Chapter 03: Faux Deja Vu
My head hurt. Each heartbeat sent a spike of pain through my brain. All around me, I heard murmurs. