"First, before I say anything else, you should know that if you take one step outside of the room you're all currently in, then you will fail the challenge and the consequences will be immediate"
Chloe grabbed the front of her shirt and pulled until the fabric slipped between her fingers. She pounded her chest and took a hold of her shirt's collar and dragged it down until a ripping sounded and her neck got burnt from the sudden friction with a shift. She kept asking herself what was left. Her courage had dissipated through her bloodstreams, her courage vanished when Max's sanity did, her restraint evaporated through the palm of her hand that was used for hurting her, and her love wandered away when it was met with a closed door. So now, what was left? Inside of her, she wondered… was fear really the only thing dragging her around?
"Alfred is okay. I will not hurt him as long as you follow the rules and do as I say. That goes for you, Max, and Ted as well"
Upon hearing his poised voice once more, the bottom of her stomach felt something. Something else than fear. There was still a covert anger inside of her that had been overshadowed by other matters but was now fueled by the desire of revenge.
That fucking psycho! Gramps has nothing to do with this! 'I will not hurt him, as long as you follow the rules'? You're not going to hurt him Ethan, but I'm not going to follow your fucking rules. All that stops now.
It swirled inside of her, rushing from the core of her chest and around her limbs, the two quiet people in the room, waiting for her to explain what was going on, for her to tell them what to do. But there was nothing they could do, they shouldn't be involved. Without a response, without a breath of creation, Chloe let the phone slip away from her ear and let her hands hang low.
I will not miss my chance this time. I was finally so close to feeling normal, and then that shit-eater ruins it all! He ruined Max!
It clicked and her eyes shot open. A running flame ran across her skin, the rusty shackles breaking as she took a pertinacious step towards the door, but as soon the chain around her ankles got loose, her whole body felt lighter and she forced herself into a running motion as she held out her shoulder in front of her and shot the door open with an intentional bang, wanting to let Ethan know he had two seconds to run away before she would knock him out, stomp on his face, kick him in the ribs and break every single one of his fingers in an unleash of absolute fury. As Chloe nearly jumped down the flight of stairs, Max exclaimed something, but it was too quiet and too unimportant for her to give it any attention. She felt her whole body suffusing adrenaline to her limbs as her hair flew back when she ran down the last step of stairs, feeling saliva in her mouth beginning to perfuse from the pure thirst of physically dealing with her problems for once. The first thing she saw was the shocked face of her grandfather, sitting on the couch with his hands sinking deep into the cushion, his pupils as tiny as the smallest liver spot on his gaunt cheek. The reason all too clear, the face of fear all too perspicuous when she saw the devil behind him, pressing a gun into the back of his head that he held in his dead hand, still with the phone in his other. He was staring at her, or rather, glancing at her as he immediately took his attention away from her, looked forward with this repulsive look in his atrocious eyes that disappeared behind his closing eyelids. He took a short breath.
"NO!" Chloe screamed, jumping forward with her heart thrusting inside of her heart and neither of her feet touching the ground as the trigger was pulled, the bullet making its way through her grandfather's skull as if it was butter, the massive shockwave, given the immensely close distance, created a circular hole rimmed with abraded skin, the bullet pushing tissue out of the way beyond their breaking points and lead to the tissue snapping back toward the opening and overshoot like a half peeled orange. A burst of tiny pieces of skull and lumps of flesh scattered, painted the couch red, painted Ethan's brown jacket red… sounds similar to dropping a tiny wet rag on the floor began passing through the room almost systematically, followed by a loud thud as the disfigured face of an old man collapsed onto the wooden floor, and then his lifeless body. Blood- way too much of it- began forming a red pool around his fractured head, the flesh in the wound was severely burned, but all Chloe could focus on was his eyes that popped slightly out of their sockets and his open mouth with his tongue drooping out.
In the course of one single second, a life had ended and in the passing of the next, a girl was emptied of everything, every emotion, only to be filled back up in an instant. She felt her heart burst into pieces, scattering around her body and beating like a hammer in every muscle. Never had she felt so heavy while still floating, turning and spinning in midair with a screaming piercing her ears. She could have sworn it was her own, she knew her mouth was closed shut, but still, when her hand reached for her face she felt her teeth banging against the palm of her hand and every single hair on her quivering body stood straight up as if electricity was shooting up and down her limbs. She felt all this, yet, felt nothing in that single passing second.
"I- I- I'm- no, I'm go-" The scream stopped, replaced with stuttering words through her inhaling breath, her vision blurry, darkened, murky, but so painfully clear when she looked at the man with the gun. The murderer with his right hand shaking, his eyes wide open and his expression stone-cold.
"I'M- I'M GONNA FUC- FUCKING KILL YOU!"
As Chloe took a swift step forward, her fists tightened, her whole body exuding with anger. A lump of saliva and slime her throat had unnoticeably coughed up was forced out of her mouth in her rapid movement and just as the sickly-colored slime hit the floor, a furious fist, tightened so hard that her knuckles cracked and her fingernails digging into her skin, was pulled back and all Ethan did was look at her with that same expression as the fist came flying toward him, a white flash exploding when, with all her force, Chloe punched the brute in his cheekbone and in that very moment, time sped up. Ethan violently fell to the ground with a grating cough as a chunk of a tooth flew out of his mouth. Chloe could instantly feel that the impact of the heedless punch had broken a bone or two in her hand, but it just filled her with more rage and more desire to get revenge. Seeing the devil lying before her, smeared in the blood of his sins, Chloe pulled her foot back, curled her toes inside of her shoes and kicked him wrathfully in the stomach, forcing him to cough up his own mortality.
Chloe's weeping yells filled the room as she repeatedly propelled her foot at every uncovered part of his depraved body, and he was forced to take it. To feel the pain.
But in the moment Chloe pulled her foot back once more, he turned his head and looked at her with a mysterious gaze in his bloodshot eyes.
"One flash before the line gets blurry" Two deadened voices in one.
"Alfred is okay. I will not hurt him as long as you follow the rules and do as I say. That goes for you, Max, and Ted as well"
Upon hearing his poised voice once more, the bottom of her stomach felt something. Something else than fear. There was still a covert anger inside of her that had been overshadowed by other matters but was now fueled by the desire of revenge.
That fucking psycho! Gramps has nothing to do with this! 'I will not hurt him, as long as you follow the rules'? You're not going to hurt him Ethan, but I'm not going to follow your fucking rules. All that stops now.
"Don't" A sudden gasp came from behind her.
"Don't leave the room" Chloe turned around to see Max with her trembling hand in the air and a detached expression upon her whitened face. The midday light highlighted it so clearly and helped carry along her hoarse voice, showing her in the state she despised the most.
"Don't reverse time without me telling you" Chloe's tones so flat, but so descriptively authorized. She looked down at Max, sitting uneasily on the bed as if she was cramped between invisible walls and felt her distance from personal emotions, then glanced at Ted, standing as if he was chained to the table behind him with a completely nonplussed expression.
"But if you go down there-" Max tried to explain with her arched eyebrows and pouty lips shaped on her open mouth to add to shock-value, but Chloe cut her off with a snarl.
"I don't care! Let me make my own fucking choices for once! Ethan is downstairs with MY granddad, so it's MY fucking– …look, just stay out of it and don't reverse time! If it all goes to hell, it would be my fault for once, the fucking spotlight of blame would be upon me and that's what I want!" In between the short pauses that strangled the air, Chloe deliberately gritted her teeth together with reckless force.
"So listen to my words, read my lips…" Her eyelids opened up, revealing her eyes that had this frantic stare to them as she leaned her head forward and from all the way down her hip, pointed to her lips with an extended finger.
"If something goes wrong, don't blame yourself for not reversing time, because I have and will make this very clear…" Her face gradually became redder, her chest lifting with each breath of tension filled air.
"I am ordering you to not reverse time and let me take the consequences of my own goddamn actions!" The words that had been stored away for months in the bottom of her stomach were encrusted in suppressed anger and regret, and Max was quick to not let Chloe get lost in something higher than herself and the situation.
"This is not about you! It's about-" Her words washed away her expression and she felt the sting when she was cut off once more, but this time without words, without a voice, only an imperious gesture from Chloe. She flipped her hand in front of her as if she hoping some wall would magically ascend between them. They both held their breaths for only a second as Chloe gave a far-reaching glare before turning around, twisting her neck and bit her lip to dig herself deeper into the anger as she shifted on her feet, made a silent growl and rushed out of the door.
