this?"
The room had seen better days – books and DVDs littered the floor with both windows blown open from the outside, glass scattered along with the other trash. The bed was in shambles and many of her pictures were gone or faded by time and weather so as to be unrecognizable. A rotten clump of plant sat in a battered pot beside a shelf and Max felt a slight pang of disappointment that Lisa had died. Sorry, Lisa, but Chloe will always come first, Max thought as she brushed the floor clear with her booted feet until there was a space for them to take the dusty blankets and futon mattress to put on the floor. Scrounging around through the piles and shelves, Max found her film surprisingly intact and added four cartridges of instant film to their supply. Four cartridges…thirty-two shots… That'll have to do, and to add on what we've already got, Max surmised as she flopped onto the bed and groaned when her stomach rumbled.
"What I wouldn't give for a time-warped Two Whales where everything was fine and I could snag your mom's cooking," Max said, her tone flat as she rested her forearm against her forehead, "Do you think it would be safe if we went to sleep, got some rest?"
"I…I dunno, babe," Chloe mused, getting up from her spot next to Max. Shutting the door, Chloe took part of the bed frame and braced it against the door, "That should keep us safe. Kinda. Maybe."
"Unless some ghosts decide to just pass through the walls."
"Thanks, smartass."
"Hey, it's logic. A kind of fucked-up logic, but at this point who knows what really makes sense."
"Tell you what, Sleepy Beauty, how's about you chill and I'll take a shift," Chloe said, sitting down beside Max as she ran her fingers through her partner's hair, "I'll wake you up in a bit, and we'll switch. M'kay?"
"Sounds like a plan," Max said as she moved around a bit so that her head was in Chloe's lap, "Chloe? What did we do yesterday?"
"Eh?" Chloe asked, looking down at an increasingly sleepy Max with a curious grin, "We just chilled. You worked on your laptop at the parlor while I worked on some tats. Why?"
"I want to remember that when I wake up, so that this doesn't feel like it's the-"
"Hey. Hey, we will get out of whatever-the-fuck this is, yeah? And we'll never come back. Ever."
"Agreed," Max said just before she dozed off, the sound of her soft breathing relaxing Chloe as she leaned back on her hands and shut their phones off.
"Goodnight, Max," Chloe whispered, "Love you."
Max woke up to the not-so-gentle touch of Chloe shaking her awake. Groggy and bleary-eyed, Max wiped at her face with the back of her hand to ensure there was no drool before she sat up and looked over at her partner. The look of alertness, Chloe's eyes wide open as she held her Polaroid camera at the ready told Max all she needed to know. At least I got some sleep, but poor Chloe… How long did she let me lay here, snoring my ass off?
"You hear something?" Max asked, her voice hushed to a whisper.
"Yeah. Sounds like it's coming from down the hall," Chloe said, her voice measured with a forced calm as she fought to keep her hands from shaking, "It's been on and off for about ten minutes."
"Then why didn't you wake me up ten minutes ago? And why did you let me sleep so long, Chloe? My phone says I've been out for four hours – you should've woken me up after two or something so you could crash!" Max grumbled, still whispering.
"I, uh, nodded off about a half-hour after you did," Chloe said sheepishly, "Look, I was hella beat, too, and I couldn't help it. We don't have anything on us to keep us awake, anyway. There's no Starbucks in The Dead Zone, and I don't even want to try a soda from what is probably a rusted, broken-down vending machine."
Max groaned, getting to her feet as she helped Chloe up, dusting herself off as she switched the light from her phone off. Not wanting to risk being detected, Max quietly stood by the door with her ear to it, listening. The moaning was coming from down the hall, but it sounded like it would get a little closer and then pull back, but not before a different moaning would cut the other off. Two ghosts? How the hell are we supposed to take out twoof them at the same time? Max thought as she backpedaled to stand beside Chloe, pulling out her own Polaroid camera.
"I-I think there's two of them," Max stammered out as quietly as she could.
"We could always go out the window…," Chloe offered, gesturing with a jerk of her chin to the broken panes, "It'd just be another drop."
