Life is Gone: Eyes of the Storm

Chapter Seven: Snowfall

Wind whistled by Max's ears, blocking out almost all other noise. It pushed raindrops into her face as she walked into the wind, in the direction of the lighthouse.

She was having another dream.

She didn't know why this was happening today. She hadn't ever had dreams like this before, nothing that felt so real, and so personal. It felt like she was being thrust through time to a point that was yet to occur, and being made to live it out, missing all context.

Which was ridiculous, Max told herself. She had come to know her powers intimately over the past five years, and not once had she travelled to the future – at least not at any rate different to the rest of the world.

Max wondered what could be causing the dreams. Despite never having gone to the future before, could these be tied to her powers anyhow? It seemed unlikely, her powers had always been more "physical" per se, in that they only affected reality, they had never separated her conscious from the world in the way these dreams seemed to.

More likely, Max thought, this was some kind of side effect. Max didn't sleep well, and hadn't even before she was taken by the Facility. As such, she had acquired herself a variety of different pills and medicines to help aid her sleep and quell nightmares. Some worked better than others, but over time they had become less and less effective, and had started giving her strange dreams and an erratic sleep schedule. This had, on more than one occasion, led to her fall asleep in class, only to wake up screaming.

That never went over well with her teachers.

She rounded a corner and came face to face with the doe once more. The spectral beast's body shimmered and rain and debris fell through it to the path below, a path it's ghostly feet hovered over, but did not touch.

The doe made a magnificent sweep with its neck, beckoning Max closer. Remembering what happened when she last touched it, Max approached it hesitantly, weary to get to close. The doe was clearly annoyed by Max's hesitation, and made the gesture again, sweeping its neck faster than the last time, as if to tell her to hurry up.

Taking matters into its own hands when Max refused to touch it, the doe closed the last couple of meters. She watched it approached and prepared for whatever was about to happen. Max wasn't expecting it to nuzzle against her leg.

Max had to close her eyes. Her head was suddenly full of images, memories of her, but not her own, and the visual onslaught made her head hurt. Max took a deep breath and focused, although she wasn't sure what on. As if acting on instinct, she rose her hand and released her power, bringing time to a standstill.

In that moment, the onslaught slowed to a halt, leaving only a couple of images. Max watched one, a comet soaring across the night sky, before crashing into the earth. Another, one with her actually in it, showed her and Chloe, playing together as children. She recognised that memory as her own, of the day her and Chloe met.

A third memory, a someone's 16th birthday party, if the decorations were anything to go by. The scene played on and Max saw herself sit down and open presents. That couldn't be right. It couldn't be hers. She didn't remember when her birthday was, let alone one she didn't celebrate. She stretched out longingly towards the scene, towards the younger version of herself. Surrounded by parents and presents, in a warm and comfortable home.

All to soon the scene changed again, and Max found herself clawing back, wishing for the old one to return. Instead of the comforts of what must have been her home, Max was sitting on the floor of a bathroom – not just any bathroom, Max realised, the one at Blackwell, where she had saved Chloe just today. Max saw silent tears running down her twin's face. Fearing the worst, Max looked around the bathroom stall and found Nathan, gun in hand, standing over Chloe's body, blood still seeking out of the fresh wound. Max felt empty, horrified by the sight in front of her, and hoping that these events were merely some shadow of what could have been.

The memories stopped playing and Max opened her eyes to the cleansing rain. She stared down at the doe.

"What are you?"

The doe gave her no answers, only turning around and leading her up the forest path to the lighthouse. Following it, Max found Chloe frozen in time, waiting for her to arrive. Tapping her on the shoulder in an attempt to get her attention, Max's vision cut to black and the world fell silent as she returned to the real world.

"What the hell is happening? How is this happening?"

Chloe was pacing back and forth in front of the bench as Max woke up. Something small and white drifted down between them.

Then another thing did.

And another. Was it snowing?

Max stood up, immediately reaching out for Chloe's shoulder as head-rush dizzied her.

Chloe turned around to face her. "You're awake!" She stepped back towards the bench and sat down, her head in her hands. "Everything is insane today. I get my best friend back, who suddenly has time travel powers and saves me from getting shot in the bathroom of a school I don't even attend, you keep blacking out, and now it's snowing in 80° weather."

Max sat back down next to Chloe, right on top of the small pile of snow that had fallen off her when she stood up in the first place, and hesitantly put her arm around her shoulders. This is what people did when they comforted someone, right?

She must have been doing the right thing, because Chloe leaned into her touch. "It's just a lot to take in, you know?"

Max thought back to when she first discovered her powers. "Yeah. Yeah, it is."

"This snow isn't you, is it?" Chloe followed up. "This isn't like some weird side effect of your powers or anything, is it?"

Max snorted. She didn't know why, it wasn't particularly funny, it seemed like an entirely reasonable assumption, at least it was from Chloe's point of view.

"No, this isn't related to my powers. In the five years I've been using my powers, I've never had something like this happen before." Max left out the fact that she had no idea what was happening in the outside world for a good four of those years, but it had held true for the previous one at least, no reason it wouldn't for the ones before.

"Then why aren't you freaking out?" Chloe leapt onto this idea, realising she could be the one who knows something for a change. "If this has nothing to do with you, it should be as weird to you as it is to me, right?"

Max hated to crush her dreams, she looked so cute when she was trying to seize the mental initiative. "Chloe. I have time travelled to some extent every day for the last five years. Very, very little is weird to me anymore."

Chloe pouted. "I'll weird you out one day, Caulfield."

Max tried not to flinch at the name, with partial success. She really hoped that Chloe hadn't noticed, because it was so nice just kidding around like they did when they were kids, she didn't want to ruin that with more focus on her past.

Unfortunately, when you're tucked right into someone, it's pretty easy to feel them flinch. Chloe looked up at Max, a worried look on her face, which morphed into understanding when she realised what she said.

"Last name?" Chloe said. "Sorry if that reminded you of your family. It must be hard, running away for so long."

"It's okay." Max lied. She was going to have to get to a point where it didn't hurt to hear her own name, Max knew, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt any less in the meantime.

The two of them sat at the bench for a little longer, Chloe still leaning into Max for comfort, watching the snow fall over the town. Max wasn't sure how long they sat there, but by time they got up a decent layer of snow had formed over path. The scene would have been so incredibly romantic, Max thought, had it not been for the underlying mystery the snow implied.

As warm as Chloe was, tucked into her own heated blanket, she noticed Max start to shiver. "Cold much?" She asked.

"Maybe a little," Max responded. "Snow tends to do that to people."

"So what do you say we head back to my truck and I'll drop you at Blackwell," Chloe suggested. "We can get out of this cold and you can do whatever it is time travellers do for fun."

"If by 'what time travellers do for fun' you mean lie down and read, sure."

"Books? You're such a nerd."

"Look who's talking, miss top of the class in math." It was amazing the things that she remembered sometimes. Sure, she'd forgotten her own birthday, but she could remember with crystal clarity the day a much dorkier Chloe proudly declared that she was the top of the class in math, opening herself up to endless teasing.

"I can't believe you'd hurt me like this," Chloe said, gasping dramatically. "I made one mistake six years ago, and you mock me still. Unfair, simply unfair."

Max rolled her eyes. "Come on, you big dork. Let's go home."

Max stood up, and then turned and helped pull Chloe up.

"Fine, but after that I'm making you walk to Blackwell."

"Ha ha, now get moving."

"Fineee." Chloe dragged out the word s she dragged her feet though the snow, a couple steps behind Max.

The two of them had almost reached the parking lot when a familiar face rounded the corner.

Unfortunately, not all familiar faces are friendly ones.

"Oh, would you look who it is, the quiet loner. God, don't you do anything with your life?"

What on earth was Victoria Chase doing at the lighthouse in the middle of a snowstorm? She looked like the kind of person who would be terrified of even a single snowflake ruining her carefully constructed look, as though it were as messy and permanent as a bucket of paint.

Although, if Max was being fair, she did love what Victoria had done with her hair.

Max didn't know what to say. She was awful in confrontations, at least the first time around. Thankfully, Chloe jumped in before she had to say anything.

"Hey, why don't you back off, asshole." Chloe had her fists balled at her side, and Max could see the tension in her arms.

"Oh, it's the faux-punk bitch too. I'm sorry, I didn't see you there. I thought you were still out putting up posters for that Rachel slut."

Chloe saw red. Letting out an ungodly scream, she jumped into Victoria, knocking her to the ground and holding her there.

Max had to stop this before it got worse. As much as Victoria deserved it, Max didn't want Chloe to actually hurt her. Holding out her hand, Max started to rewind back to the start of the conversation.

"Oh, would you look who it is, the quiet loner. God, don't you do anything with your life?"

Taking advantage of the photographing gear that Victoria had dropped when Chloe jumped her, Max formulated her perfect response.

"If doing something with my life means coming out here alone, in the middle of a snowstorm, to take photos of the damn weather, I'd really rather not."

Victoria stood there, mouth agape, for just a second before she closed it and marched past them, making a beeline for the lighthouse. She clearly had no experience with people who would fight back, at least in her word games.

"Holy shit, Max. That was amazing."