Summary:

Max will find a way to prevent Chloe's third death, but must make a bitter choice.

Notes by Author:

Minor changes have been applied today (21.12.2018).

I haven't written for quite some time. I learned a lot of C4D in the meantime as well as the English language. I studied colloquial language on a daily basis. Now, I'm more actively writing for Burning Horizon since it has become a part of my bachelor and plays a significant role for the 3D-city that I'm planing to rebuilt.

This chapter contains very sensitive details about friendship as well as the fallacy of believing in non-existent elements of life and thus propels the reader to a devastating point of this story.

Avoiding spoilers, this is the first half of burning horizon and shows the fragile human mind. It also depicts the questioning of our actions, excruciating delusion of longing (closest German term: Sehnsucht) plus the misinterpretation of cause and effect. This chapter not only questions the story itself but also consists of poignant memories from my own experience.

Philosophical term: Nihilism.

Chapter 21 - Wandering thru the purgatory deranged
Theme Song: In Flames - The Chosen Pessimist

As far as I remember, my next riveted checkpoint waits for me at 8:30am. Terrific third Tuesday. Everything as is, nothing changed. My right cheek smarts. The carpet's texture on which I've been lying all the time rubbed against my entire body. The mattress over me doesn't make it easier, nor the shut-down curtains. I'm waking up blind and devoured in my Maximum-Abyss for the third time. Eight o'clock, so what now? Chloe will text me, my mother too, Dana and Daniel are going to be left alone, although I had been given the choice to be there for them. I couldn't change Chloe's fate in the first place.

Oddly enough, the voice in my head reiterated this arcane inquiry to use a certain polaroid. Which one? Selfie in the hallway? What's the use anyway, it's covered with my dried-up blood. A thick diffuse coat atop the polaroid screen. Blindly I grope into my wardrobe and pick the first t-shirt I can grab. I open the door and walk past Kate. I'm just a traveler through a twofold solidified timeline. Kate, obviously delighted to see me, starts talking and gives me a hug. Sooner or later, she'll vanish because this day's rules don't matter.

I walk outside and spot Dana sitting on the bench. Clearly hiding something, but worth finding out one day later. Well, it's damn cold… maybe I should've gotten entirely dressed in the first place. I walk to Dana who's feeding squirrels. "Hey there," she smirks as I sit down next to her. The bench feels cold, it literally freezes my butt. I regret not having put on any else clothes.

"Ain't that a bit cold?"
she marvels at my goosebumps-strewn body - guess, I must look like an albino cactus to her. The weather however has changed. It's overcast by dark nimbuses and the wind feels moist and just as cold.
"Aw, look! Look, how hungry they are,"
her actions and sayings revert to the solidified timeline. She devotes her attention to her cute furry buddies noshing away breadcrumbs.

"Sometimes I wish, we were grateful for the little things just like our little friends hopping about our feet," she props her head up. I stroke her back underneath those long black strands of hair. Dang has she changed. The only thing, that reminds one of her, is this beautiful voice of hers. On its face, she does appear to be the most loquacious soul here.

"I'll be there for you tomorrow, promise," I get up, because I'm freezing to death. "Why won't you be here with me 'til the end?" Dana timidly looks up to me. Whoops, those suppressed emotions came literally out of nowhere. Now, she seems to be more of a lost soul in a raging sea. The way she looks into my eyes, she can barely breathe. Wonderful, I thought, the third cycle of Tuesday would be piece of cake.

Honestly, I don't know how to save Chloe for certain. This dimension determined setting her death in the evening caused by too much alcohol. Who compelled her to drink over her head - I am this dimension? A cruel notion, on second thought. I walk back into the dorms. Kate is still sitting in front of my door waiting for it being open by first iteration's Max. The sanest soul around here which is also contaminated by my putrid powers. Two more steps toward my door and poof. Kate has burst into a billion glistening pieces. Little gleaming glassy particles like ferry dust. I wish she were a ferry and could hold me back any time I made a shitty decision. I assume, she'd better know how to make a reasonable choice.

I enter my dorm room. I cannot wait to transcend the very first checkpoint. What time is it anyway?

I'm shifting back to the ground. The excruciating high-pitched noise of a bell pierces through my ears. I'm waking up again.

Ugh, fuck those pinned-down stakes within this timeline! It isn't my dimension, so why those weird rules? To whomever they might apply, I think she'll really be upset about my current procedure. I get up and search for random clothes inside my wardrobe. Don't even know if they fit or look any good. Does it matter?

I raise my hand, clench it into a fist and think about Chloe at the windmill. Her infinite loop of death has to stop. For a change, there's no pain whatsoever. I'm grateful, for my pulse has worked without any further trouble.

I am at the beginning of the pathway to the windmill. Trees surrounding me, birds chirping in their nests. The swishing melodies of grass and rustling of leaves turns this whole world a somewhat bearable space. So much life, saturated colors… it all seems all right. The calming scent of the forest mingled with fresh air of the sea. I draw a long sharp breath into my lungs and feel the tickle within my nose. A distinct scent of pines blend with the burnt-out sands by the shore.

With restored faith, I walk to the swings past the parking lot and take off my shoes to make my last steps barefoot. Warm little hills of sand rise up about my feet. Chloe hangs there dangling on her back instead of sitting on it. "Who's back? Max, ta-dah, the hangman," she doesn't even dare looking at me. Jeez, this pleasant sensation in my belly the moment I see her…, goes without saying… Why does everything need to be so complicated? It could have been so easy.

"Why are you here?" there's no life in her voice, no joy, melody, connotation, meaning - it's just words. Why am I here? For what am I really here?
"I love you," I mimic the monotonous modulation.
"I see," as dry as it may get.

What does she see? The overcast skies above us. Clouds in different kinds of shapes, sizes and distances? The gradient from dark gray to blazing white? "You think too much," this time, she literally talks to me and there's more life in her voice than before. I'm her hangman… whoa, that's a big statement. Hard to swallow.

She gets up, knocking off the sands from her calves. She comes closer to me. "I'm so sorry," my voice cracks. I can't even look her into the eyes after understanding again that she is set to die. By now, she realized her fate. The blazing white light visually sets her hair on fire. Her skin looks so alive and perfused by clean blood… Something touches my chin and my head looks up again.

"Same here," she has tilted my head back and made me look into her eyes. It all happens so fast my mind doesn't catch up with it. Everything becomes blurrier. The blur makes it look like Chloe's head coming closer to me. Her exhaling breath strokes my cheeks. Her jittery lashes tickle my left cheek. I close my eyes.

A cushion pushes against my right cheek partly pushing against my lips. First, it feels like a faint prickle around my mouth, but shortly after, all senses whet akin to a knife until every sensual touch appears to be close to little fires on my skin. I don't care what I am doing here momentarily. All that matters right now, is, that Chloe stays with me and she doesn't turn her back on me ever again. All vision has faded, I can barely stand. Her thin hands grab my shoulders tightly to support my unstable stance. My breath quivers, a tear of joy pushes over my lid and reaches the soft cushion on my lips. Her lips.

I want to extend this beautiful moment. I clench my fist and try to concentrate. Focus on the kiss, but moving it back in time. I reversed the checkpoint, nothing hurts, no sounds… just the soft gentle breath out of Chloe's nose.

I made it. I'm back where I wanted us to be. Inside Maximus abyss. Unfortunately, I unable to play the guitar. It's going to be re-stringed by late evening. "God, you scared me," more life comes back into Chloe's voice. "So dark in here," she continues. We're both lying on the ground. No beam of light enters this pigsty of a dorm room. My skin feels cold. Chloe's hands are still on my shoulders. The only thing the time travel has changed is our stance and my clothing.

"Jeez, Max, where are your clothes?" she quickly removes her hands off my arms. That's partly correct. On the regular timeline, Max woke up under her mattress devoid of light and clothing. A bigger lunatic than I currently am. "I don't understand this cruel world, either," I say and touch her neck. I could make use of another kiss. "Ouch, not there," Chloe slaps my hand away. "Oops, forgot the bruise. My bad," I apologize and fumble somewhere in the darkness until I've reached one of her arms. Kate knocks on my door and screams my name.

"Who's that?" Chloe raises her head. "Kate… in my story, she jumped... Rachel couldn't save her,"
I adapt my explanation to the letters I wrote to her.
"And you don't open?" a curt question with no overtone of judgement. Just a few words asking why I'm not opening my door.
"I can't open it anymore. All is vanity," I reply.
"Weird," Chloe lies down onto my cold body with her sun-baked one.
She places her head next to mine. I anticipated a kiss, but… fair enough.

"Pick up the phone by the Notwist" plays back louder and louder on my stereo. Chloe doesn't even dare asking, what the hell's going on in my room. Yep, time to wake up in this dark hellhole. I'd rather do this with Chloe lying next to me, than in utter solitude.

"You are warm, Chloe," I hug as much as I can.
"Not until tomorrow," she sighs into my ear.
Her breath flows down my neck and disappears on the ground. A pleasant feeling in my gut.
"I'll wake up and die in this endless loop, over and over. I'd rather be with you in this dark room, than rage against you," her voice cracks.

"I will die here forever," she pushes her head against my neck and cries.

Kate thuds multiple times against my door. "I don't want to die forever but hate you. I want to be with the person who kept me alive," her body shakes. Welcome to my hopeless timeline. I wish I could provide stable friendship, help and closeness at once without my fuckups. I miss the time before homecoming. There's nothing like it. Seattle is a far reach considering this shit-array, as I used to call it. The actual Max talking in my mind mostly despises the way I'm adjusting choices. Truth be told, she's more upset about Nathan's death than Kate's or Chloe's altogether.

"Is this it? Are we cooped-up? No escape?" Chloe whispers.
"Relax, I find a way. I'll get us out of this. Enjoy the silence."
"But I don't like this quietness. Feels like dying again."
"Lay your head onto my chest and listen."
Chloe raises her head. Red hair brushes over the carpet on which we're lying.
"Fast. Your heartbeat… Max… you sick?"
"You just kissed me, and we teleported through a cement wall of time. Plus, I'm a hummingbird."

Chloe's head feels smooth. Hair tickles my tummy up to my bony chest. My breath lowers and raises her skull. The weight soothes my deep anxiety. We may be stuck in limbo, but we are not alone. One of her hands reaches for my face and tenderly pets my neck and rubs up to my cheek, and down again. Wonderful. "Can I ask you a question," I say.

Rachel has shot through my memory and I don't quite believe that she is there. I mean there in terms of existence.
"Go ahead, shoot" Chloe answers after a while.
"Does she exist."
"Exist? Like who?"
"Rachel. You didn't mention her as much."
Silence.

Suddenly, the weight on my chest increases. Chloe's head is almost hurting me and getting heavier and heavier the more time passes. I'd love to ask her if she removed the head, because it's crushing my bones, but never had she been so close to me at all. At least in my recollection. She's abruptly tugging her head off of my chest. A piercing pain wanders through my gut.

"You know, don't you?" she is standing up somewhere in the darkness.
"Know what?
"You know exactly what I mean."
"Chloe no, this is not my finished reality."
"Shit's not your reality. Fuck, of course you know what's going on!"
"Please… don't do this to me."
"Do what to you?" she growls.

I also stand up and search for her. Poking around in the dark. I perceive a muffled sigh.
"Fuck you!" Chloe cries.
Taking baby steps, I make my way toward her fumbling about, seeking her body. Shrouded in darkness, I found my red-haired angel again. Although there is no light in here, I can see a little speck of light refracting in each of her eyes. Carefully I'm searching for the shoulders and embrace her. She doesn't fight against it. "Pitched black room, the anonymous writer of letters is with me half-naked… how do you even… not go crazy in this hell?" she whimpers.

"We have to do something," Chloe starts off determined.
"And what exactly do you have in mind?"
"Like run away…"
"How?"
She nudges me away so that I trip over, fall and bang my head against the firm carpet ground. "We could get to Rachel… we can outrun this town, Max. Together!" She pulls on my right arm helping me to get up on my feet. She is full of excitement, aside from the desperate pissed-off cry prior to that.

"You with me on this?" she stands right in front of me.
"I… can't…," it's hard to tell that we are bound to this hell.
"But, you want to, right?"
"Chloe, you are dying and you cannot outrun it."
"We can run!" she darts somewhere in my room and manages to find the door.

Light spills my darkness-imbued dorm room and blinds me in a fraction of a second. Chloe's dark outlines drop onto my skinny body. Looking left and right, she searches for an exit, but I have to stop her. Checkpoint at 8:30 has yet to come and she can't skip it. "I'm gonna find Rachel, with or without you!" she scurries to the door leading to the stairway. Interestingly enough, there are no peepz around here. No soul, nobody. Something strange has happened. "Chloe, wait!" I scream, but she has already opened the door.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Chloe cries and falls on her knees. I bolt to her with no clothes on. Skinny half-naked sicko next to a red-haired punk in distress. Someone should take a picture of this and sell it for a million bucks. She slams her skull onto the ground and hunches up. "No way," I utter under my breath. The dorms' hallways are cycling. Chloe slowly gets up again, supporting her body at the doorframe. "Insanity by the book," she whispers enraged. "Just like in my letters," I add.

"With or without you, repeating-rooms-bullshit or none, I will leave this despicable place behind," she incautiously walks into the adjacent hallway.

"Chloe, no!" I try to follow, but the door slams shut by itself and locks immediately.
"Max, don't leave me here," she thuds against the wood.
"Chloe, I'll get us out of here!" I walk back a foot.

I clench my fist and think about her lying together with me in the dark, but…

"Door's locked, I'll climb through the window!" she screams. My powers have been diminished. I felt some kind of force sucking at my hand, but nothing has changed. Even my vision has displaced around me, yet no shift has been yielded. "No, don't leave me," I run to the door and push my ear against the creaky veneer. "We are separated," she deduces. I attempt turning the doorknob, but it won't budge at all. I turn around with my back pushing against the door sliding to the ground on my bony butt. Think Max.

"I believe, it's better this way," I'm cracking up.
"Stuck in limbo?" she shouts and bashes against the door once.
"No, you are not bogged down, but I." I conclude. It's getting colder.
"I won't leave you," she insists. I sense she is also sitting leaned against the door.
"You already have, and it must be."

I have a look around. No posters, graffities, daubs, rolled-out toilet papers, nothing reminiscent of life. I'm trapped inside of this. "How does it look like in your hallway. Are there posters of any kind?" I look over my shoulder almost pushing my mouth against the veneer as though it rendered my words any clearer. "Yeah, some dudes are running around here. They don't see me. I'm, like, a ghost," she answers. We are just one notch apart from one another, but split dimensions.

"Listen carefully. You took a picture of me lying on your bed. Go get it and place it on the swing. Duct tape, sticky tape, glue it, whatever, just make sure it's there. I need it to change something. Don't wait for me, you hear me? Get away, leave Arcadia Hell. This place has turned evil. And I caused many deaths until 2015. I can rescue you, but not be with you," my jaw quivers. I feel my teeth clattering against each other. It's cold around me and inside my chest. Hummingbird's heart flaps rapidly through its body.

"I will go back to my dorm room and wait until half past eight and you… you know what to do. Do you understand?" - "Rachel's not real," she sobs.
"What?" I must be deaf.
"I saw her handwriting on the wall, I wore her clothes…" I deduce for myself.
"She's fake… I believed it all. It was beyond anything in my life. She must exist!"
"You just told me, she does not…"
"Because your stories told me so!" she screams.
"I- I don't understand."
"You came back to me, remembering nobody but her and wants to find her with me. She- she has to be somewhere!" she bangs against the door multiple times.

That also explains Evan being puzzled the moment I recommended Rachel being a suitable model. Nothing adds up anymore. My letters to Chloe had created a three-dimensional personality of flesh and blood, but somehow, she - Rachel -, altered Chloe's perception. It must be. I had been writing beyond the bounds of storytelling. A story going further than what we had been experiencing all along. Chloe had become obsessed with it and finally adapted to all of its properties. "Did you buy her clothing just for her to put them on sometime?" I want to make sure I understand.

"Her sign on the wall, the makeup in the junkyard digs, everything. Even David believes in it," it has taken forever for her to finish this very eye-opening sentence. "I stalked Frank, because of that. His reason to leave Arcadia Bay, because it's: 'A precipice of sickos,'" an even more unbearable truth.

I can't do this justice, yet all of it appears to be my wrongdoing. The letters, Eric moving from Germany, Kate dying at thanksgiving. All of it - my fucking self-created pit. No surprise, my mind called Chloe "slave" when I was totally tripping and blind. Real-Max may have rendered me insane for a couple of hours, but signs are clear as day. But credit is where credit's due, how would she communicate it to me? Who would even have the slightest idea of what's going on. Sure, as hell she doesn't know either. She has her memoires scribbled over her body.

"Run, Chloe. No matter what, run! If you wake up in a hospital, run regardless! Leave this cursed place. It's my fault and I will fix it, but you cannot be with me." - "Drinking myself dead was my decision to make, not yours," she persists. Considering everything had been revolving around my stories which have kept her alive, I'd be surprised if that didn't cause her death wish. Now, everything deflates. Chloe realizes the consequences of fixation onto something. Believing in a human being which miraculously doesn't live in this dirty timeline.