Max could only curse her stupidity as she heard her swift steps down the stairs, down to the cause of pain and fault.
"You moron! Alfred is gonna die!" Max exclaimed with rage at the open door with a desire to run down with her and hit her in the back of her head, but knew she was too numb, knew it was no use.
"Have you both lost your minds or am I missing something here?!" Ted suddenly spoke up, frantically taking two steps forward with his eyes looking at the corners of the walls.
"You wanna know what's going on?!" Dropping her limp hands onto the surface of the bed, Max bawled frenetically.
"Chloe is a fucking burden and I have to keep saving her while being forced to listen to her bitch about how everything is my fault! And because of this, Ethan will shoot who I assume is Alfred based on Chloe's screams that you'll hear now" Just as she let out these annoyed words, a scratchy scream, loud as all hell came from downstairs just after the sound of a gunshot.
Ted just managed to form a shocked expression on his pale face, before Max sighed aggrievedly.
"And I can reverse time" Raising her hand in the air, her bottom lip trembled and she took a few short breaths to the sounds of yelling and kicking. A sharp pain rushed through her head when she closed her eyes and she felt her body draining itself of energy that shouldn't even exist. Her thoughts wandered away into the shadows of her mind and could feel herself slowly falling.
Her eyes opened automatically, but her vision disconcertedly unclear, her mind unable to process the images before her and it brought a nauseating feeling to her guts.
"Stay" The single word was all her being could muster out with the second reversal having taken an excessive toll on her and she could only guess how Chloe would react the exact same way as last time. However, there was a second of hesitation when she saw Max's blue lips and the blood running down her nose as if she for one fleeting second actually had her feet on the ground.
"Max, don't reverse time" but how unaware she became once more, how damaged her mind had grown in the miserable travel.
"I don't know how many times you've done it, but I can see it's been more than once, so I know that I'm about to fuck something up, but-" Max prepared herself for her friend's refusal and blind denial of the world.
"I no longer want your powers to be a part of my life. I don't want you to change fate anymore, at least not when it involves me! So let me fuck up my life alone!" A gathering of old emotions wrapped in the perturbation of the present and it tore a hole in Max when it lead her friend to turn around for the third time, about to ignore the very utterance that could save them from the dark depths of another ended life, and Max had no energy to reverse time once more.
She had to act now.
"Ted!" Max forced out her voice with a shriek, catching the boy's attention who was now standing in the corner again, having simply observed the belligerent words of rancor, unaware he had done it in three different timelines. Although he seemed as confused as ever, he shot his eyes open and looked over at Max.
"Stop Chloe from getting out of this room! I'm fucking serious!" Not having the energy nor the time to explain any further, she used the blood running down her nose to her advantage to portray the severe request and possibly frightening him into obeying.
Although he clearly hesitated, the blue eyes surrounded by red got through to him and prompted him to turn his attention at Chloe who took her first running step towards the door. "Fuck" He uttered in a complete state of confusion and shock, but followed instructions and rapidly leaped from his position and wrapped his arm around Chloe's collar as she instantly tried to force her way out of his grab. "Get off asshole!" Chloe demanded while trying to elbow Ted around his stomach, but whether it was because Ted had been in several fights before or if it was because Chloe was dead-tired, Ted managed to flip his left foot behind Chloe and with a sweeping motion, forced Chloe off of her feet, making her fall backward and sent the phone in her hand flying. Ted was quick to put his hand in the back of her head just before Chloe landed heavily onto the floor on her back, and immediately placed his two hands on Chloe's wrists and sat on top of her to keep her restrained. Although his eyes still portrayed his shock, his body had switched into some sort of fighting mode, knowing exactly how to restrain Chloe without hurting her. "Calm down!" The air he used to shout, shot away some of his hair that had fallen down his face in the turmoil.
"FUCK OFF!" Chloe demanded while struggling against Ted's lash, but only being able to flail her head around in anger.
"AAAHH!" In complete hysteria, Chloe followed her yell by trying to spit on Ted on top of her, but only hitting his sleeve. It was clear Ted tried to say something, either apologize or ask one of the many questions on his tongue, but he was too occupied with restraining Chloe.