"Hell no," Max argued, "I'm not gonna risk jumping again, and neither are you. We've got to un-barricade the door and take our chances with whatever's out there. We…We have two cameras. W-We can do this!"
Chloe didn't feel half as confident as Max tried to sound, but the tattooed punk couldn't think of anything else to try. In finding a temporary shelter, they had unwittingly boxed themselves in; mumbling to herself about "hella bullshit", Chloe lifted the piece of bed frame as quietly as she could from the door before motioning for Max to help her ease it back down away from the door. Setting the wooden frame part down, they then braced themselves next to the door before Max gingerly opened it and they peeked out to see what was going on.
No. No, this can't be right, Max thought to herself as she bore witness to spectral visions of Dana and Juliet wandering around what had been Dana's room.
"Dude, didn't we just have coffee with them a week ago when we went to Big Sur?" Chloe asked, whispering in Max's ear, "D'you mean to tell me we'll have to fight off ghosts from alternate realities even if we know they're alive in ours?"
"How the hell did they die, then? And why are they lingering here?" Max whispered back, "Is it because there's something in Dana's room?"
"Think you can hug them to the afterlife, Max?"
"They're…They're not like Kate was. She was solid, had substance to her. She felt warm after I hugged her. These two… They're more like Warren. Oh god, Chloe. Look. Bullet wounds. Someone shot them in their reality."
"Why the fuck would someone shoot them, and who?"
The two women looked at each other, and then back at the ghosts.
"Nathan," Max and Chloe said in unison, bitterness riling up in both of them.
"Chloe, follow my lead," Max said, stepping out of the doorway to head down the hall at a slow pace. Baby step by baby step, both girls made it to the restroom before Max shot her arm out to stop Chloe from proceeding any further, "They're not paying attention to us. It's like they're in, um, some sort of loop."
"Well, that'd hella explain why the noise came in and out rhythmically," Chloe said in a low tone, shrugging, "Maybe we can avoid snapping photos of them altogether."
"I don't wanna just leave them here."
"And if we take their photos and they come after us, what do you plan to do, then?" Chloe argued, a hand on Max's shoulder, "Babe, I love you and your kind heart, but this is an 'us versus them' kinda situation, y'know? Do you really want to risk our lives over this?"
Max's shoulders slumped as Chloe's logic fell into place inside of the photographer's brain. Yes, it made sense to leave Dana's and Juliet's ghosts alone, but it also hurt because the thought of Kate trapped on that roof for years lingered freshly in her mind. Kate was trapped, just like this Dana and Juliet are trapped, too. It's so unfair. This place is like a prison to everyone who died in some version of Arcadia Bay. Chloe and I have already encountered alternate versions of ourselves – what else can happen? Following Chloe to the door, bracing herself against the opposite wall to avoid touching either Dana's ghost or Juliet's, Max watched her partner open the stairway door carefully and both women sighed at the lack of static in the air.
"Looks safe enough," Chloe said as she looked down the stairway, "We should be… Max, no!"
Before Chloe could stop her, Max snapped two shots apiece of Juliet and Dana, watching them fizzle away like burnt film. Her body spun around by a hard jerk on her shoulder, Max was face-to-face with a livid, worried Chloe.
"I wasn't going to just leave them like that! No one deserves any of this, Chloe!" Max barked, taking the punk by surprise with the anger and hurt in her voice, "It might've been safer to just ignore them, but that's not me. Do you understand? They're…They're my friends."
"…Goddammit, Max," Chloe uttered, hand to her forehead as she shook her head, "At least… Just warn me next time you decide to switch to Super Max again, okay? I do not need to have a heart attack before I'm thirty."
"Coming from the person who talked about continuing on in this…whatever it is," Max said, gesturing around them, "You know you would've felt bad leaving them like that. They might not be our Dana and Juliet, but they're still our friends."
"…Alright. Yea, I'd felt hella bad. Just… No more surprises like that, m'kay? Me heart."
Making their way to the courtyard, Max and Chloe took a moment to bask in the otherworldly glow of a cloudy, illuminated sky. It was different for them to actually see the world around them than to creep about at night, both women shaken and terrified as to what might lurk around the corner or in the next room. Unlike before when they had been in the courtyard, however, they were not alone this time. Standing by the entrance to the boys' dorm was Warren, to Max and Chloe's immediate surprise. Max remembered this moment, how he had asked her to go see Planet of the Apes with him at a drive-in. So anything and everything goes here. Wowser, this is just great, Max thought as they approached the boy.
"Hey, Max. How are you?" Warren asked after Chloe pulled Max past him by the wrist, "H-Hold up! I… Wow, that's a serious makeover, Max! Lookin' sharp! You itching to party or something?"
"Hey, Warren," Max said, tugging her wrist free as she approached him, Chloe grumbling inaudibly as she tagged along her partner, "Um, this is my partner, Chloe."
"Partner? What do you… Oh. Oh. Holy crap, um, I-I didn't know…," Warren said, flabbergasted as his face turned a reddish hue, "So, um, there's this Planet-"
"Sorry, Warren, but Chloe and I already have plans. Take… Take care of yourself," Max said, closing in on him to give Warren a brief hug before she quickly let go, "And Warren?"
"Yeah…?"
"If some crazy shit starts to happen here in town, just take your car and book it. Don't risk yourself. Really. Just escape while you can," Max said before heading into the breezeway between the dorms and the school campus, hearing Warren say something about "weird advice" as they left.
"What was that?" Chloe asked, as they made their way to the quad, relieved that it was still empty this time, "And holy balls, can we talk about this? One minute it's like we've gone back in time, and the next we're right back where we were. Or are. I dunno – this shit's giving me a headache."
"I just… If there's a chance that what we saw with Warren was in the past, then maybe it'll affect his future. You never know. I was the one with time powers, remember?"
"Yeah, just like I'm the one who explained Chaos Theory and everything to you, remember?" Chloe teased, "Let's head back into town. We've got to find some place that has grub."
"I've got bottled water in my bag if you're thirsty."
"Hungry and thirsty are two distinctly different things, Caulfield, but I won't turn down a way to quench my thirst."
Max let out a startled cry as Chloe pulled her close and kissed her deeply, a little bit of tongue action thrown in that was reciprocated after a moment. They held each other closely, hugging tightly as though either one of them might disappear into God knows where. Parting their lips from one another as they detached, Max wound her right pinky finger around Chloe's left and they walked through the lifeless quad at a leisurely place, free for the moment of ghosts and alternate realities.
The walk back to Arcadia Bay was long but amicable, the women keeping the silence and their nerves at bay through conversation. Chit-chatting and small talk, it kept their minds occupied as the gray space deep inside the forest would get sidelong glances from both Max and Chloe multiple times. Is that like the boundary line for all this, some void? Chloe asked herself, I still wanna know what happens if we were to approach it, to try and walk through it. Making their way to the outskirts of town, crossing the town line, what felt like day turned instantly into a skyless night and the both of them turned on their phones' lights.
"Mine doesn't have much juice left. Yours?" Chloe asked, checking the power bar on her phone.
"Mine's already in the red," Max let out with a groan, "We're going to need to find flashlights."
"There's a hardware store right by Two Whales. We could try that-" Chloe started, cutting herself off as the specter of a deceased woman creeped around a building to shamble toward them, "S-She doesn't look fast, Max. Maybe we get up close, get her with one shot?"
"I'm…I'm not so sure about that," Max said, getting her camera ready as Chloe prepped her own, "But I also want to conserve our film. Alright. I'm the photographer. I've got this."
Max precipitously took her time as she headed toward the ghost, her camera up as she kept an eye on the specter through her viewfinder. When it raised its arms as it started to shamble towards her at a slightly quicker pace, Max nearly took the shot then and there. She was terrified; the feeling of being drained of life, the iciness of the touch, weighed heavily in her mind as she bravely stood her ground. I'm also kinda frozen in fear, but I have to remember – 'Fear is the mind-killer.' Thanks, Frank Herbert. Waiting until the ghost was nearly within reach of her, Max lined her viewfinder with the poor woman's face and snapped a single photo. Watching the ghost reel back before dissolving in a burst of burnt photo paper, Max let out her breath in a forceful exhalation and fell to her knees from the dread that had nearly consumed her. A little jumpy, she was startled when Chloe had come up from behind to hug her.
"That was awesome," Chloe said in Max's ear, the voice calm and soothing as it worked its magic on Max to help alleviate her stress, "You're amazeballs."
"I was so scared, Chloe. Half the reason I stood my ground was because I was frozen in terror. Wowser, I did it. I actually got up close and did it. I took the shot."
"Never doubted you for a second," Chloe said with a kiss to Max's cheek before hauling her girlfriend to her feet, "Now, for the hardware store."
It felt like forever, heading to the hardware store. On one hand, a straightforward walk there would be fairly quick; however, Max and Chloe found themselves checking every corner and alleyway for ghosts which led to them making the short trek into a more arduous affair. Dodging encounters with the spectral entities led them down a more zig-zag route, having to try and avoid conflict as much as possible as well as areas that were not traversable due to debris from the years-old storm and dilapidated buildings that looked to be on the edge of ruin. Ethereal shapes and glimmers seemed to be just out of eyesight everywhere they went and it felt as though nowhere was there to be some kind of safe harbor.
After hours in what should have taken minutes, both women made it to the hardware store and collapsed from sheer exhaustion. With the provisions down to two one-liter bottles of water, their hunger temporarily overrode the need to be secretive. Slumped down in the back of the store, out of eyesight, Max and Chloe sat together and passed out.
"Max. Max, wake up," Max heard a voice say as she slept, dreaming of tornados and ghosts both swirling about her. A nightmarish gleam from the moon seemed to turn the hilltop around her into a mire of death as she was continuously dodging the dead to preserve her own life, the voice a pleading echo that shook the ground with its words, "Max. C'mon, sleepyhead, get up."
"…Wha…?" Max groggily replied before sitting straight up, covering her mouth to prevent a scream as a beam of light shone upon her, "C-Chloe! Don't do that-"
"Shh! Don't fucking let them know we're in here, dude!" Chloe hissed before switching off the flashlight to toss it into Max's lap, "Here. And guess what? I found edibles!"
Binging on an MRE from the hardware store's supply, Max stuffed her face with vegetarian penne pasta and a chocolate fudge brownie before downing some water that Chloe had also procured. The food was delicious to her, though her stomach made it also feel like she was eating a lead brick. Wowser, I have never felt so hungry in my whole life! Max thought to herself as she finished off the entrée and dessert, How long was I asleep? And that nightmare… It felt too real. This whole situation is like déjà vu but with ghosts. Please tell me I won't be encountering a…a…'ghost-nado' any time soon…
"Better?" Chloe asked as she munched on an energy bar, smirking as Max wiped the pasta sauce off her face with a wet napkin that was conveniently packed inside the MRE.
"Much, but don't let me sleep that long again," Max said, dropping the empty containers to the ground, "…How long was I asleep?"
"Hours, probably. I've kept my phone off so I don't know. I slept a little, too, ya know. Need to recharge. Plus, flashlights with lots of batteries. And food. I stuffed my bag full of energy bars and water.
Max looked up and noticed that Chloe was now sporting a small backpack that looked to be loaded with supplies. That's my Chloe. Raring to go, and ready for just about anything. Getting to her feet, Max popped her neck and knuckles before she collected her camera bag from the floor.
"Now what?" Max asked, "We still have no clue how to get out of here, or what's causing this."
"Well, we know that all the spots that are really topsy-fucking-turvy have to do with us, so I was thinking we huff it back to my house again and see if we can get any answers from our younger selves. Or, hey, maybe we'll find something along the way."