"It was too much to take in. I wanted to blunt the pain, but it didn't work. I saw the windmill, I saw the letters burning, all because of you. I could breathe again with you… but everything you wrote was an evil bluff to keep me alive. It's the choice that I made. You are a diligent writer with dead-on compelling stories, and also the devil fooling with my head. All at fucking once! And if I drink myself away, I had every motherfucking reason doing so! But you must return anyways. I'm your slave!"

Every pause to suck in fresh breath must hurt. She doesn't even sound pissed off. It's more like despair. Not knowing how to handle the current situation. Yet, she's very much mistaken. Real-Max conducts war everywhere I'm looking at. She's the one who set the first fire. I wonder how this world would be like without me. With the actual Max, whom I'm replacing.

"I will go back into my room alone. As soon as you hear the door shutting, you have to leave, put the polaroid on the swings by the shore and then… escape," I get up. My skin shivers. Goosebumps all over my paper-thin body. My feet are dead as well as the world in which I am trapped inside. Long story short, Chloe was not intended to go with me.

"No…, this ain't fair!" I hear a faint last cry through the door. There is no other way. I enter my dark room and close the door behind. Back on the floor and grabbing a blanket. Doesn't help… I'm freezing to death.

The clock on my stereo's display shows 8:28am.

The chime of a bell sears through my temples. Humming of whales sounds like distant screeches of help. A distant cry.

Back where I belong. I open the blinds and walk to my wardrobe. Time to get dressed and do some shit. Alter Chloe's fate and hope not to ever see her again for the rest of this week. Good thing, there is nothing in my way that will stop me. Only I can do this.

I clench my hand to a fist and think about the presence, I will pulse to the shore and find my way to the swings. I feel the raging heart inside my chest, a stitch in my neck grows bigger and chokes me hard. The last thing I feel is the cushy sands under my feet before passing out.

Water. The ocean lives. I'm breathing and so does the tide. Warm sands under my body. My head lies on some kind of fiber. I open my eyes. It's warm and finally, I don't feel so cold anymore. I'm by the swings. A folded checkered jacket laid under my head like a pillow. I unfold it. Rachel's actual jacket. A photo drops out of it and lands on the soft sand beneath. Whoa, I look drugged and spaced out. Instantly, the image flashes before my eyes, sort of leaping into my face.

Okay, long time no see, Mister Time Travel. So, here we go.

I focus the image and absorb every detail I can find. Instead of silence, I hear the shutter of Jefferson's camera from far away. Seems to be an ambiguous shift in time.

I'm in her room, also feeling drugged, but whole and standing on my legs. Next to me, Chloe's bed with my other self motionlessly lying there mumbling intelligible things. My ears, however, perceive the simultaneous vicinity of the dark room. I could throw up by the mere thought of it. Chloe hasn't realized the second Max in this very room, yet. She's standing in front of her bed and has just taken a picture of my other self with the red phoenix.

"Chloe?" I say to her having no idea how to begin this conversation.
"Holy shit!" she startles and drops the camera. Luckily it lands on the foot of the bed.
"Relax, it's all fine, it's all good," I try to move my legs, but I collapse. My body isn't fully there.
"What the fuck is going on?" she also drops to the ground and moves away from me like an animal cornered by its predator. "I need your help," I say lying on the ground as if it were a regular situation for the both of us.

"I'm here to save you," I try to say this as calm as I possibly can.
"No shit, you're giving me a heart attack," literally her heart pounds under her shirt.
"I need the red phoenix to find the key to your door," I instantly point at the camera on the foot of her bed.

I try to climb back on my feet, but my knees won't do as I want them to. Chloe gets up, grabs the camera and hands it over with both her hands shaking. The red phoenix in my possession. Magical things repeating themselves alongside my time travel capabilities. "I could use a hand," I say raising my hand waiting for her to help me up.

"You remember red phoenix?" Chloe asks all happy about the fact that I miraculously obtained some kind of recollection. Shit, no! This is the past-Chloe. She doesn't know anything, yet. She has to know that she mustn't follow me. Again, I'm forced to bring this up,

"You are going to die tomorrow, and I must know where you tossed the keys."
"What keys?"
"David has to find them, but they had been relocated."
"What about that stepdick?"
"Joyce and he is going to try to enter your room."
"Why on earth would they want to break into my room?"
"They will become worried about you…," I'm getting panicky.
"Max, what the fuck's gonna happen?" she steps back a foot.
"You overdosed yourself. And locked yourself in prior to that," my throat hurts.

Chloe falls on her chair puzzled about merely those few words I have used to explain. Willing suspension of disbelief as Dr. Jacoby would tell? She shakes her head. I push the red phoenix's viewfinder against my eye. So dizzy. The polaroid time travel still works, but some of Jefferson's drugs seem to spread regardless of my safe distance toward the dark room. While Chloe is still sitting on her chair baffled about the words I've said, I spot another Chloe via the viewfinder.

"You are upset about something," I say as I see the other Chloe walking about in her room.
"Huh?" Chloe doesn't find her way back to reality.
"You're throwing boxes of letters all over the place," I conclude.
"I was mad…"
"Yes, and desperate," I deduce. Her ghost sits on the ground with letters strewn around.
"David came inside… made things worse than they were," she slowly grasps an understanding of what's going on.

Crazily enough, it is Sunday. Hence, I'm watching a day happening before my very existence inside this timeline. "What happened?" I want to know. "Pissing-match with veteran dickhead," she says as though I were interrogating her. I only see him standing in the doorway pointing his index at her. "He knew, you had been writing me those letters," she concludes and covers her face in shame. It looks like she's defending herself against Sgt. Dickhead's accusations.

"What were you guys bickering about?" I want to know.
"He lost his gun and sometime later his 'just-in-case' spare key to my room."
"Ironic… guess, Troy's curse really turned him into a cowardly dipshit."
"Troy? Who?"
Apparently, he hasn't told her anything about his agenda with him.
"Max, why on earth would I die? Like, what could happen?"
"I happened…," I stop inspecting my surroundings.

Chloe stands right in front of me. "What?" she can barely finish the word without choking on her growing pain. Shaking her head and looking around like a maniac, she tries to find a spot to focus and calm down. "You are going to realize that Rachel does not exist but I," I connect the dots and try to look into her eyes. She stares at the wooden roof of boards neatly dwelling above her bed. Underneath lies the other… real me, unknowing what's going on.

"You must run, no matter where you might wake up. Hospital, your own bed, your car, just flee this horrible place," I say while inspecting the rest of the past Sunday. David approaches her, grabs her by the arms and shakes. I think, I shouldn't recount what I'm currently seeing. Chloe has enough raw stuff in her head to cope with. Looking for any kind of key or cue in this scene, David walks away leaving Chloe crying on the floor. Holy crap, their relationship is far worse than in the story that I know. He sure was a douche, but not this aggressive.

"Rachel, isn't real," I iterate the same thought, but Chloe doesn't react.
"You are going to say this, after dying three times on the same repeating Tuesday," I finish.
"Rachel exists!" she insists without changing the tone of her voice. There's no power nor life in it.

I look outside the window trying to find a key in the rain gutter. Nothing there, but to my surprise, I've found something else. A doe crossing the street. I lower the red phoenix, and again, it's there but rather translucent. Weird. I turn around and look through the viewfinder again. Chloe stands up and runs out of her room. My other self groans, "Chloe?" and, like an electric shock, Chloe startles and says, "What?" With the same voiceprint as in my recollection.

Jefferson's drugs are somewhat wearing off. Through the viewfinder, I see Chloe coming back inside with a bottle of booze in her hand. Well, nothing new to me. Turning around, she shouts in the direction of her door. Even through time plus viewfinder, I can perceive the words she's shouting, "She is real!"

She hops on her bed and lies almost perfectly next to the one-day-later-arriving drugged Max. Ugh, holy hell, I need a new dictionary after this messy trip. My left eye starts hurting a little. The plastic viewfinder frame digs into my skin. Yep, it seems like we had removed the rubber widget that prevents skin fatigue just to paint it red and draw her phoenix outlines.

Chloe opens her hand and there is the key. Thank God, now I know where to look. With a loose gesture up, she tosses it in the air and catches it over and over. Looking out of her window again explains, why she can carelessly play about with the keys. David drives off and leaves Cedar Av. One more toss up in the air and with a beautiful drawn arc, the keys flutter a curved trajectory and - bullseye - hit the rain gutter glistening in the sunlight.

"Gotcha, little fellah," I lower the camera and feel the pressure of the viewfinder on my head.
"Now what?" the real Chloe in this room stands up and reels up to the windowsill out of which I'm looking.
"It's going to rain… I'll leave a note on my arm," I say having a flash of insight.
"Hand me a pen or marker," I order her.
"Here, I drew a lot of stuff with it," she hands me a black marker. She cracks a smile. A sad one.

I lean in to my other self just to realize, that she becomes gradually see-through the closer I get to her. I want to inscribe her arm, but my other self's body fades the moment I position the marker above the thin-layered skin. Do I also have to use the red phoenix? Looking through the viewfinder, she literally disappears in front of my very eyes. I open my right eye. Through the viewfinder - nothing -, but through my right eye there's she. Carefully, I'm placing the pen on her skin and write in capital letters: Keys in gutter of garage - Save Chloe with them. I almost wrote those words around her entire wrist. I'm feeling dizzy.

"You fiddled about in thin air. What did you do?" Chloe asks perplexed.
"What? You don't see me lying on your bed?" I wonder.
"You vanished the moment I tapped the release," she answers.
"Stop talking shit, I know there are two copies of us running around here!"
"Look!" Chloe says while jumping on her bed.

She lands on my other self. The real me groans. Chloe is obviously disturbed and falls off her bed and tries to gain as much distance as possible from it.

"What the fuck was that? What the fuck was that?" she doesn't stop looking at the - for her - empty bed. "Told you, I'm just a clone traveling through time, fixing 'bullshit' that I've committed," I say with a funny tone.

"Bullshit you've committed? So, how's that? Tell me about it," sardonic breath.
"Stop it, please," I ask for silence. Hard to concentrate with her haphazard comments flying about.
"You wanna know something that could stop?"
"Seriously? I'm trying to tug you out of the quicksand, and it's not easy."
"I'll tell you about easy, I won't be long," she changes the tone of her voice to a sadder level.

"I woke up that Sunday - my Yesterday and your 'Before-Yesterday'. Whatever, it was an awful concoction of dreams. First, I've been running to our windmill and it- it's gone. William was waiting up there with a tornado at the horizon, spinning above the ocean. Rachel and some other guys have been standing up there, too. Then, darkness. Suddenly, I woke up in my room. Broad daylight, everything seemed okay… But I'll tell you different. Like a wish upon a star, Dad's back. Brushing his teeth and I am back in my younger body. Outside I can hear Frank talking to a girl. Rachel, obviously."

I sit down on the ground cross-legged and continue listening with my head propped up on my hand, carefully putting the red phoenix aside on the dusty wooden flooring.