A final flail pushed Chloe's head in a position where she stared wildly at Max upside down with her chill breaths becoming deep and fierce only to shoot out with frustration.
"You feel nothing!" The pass of a yell smeared in desperation of letting go and break the fissured glass.
"You don't have the sanity- you don't have the fucking right to make decisions right now!" The struggling against the boy on top of her had stopped, but the struggle of digging so deep down a hole that had always been empty, continued. A passed emotion kept her voice intact for these spontaneous yells.
"Your emotions have been stripped from you! You've been worn down into an inconsolable piece of forgotten hope and just because you're pushing away everything that could pull you up from the hole you call your fucking life, doesn't mean that I have to!" The nails on her strained hands were scratching the carpet floor her flexed body were lying on as her eyes engulfed themselves in indignation but the unseen parts of her wavering face wept in desolation.
"And you know why- why you're pushing people away- why you are willing to make me feel like shit to keep yourself down in your depressed piece of shit-pit?" Left by all beauty and innocence, Chloe talked through glass and craved the freedom of choice attained by cutting her wings and draw a line across the grace.
"Because you like it… you like not having anything to fight for. You fucking love not having to be brave anymore, so you've found comfort in your suffering, but I am not done yet! I still need to fight for my life- the life I know I want! SO LET ME GO AND LET ME DO WHAT I WANT FOR ONCE!" Her scruffy black nails began scratching the carpet floor once more, the bones in her wrists twisting and turning.
The words 'for once' kept bouncing around the room, repeatedly echoing inside of Max's clustered head and were it not for the calamitous circumstances and Chloe's wrath-filled expression, Max would have burst out laughing at the irony of her mendacious words. But the fact that Chloe couldn't see the laughable comedy in her own statements, sparked something else entirely. A tiresome feeling of being affected by empty words, making every complex situation seem so damn simple and by result, making Max seem absolutely incompetent.
"Then tell me what I am supposed to feel! I've been through the fucking spectrum of emotions and it seems that it's only absolute misery that seems to stick, so yeah, I'm trying to find comfort in that! I've been trying Chloe, trying hard, but I keep slipping on the past"
"I'm sick! I'm corrupt! I'm destructive! I am just the worst fucking person in the world!" The eerie contrast between her raised voice, her striking words, and her utterly still posture brought an unprepared sense of urgency to Chloe.
"I want to make things right, I really do, but it's like I am fucking destined to be the scapegoat!" The only thing changed in her expression, the only thing that hinted towards the pain was the redness at the bottom of her eyes.
"So tell me! Do you want me to give you my blessings to go downstairs and screw everything up, do you want me to leave you alone so you can watch you grandfather die? What do you want from me!?"
Finally, the crack in her skin of stone appeared and it was an unforeseen power of vehemence that forced her to shoot her chest out with a poisonous glare.
Chloe's breath sped up rapidly, then held down for a single moment that felt like a fracture in time.
"I want you to love me!" All the attention had been averted and in the breaking outburst, Chloe freed the lock on her right wrist and before Ted could react, he was pushed to the side and fell hard onto the floor with a grunt.
"Why do you think you're so miserable!? Why do you think I can't fall asleep at night without something to constantly distract me?!" Amidst her dreary words, Chloe pulled herself off from the floor slowly with her face looking down, her bangs covering her eyes.
"It's not fucking fear!" She panted in every hearth-throbbing pause with her arms limping down. Ted had shuffled a little away, holding a hand to the back of his head in pain, looking unsure of his next course of action, leading him to just await instructions from Max, who were currently occupied by her friend slowly approaching her.
"Anxiety is just a by-product- just a fucking drop in the ocean that forces my breath shut and my screams mute!" When she finally lifted her chin, the dim light revealed her pale face and dry lips, the struggle having taken every resource it could find in her body.
"And it's so dark, Max. So endlessly dark, but do you know- know what that little light that reaches out is? It's the fucking reason that we're here!" Amidst her imparting sentence, she took two loud steps closer to Max, instinctively making her pull her body back but she was grabbed hard on the shoulder and pulled even closer, the blue-haired girl wanting to make sure she listened closely.