"Wait. Your idea is for us to split up again, in a place where reality is like musical chairs? Chloe, you've lost your mind," Max argued, though in truth she had nothing. No idea as to what to do, "…Ugh, fine. We'll go back to your house. Just… Let's be careful, like extra careful. There's no telling what might happen this time."
After a few hours of blessedly clear streets and alleyways, the pair made their way to what had been Chloe's house. Still locked under the ceiling of an endless night, the house had changed. It looked older, abandoned and dilapidated to a point of Max questioning their safety in even opening the door. An eerie mist seemed to cling to the structure, making it all the more foreboding. Chloe went up to the house first, Max behind her, and waved her hand in the midst. It's cold, but not like death iciness. Hella weird, but that's the norm for us here. This whole deal is like a bad trip. Oh God, I'm punning like Max, now. Great. Opening the doorway, both women were met with the now-familiar static that seemed to be hanging in the air.
"…Even if we hold hands, we'll still get separated," Max stated, squeezing Chloe's hand more tightly, "I-I don't want to lose you."
"I promised you forever, right? So don't be a wuss, babe. You're a badass, Caulfield. Just trust that we'll meet on the other side."
"Don't word it like that."
"Sorry. Couldn't resist," Chloe said as she took a step into the doorway with Max being pulled in along with her.
The house's interior reflected its exterior to Max as she crossed the threshold by herself, Chloe vanishing as if she had never been there. Looking down at her now-empty hand, Max balled it into a fist and began to explore the first floor of what had once been a source of warmth and love for her. The furniture was either broken, rotting, or both; a thick layer of dust seemed to cover everything as it was all eerily in place like time had simply fast-forwarded while Joyce and David were out of the house. Finding nothing, Max was already set to leave the house altogether when she heard "Piano Fire" start to play from Chloe's room upstairs. What the hell?
Chloe walked into the house and was alarmed by how nice and neat everything was, a complete juxtaposition as to the house's exterior ruination. Looking at pictures and objects she had known since she was a tween, the only thing that startled her was the lack of people. This wasn't like before, where there was a Max seemingly waiting for her. On her own, Chloe scouted the top floor first and found her bedroom abandoned, used for storage. Hella weird, Chloe thought as she pulled down the mattress and laid on it. Pulling out a joint, she lit it with a Zippo and proceeded to blaze while in the warmth of what felt like the sun. Why did I urge Max on, encourage this desire to uncover whatever the fuck is going on? Goddamn, we should've just tried to head back to the car. Chloe sat up and snuffed out the unfinished joint only to be startled by the sound of someone calling out from downstairs.
"Is someone there?" An terrifyingly familiar voice asked, and Chloe went running.
"Is…Is someone there?" Max asked, hand paused just above the doorknob to Chloe's room, "Hello?"
No answer.
Taking a deep breath, Max tried to brace herself for anything as she opened the door and found Chloe's room exactly as it had been the morning after they had broken into Blackwell Academy. Only there was no Chloe, but a Max sitting at the foot of the bed, lighting up a joint. Dressed in a Jane Doe t-shirt, generic jeans, and a grey hoodie, this Max looked up and eyed her warily. She knew I was coming? H-How? Max thought, knowing the recognition in her doppelganger's eyes. Cautiously moving forward, she shivered when the other Max laughed. It was a cold, bitter laugh.
"Told you that you fucked up space and time for your precious Chloe, dumbass," the doppelgänger said, Max realizing in horror who she was.
"You…You were in my head…," Max said in disbelief.
"Was I? Huh, strange, because it felt like you were in mine," the doppelgänger replied, "Surprise, jackass."
"Hello?" Chloe asked as she came back downstairs, hearing "In here" in what oddly sounded like her own voice. Heading for David's little workshop, Chloe opened the door to find a paler, weaker, blonder version of herself lying in a hospital bed. Staggering from the sight, Chloe braced herself against one of the snow globes collected on the TV stand and rubbed at her eyes with her free hand in the hope that it would all just vanish. Max told me about this, about how in an alternate reality I was slowly dying and had been asked to make a terrible choice. Oh… Oh, fuck, this is that place. God, Max, I need you.