"I couldn't move a muscle. I been lying there with my whole body sedated. Lie down and suffer! William comes into my room searching for me, doesn't find me helplessly motionless on my bed. In the flesh, just a few feet away and all I ask for is a damn hug. But no, even then I must listen to Frank and Rachel's romantic chat in our yard. If there was such a thing like a kill switch in my head, I wouldn't hesitate pushing it for every second of that horrifying dream. Just kill me for every breath I take! I've screamed, quickly opened and shut my eyes, I've done anything just to wake myself up and move. But it's kept me hostage in that bed for hours. My eyes have dried because I hadn't blinked," she grits her teeth and grabs a bottle of water. Her throat hurts with every sip she takes down.

"Don't follow me…," I say.
"Huh?"
"I said, 'don't follow me'."
"Why, what?"
"Because this is all my doing, so, run away from Arcadia Bay, no matter what happens after I'll have leave."

I haven't come up with anything intelligent to say after this story. She doesn't refuse. Just looking at thin air and being quiet. "Maybe it really is a choice I made. I couldn't take the truth. Rachel not being here. Her existence. My reason to drink me dead, because I believed a huge lie since the day William had died!" her vocal cords clatter. Not a good sign. Screamed too often in the past days, I presume.

"After he had died, there was a void which I wanted to fill and the moment I asked for something to happen, your letters have been coming into our mailbox ever since. Letters from heaven. You- you filled this hole inside of me that couldn't hurt worse than anything else. Day after day, for months, I've been retrieving your stories. Letters from top corner left to bottom corner right handwritten. First, I thought, William was still alive, because it felt like all my pain was reflected in your story. Everything. Hint: The color of my hair was red. I adapted my whole life to your flood of solace. Now, I must cope with it being a fucking lie!"

She batters her desk until her fists hurt. Biting on her lower lip and fighting against the pain eating away at her.

I get up and stride toward the windowsill to take a gander outside again. Perhaps I can distract her a little.
"You see that?"
I point outside of her window at the doe grazing on the yards of the neighborhood.
"The hell? You know what this means?" Chloe almost screams into my ear.
"No, I don't. I wonder how you can see her, though," I say scratching my head confused.
"It means, she'll lead us to Rachel's real whereabouts! Follow me!" she escapes and bolts outside.

"No, I won't follow you, Chloe," I utter under my breath looking out of the window seeing her running after the translucent doe. Weirdly enough, the animal reacts to Chloe's vicinity and scrams. To my right, I can see my other self groaning and mumbling stuff - through the viewfinder, the past-Chloe lies next to her smoking pot. Although nothing has changed yet, I feel like I've accomplished a great mission. A brief smile flashes over my lips during I'm waiting for this event to close and suck me back up until tomorrow.

At the same time, I strike upon another idea. Hole to another world. That black circular blob scribbled on the roof slope. I pick her pen and write around it: Run Chloe! Rachel was here.

It's a creepy message, but it should do the job just fine.

The reality around me collapses. A gleaming white beam of light engulfs my surroundings with me altogether. The bright shine permeates closed eyes and warms my skin. There's no air to breathe. I must wait until I've reached tomorrow's presence.

Fresh cold air in my lungs. The electric air hanging over the shore. Something wonderful will happen. I can sense it in my gut. Victory is palpable. Light enters my visual nerve, more details become saturated along with parallax, sound, smell, and perception of perspective. I see the polaroid perching in both my palms, slowly reducing its visual artifacts and arbitrary light jitters. Now, it's just a frame showing my past self lying on her bed. I feel some kind of handwriting under my fingertips. I turn around the printed polaroid image:

"Max, this is goodbye. Although none of your stories seem real, they felt real. You shouldn't have come to tell me, I was wrong all the time. I feel this urge to say 'Fuck you!' so badly, but in the end…

'Don't stay here' right? Goodbye Rachel,

I love you."

The text fades until every tiniest line of ink has dissolved into the white paper. I look to my left and ogle waves splashing against brittle rocks. The lighthouse has gone. I look back at the calm sea. It's still there, which is a relief.

I walk up the pathway to the vanished lighthouse. Music on my ears. The first time I recall going up that hill, I listened to a great song by 65daysofstatic, but this time it's a different one. "Come to me". All right, gives me quite the opposite feeling of what I'm trying to achieve. I breathe in through my nose and, whoa, the pungent odor of wood enters all the way. I almost forgot the vivid scent of nature. Momentarily, I'm drowning all sounds with this awesome track. I see birds in their treetops flapping their wings. The moment I pass, they leave to little swarms of dozens.

I've reached the top of the hill, the end of the pathway. Chloe is sitting there with her back leaned against the tree stump while she is watching the sea. She doesn't realize that I am here. The lighthouse seems to be back. I guess, I was just dreaming. I walk to the bench and marvel at the beautiful ocean in front of this dismal place, Arcadia Bay. To hell with this town.

The song is still running on my ears. I grab the polaroid again and look for Chloe's message to show it to her and say thank you. There's always a better way of saying "Fuck you!" to somebody you used to know. I'm proud of her. She realized, there are other ways. But again, she called me Rachel at the end of her short message. A sign, that she hasn't fully understood the extend of what I'm undergoing to save her life. She still believes Rachel be an existing character. After all, she fundamentally seems made up in this reality. On the other hand, Eric and Michael have appeared in her stead. I've never guessed, Daniel had a bigger brother with a heart of gold.

My song has just finished. I throw my mp3-player inside my bag and the polaroid as well. The sound of the ocean alongside beautiful notes of nature. I turn around and… she's gone. Chloe has run off. She left a tape player atop of the tree stump. That old player we used to record our little adventures with in our childhood.

Huh, I feel like I've listened to this tune before.

"Through it all once again, came to know my only friend. Lost control…" Oh my God. I cover my mouth with my right hand and fight against the tears. She understands. She knows. She can't be. Chloe's gone for good, but she'll never forget me. She's going to be safe. I feel it. The more this song progresses, the more it appears to be a dead branch of our past Tuesday. Means, she understands what's at stake. She will survive.