"We're up to our necks in blood and the only thing we have to show for it- the tiny little string that keeps me from jumping out from a roof and laugh on the way down-" She must've blinked in the brief second that it happened as Max suddenly felt the touch of Chloe's cold palm on her other hand against her cheek, sliding up her face, through her uncombed brown hair, ripping apart the tiny knots in-between her fingers. She had felt her hand on her face several times before, but never had it felt so hostile, so thirsty for attention on its glacial skin. It continued up her forehead and only stopped when every stray of hair had been completely removed from Max's face, revealing her drawn face, her eyes that were shaking with some underlying fear of being cut to pieces from the inside by her razor-sharp voice, and she could scarcely sit still, only breathe through her nose and keep her eyes open when Chloe's dry lips departed.
"Is us. We are the outcome of the fucked-up sacrifice, and I cannot stand the idea of us not being together!" The slight squeeze on her shoulder that she used to love getting by Chloe had turned into a painful clutch, and Ted that had gotten up from the ground could tell all too well that something was about to give and for all her knew, the understandable impression he had gotten, was that Chloe- both of them actually- had lost their minds.
"Not because you're oh so fucking sweet and loveable, but because, if we're not together, those people, Kate, Warren, my mom and dad, what would they have died for? Absolutely nothing!" In the thick of Chloe's harsh words, Ted swiftly turned on his feet and began walking over to them to pull Chloe away in fear of her hurting Max, but as soon she noticed him lifting his arms, Max gave him a quick look from the corner of her eyes and signaled for him to stay put which he hesitantly obeyed.
"So here's the punchline, Max" Chloe continued with a somber expression.
"You literally have a hold on my heart that I cannot break, even if I wanted to" Her eyes moved from side to side, scanning her face intensely.
"…And I've wanted to" The grip on her shoulder got looser, the hand on her forehead was slowly lifted, making Max's bangs fall into place, covering parts of her attentive eyes.
"So the least you can do, no- the only thing you SHOULD do," Suddenly, Chloe bend down and moved her face so close to Max's she nearly head-butted her but instead settled her forehead against hers and for the single second she stayed, a cold breath spread across Max's face, yearning for both solicitude and compassion.
"Is to love me back!" But when the paused ended and the reaction had failed to play, Chloe raised her voice and stared so deeply into Max's eyes as if she was searching her very soul for intimations, and with her face so close, all Max could see was the tiny details of her face that helped shape her expression so clearly and so inimically.
"You made that choice up on the hill. You made me fall in love with you in some fucked up way" Once more, Chloe's hands began moving around, but this time it was gentle, careful and protective. She was cupping her face, stroking both cheeks with her thumbs as her head slowly tilted down, her lips inching closer.
"The hardest shit we've been through was all to preserve what could be, what became, and what needs to stay" Max saw the future in her bloodshot eyes, the hope that was mentally building inside of her. And it waited.
"So tell me, Max. Look at nothing but me, think of nothing but me, and then tell me…" It waited for what seemed like hours.
"Do you love me?" Days. Weeks. Months. The hope waited patiently; waiting to trust, waiting to breathe, just waiting to smile one more time.
And how that hope wept when the binding answer came to be…
"…No"
Time had seemed to pass by so quickly, the lavish memories were just yesterday's trials, the marks of each other's touches still present, but this moment, this quiet- hauntingly silent moment, lasted for an eternity; because, even though Chloe removed her hands from Max's face, even though her eyes closed shut and forced out a tear, even though she got up and turned around, away from the fade, even though Chloe did all that and continued to walk tall, that moment, that answer… she felt the room it had made inside of her brain, the part of her brain that was so wonderfully cozy and free from the storms and the noise that it would never leave.
Amidst all the confusion and all the unanswered questions, there was one thing Ted could understand, one thing he knew for certain as he watched the blue-haired girl pick up the phone from the ground with subtle changes in her expression, but without a blink of her glassy eyes; he knew that this girl had just gotten her heart broken.
All he could do, all Max could do, was to watch her lift the phone up to her ear, take a short pause and then speak.
"What do you want us to do?"
The single thought that passed Max with an unbridled nagging, was a question to herself. So much sorrow and so much grief, so much shattered hope and so much ache, it was all, in this very moment, an overwhelming sensation of desolation, and so she questioned herself; why couldn't she cry?