"This is hella trippy," Chloe muttered while her weaker self smiled sadly.
"I still hate that word," Chloe's invalid doppelgänger replied, chuckling before it turned into a fit of coughing and wheezing, "I asked Max to help me go peacefully-"
"You basically asked her to murder you, dude!" Chloe exclaimed, moving to stand at the foot of her double's hospital bed, "You…You gave her…gave…"
"It wasn't fucking impossible, you know," Chloe's double said bitterly, "One minute she's all weepy-eyed and the next it's like she's a stranger. She tried to chat me up, but I could feel the awkwardness, the hesitation. It wasn't the same person. At least now I know that. Your Max was a kindness; mine was… Well, she sucked, basically."
"So what do you want?" Chloe asked her double, seeing the morphine injector attached to Chloe's IV, "No… No way. Uh-uh."
"You're the only one who can, anymore. You have to."
"This is bullshit!" Max exclaimed, pacing back and forth in Chloe's room as her double lazily watched while puffing on a joint, "You're not real. You were just a figment of my subconscious…"
"Newsflash, moron," Max's double said as she snuffed out the spent joint, "Your brain was fried by all that time-tripping and rewinding. You broke reality, and its gooey center oozed into your brain. Did you not actually think that there would be consequences aside from just a storm?"
"I caused this?" Max asked, at a loss for any other words as she motioned to the window.
"You're a cause of it, yes, but not the only one. I am, too. Every single Max who time-traveled is a part of it. Your precious punk already encountered the ghost of one, right? Well, that's one down in a infinite line of Maxes waiting to be snuffed out or faded away like burnt film."
"How do I stop this?" Max asked, pleadingly as she got to her knees before her double, "How do Chloe and I-?"
"Always fucking Chloe!" Max's double screamed, shoving Max to the floor as she stood over her, "That bitch is the reason all this started! You just had to save her! And now what, you want to save her again?! What is wrong with you, dude?"
"She's… She's grown up now. She's not like how she was when we first got back together. We're in love, we're thinking of getting married-"
"Oh, shit! Are you cereal?"
"I won't be bullied by you…," Max said as she got to her feet and punched her double in the face, knocking the twisted doppelgänger to the floor, "I'm stronger than last time, fucker, and I don't need you or anyone else telling me what to do."
Heading for the bedroom door, Max heard her double cackling and ignored it. She wasted no time in heading for the doorway, praying Chloe would be waiting for her.
"I… I need to go. Max, um, Max is probably waiting for me-" Chloe stammered out.
"And what about me?" Chloe's double cried out, starting to sob, "I…I can't live like this, dude! Slowly dying forever. You've got to help me. Please."
Chloe stopped in her tracks, frozen by the guilt in her chest and the pain of her double's pleading. I wouldn't… I couldn't live like that. Not ever. Jesus fuck, Max, I'm so sorry you had to go through this, Chloe thought as she turned around, walked over to the bedside, and plunged the injector all the way. Without saying another word, Chloe heard a sleepy "Thank you" and ran out of the house with tears in her eyes just in time to be caught by Max's arms.
"M-Max. Max, I'm so sorry," Chloe cried as she wrapped her arms around the small photographer, "I…I saw what you went through, in the other timeline. I…I killed myself."
Both girls falling to their knees, still in each other's arms, they cried alone in a black, starless night.
Author's Note
Dark Max returns! Is it the last time we'll see her? Who knows? ;)
How about that Chloe-on-Chloe action, eh? Such sadness, really. When I got to that choice in the game the first time I had to walk away from the game for a bit and cry because I've known a lot of friends who have committed suicide over the years, a chunk of them from the Army. I think LiS handled it with a fair amount of grace, but the game definitely took the darker tone established in "Out of Time" and kicked it up several notches with "Dark Room". Whatever happened to the carefree, happy shiz in Chrysalis? Oh, right, it was a clever deception. Curse you, DONTNOD, and your inevitable betrayal! LOL
Hold on tight, because this story's gonna keep on coming :)
Stay hella, Cinnamon Rolls!