I walk back to Arcadia Bay. Have to handle some unfinished business with other fates and choices, which I've miscalculated. Good thing, I became a master at tying up loose ends.

An unknown force sucks at my whole body. The dropped shadow of the lighthouse disappears under my feet.

I've passed another checkpoint. I can't remember the next thing occurring on the timeline. The chime of a bell scream in my ears. My eardrums could burst…

I'm inside the den together with Chloe. I feel the dressing around my wounded leg and its pressure on the burning ointment along the incision itself. I look up to her and spot grass gleaming between her fingers. "Wonderful, fuck it," Chloe stands up and leaves the den without daring to look at the huge pile of letters behind her or even me. She snips her pot out of her fingers and stubs it with her right boot. I sigh out loud and try to walk again. Until the next checkpoint shows up, I can definitely read some of my letters. Then, I can pay Eric a visit and… I don't know what we could do. Learn English? German? Ah shucks.

First letter sent by me and, whoa, I can feel the pressure of the pen already via its fiber. I really used every inch of the sheet for inscription. What the?

"run chloe, run chloe, run chloe, run, chloe…"

This must be a coincidence. I fetch another one, open and:

"run chloe, run chloe, run chloe, run, chloe…"

What on earth? Panicking I open three other letters at once and they all seem to be yet the same copy:

"run chloe, run chloe, run chloe, run, chloe…"

Jesus, what the hell has happened? Is this my influence back from my early childhood when I was a toddler? My letter to my parents? This is the only reason why all the letters have changed to the same two words, copied over and over. All handwritten. Sometimes, two letters came into her mailbox at the same fucking day. For some reason though, she still does behave like the real story does still exist in her recollection.

I hobble to the only opening of the den and look for her at the junkyard. I scream her name into the woods, but no answer. Oh damn, I hope so much, that she remembers me, the whole bloody story instead of thousands of letters saying the same two words on every inscribable inch. What about her message to me on the polaroid? It faded, so did her memory? The same song from yesterday's breakup? Wow, I'm stuck here on the junkyard waiting for the next checkpoint surrounded by an uncountable number of redundant letters. I can't believe what I did…

Hours have passed. The next checkpoint has happened way too late. The most interesting thing in the meantime? Watching my letters floating up as they've burned to ashes. Still smelling the stench of burning paper, I have been teleported to Dana's room. Apparently, Eric and I were about to flake out on them and race to Chloe's house. That event, she decided to drink one too many into her inevitable death. I just hope and pray for her to be found earlier and that my Monday's past clone has understood what she has to do.

I've just noticed that I want to compose a new dictionary after this putrid Tuesday. I have no more idea on how to express tenses as to how to describe altered clones of oneself. Holy hell, my head wants to explode by the mere thought of this crap.

However, I've decided on staying with Dana. She's great at cuddling and I totally forgot how much I missed that special kind of energy she's carrying inside of her. Witty, smart and just as benevolent as Kate, maybe a little more open-minded and less self-confident compared with the normal timeline. I've even managed helping her with some English homework. It's weird that Mrs. Hoida is giving classes on a regular basis and pretty hard-on Germanic aspects of our language. That might also explain the Real-Max's capabilities to grasp German from Eric and Troy's conversation. Well, I digress, where was I?

"What's the matter with you?" Dana giggles.
"Nothing in particular, leg hurts a little,"
I groan and massage a bit around the wound.
"Oh, sugar, what've you done? Broke a leg?"
"Sugar? Wow, please rather call me bonehead instead," I laugh.
"No seriously, what happened? That wasn't wrapped around yesterday," she deduces.
"Playing tag around the lighthouse with Chloe," I say as if there were nothing special about it.

"Chloe who? Price? Oh, didn't know you both were friends," she tilts her head smiling.
"You know her as well?"
"Of course, she attended a bunch of classes and got expelled a few months after, because she snooped around the principal's office," she briefly recalls the story.
"That suits her profile," I nod staring at the ground and fix my eyes on a tiny white lint.
"Huh, I feel funny. Got this strange rumble in my gut like something…"
"A déjà-vu?"
"Sorta. It's like you're not, where you should be."

Actually, I should be sitting in Eric's car and rush to Cedar Street as fast as we could; with Mark on our tail. Still, he seems to be the nice guy, but something is definitely off about his behavior let alone the stories about his wife and child.

"Deep in thoughts?" a change in tone.
"Absorbed," I say.
"Like what?"
"Everything. In this moment."
"Is it 'bout Nathan? I knew you'd broach his suicide," she looks out of her window.

I look up and around her room. Bland, somber and… devoid of love. What has happened to that infernal power up her butt? All life has gone in this place and only Kate appears to have been remaining the same. Yet still, something feels irritating.

"Hey, look here, 'quixotic', like, what the hell kind of literature are we supposed to read?" she reads a new word from our book depicted out of the syllabus.
"Looks like, we also gonna learn Spanish," I chuckle snapping the dictionary shut.
"Well, ain't my thing, either. There anything I'm good at?" she asks me sadly.
"You look good…" I put together.
"You mean…"
"And there is such a strong power inside you. Hard to come up with words for this," I keep trying.
"Thanks."

We are leaving her room. She wants to see her little friends at the yard. Outside there are many clouds and some drips of water have already sprinkled the bench. I love this type of weather. Not hot, somewhat cool and moist, fresh scent of cut grass with the trees bending to the winds. Couldn't be any better.

"Are you sure you don't wanna talk about Nath?"
"I just… What's there to talk about. He did what he did and sure as hell he had had a reason," I shrug my shoulders and bend down to meet Dana's fluffy friends.
"Waiting for a new boatload of crumps?" she smiles.

For almost an hour, we were sitting in the yard with a drizzle hanging above our heads. Her smooth long hair shines through the devoured overcast sunlight. Small dapples of water shine through some strands of hair. Slowly I'm shivering, because the longer we sit the colder borealis ruffle our hair. Even the squirrels take shelter from those cold winds combing through Arcadia Bay.

"Chloe's your friend, but you sure you really don't want to talk about your loss?" Dana's voice cracks.
"Loss? Huh, if I told you how much I've lost, you'd be surprised," I answer being sarcastic.
"And what if I tell you that I won't." she rotates her upper body until she faces me and grabs my cooled-down hands firmly.
"So, what do you think about the newcomer? The student from abroad?" I want her to be more precise.
"Arcadia Bays first European student. A loner and weirdo, just like us," she strokes my knuckles.
"He mentioned Se7en. A morbid picture about deadly sins," I explain to her.

Silence. Only the wind gives feedback about time. Leaves rustling, their trees bending - natures heartbeat within. Dana slowly starts shivering, too. "Go back in?" her jaw jitters as she asks. I grab her wrists gently and pull her up from the bench. "Gee, stronger than you look," she laughs briefly.

"I'm staying. You can go back to your room. I'll see Eric," I stop in front of the stairs.
"Who's Eric?" Dana immediately turns her head.
"The newcomer. I mean him…" I reply, but she has already disintegrated into a glistening cloud of evaporating particles. Presumably something significant has happened on the first Tuesday at this point in time.

I'm searching for his slate and… ah, found it. He erased his inscription and left nothing but a colorful smear on a white canvas next to his door. I knock three times and lean against his doorframe. The door opens swiftly.

"Kate?" without seeing me, he already utters her name while opening.
"Not quite," I walk past him and softly brush his shoulder as I'm going in.
"Hey, what do you want?" he shuts the door behind and sits down on his bed.
"Nice strings, where's your guitar," I point at my future substitute-strings.
"I uh…" slumped him with little to no effort.

He fumbles about with his hands and has noticeably no idea what to say. "You… I… you know what's wrong with Kate? She seems…," I miss his more profound knowledge of English.
"All good, I hope, I'm not disturbing you, Eric," whoa, now I've really turned his head upside down.
"How did you… that's my? How…" attempting to connect the dots, and there are way too many of them.

His phone rings once and a direct message flashes up on the screen:

"yeah, she could speak to you, no doubt.
- That means she comprehends all german's?
absolutely, steve. can i call you steve?
-Whatever you like.
we say: in whatever way you want :D"

And there's the most recent:

"i'm sorry, i shouldn't hvae been such an idiot."

"Are you afraid of me, because I mastered your language?"
"Uh…" he mutters. Is this stammering or just some strange noise coming out of his mouth?
"Y'know what? Let's listen to some music, okay?" easy enough for him to understand.

He stands up and boots up his laptop. Cleaned-up desktop with no icons, no wallpaper whatsoever. "Phew, that's dull," I lean forward looking over his shoulder. "Doll?" he asks turning his head, almost hitting my forehead by his quick turn. "Bleak… uh, boring."

langweilig

"Langweilig," I repeat my head's answer. Whoa, what the hell? It worked its way into this dimension? "Wow, not bad. I must learn a lot more," Eric nervously chuckles, but I'm almost deaf. How the fuck did she find her way inside my head two years in the past? "Max, are you okay?" Eric asks, before I lose conscience. Something moist under my nose tickles unto my upper lip and runs over both of them. The last thing I feel and hear is a thump on the ground with my right elbow. The rest is pitched black.

Metal. Definitely hard music reverberates in this void. I only hear but can't see. A soft fiber tickles my nose. It's pretty warm around me. The music isn't loud, but clear enough to make out. Did I pass out? What was my last memory? Something about loss. Dana and I sat in the yard. She wanted to ask me about Nathan. What is all this ruckus about him and me? I am surely starting to believe that he and I were friends before that incident. Might explain the mourning voice in my head.

"Are you okay?" Eric's voice resounds in front of me.
I manage to groan without opening my jaw for half an inch.
"Max. Are you awake? Your nose suddenly bleeded and I have no idea what to do."
Yes, I haven't bleeded out of my nose, since… I think, I remember the trail of blood inside the Prices' house.

Finally, my eyes open. I have some control of my eyelids and hands. It's bright in his room. He threw a blanket over me and a sheet of paper. "It was easy for me to just write it down," he says and hands me this piece of paper:

"Hi Max, you almost fell against me. I contacted Kate, but she hasn't answered. Nobody here sees me. You whispered 'Watch it burn' in your sleep and I played back the only song with this name. I looked after your nose. It should be all right."

He looked after my nose. Whew, at least he prepared a note in case he left the room and I woke up confused. Honestly, nothing appears as confusing ever since… I happened to this timeline. Everything has become a hell within itself. The Metal track has finished and a calm one plays.

"That's 'In Flames'. I only know one song by them. Now, I have all their albums and nothing so far has… eh… wait," he walks to his notebook and opens a web browser. I guess, he'll look up 'blown me away'.

"Ah, nothing so far has blown off me," he says and I can't help but laugh about it.
"All right, fair enough," my God, is this the way my laugh sounds like?
"This one seems good," he leans forward and reads its name.
"I like it, too," I calm down and drag the blanket a little farther away. It's getting warm here.
"'Chosen Pessimist'," he reads with a stressed inflection at the end.
"Is that a question?"
"No, I thought, you write it with two Os," he chuckles faintly.

"It's chosen and - just by the way - my nose bled," I teach him hoping he doesn't mind.
"Danke, Max, appreciated."
Well, well, Eric knows about appreciation. Damn, this song is intense shit.
"Habe deine Gitarre neu bespannt, als du geschlafen hast."

i've re-stringed your guitar while you've been asleep.

The note around my wrist: Keys in gutter of garage - Save Chloe with them.
It's crossed out…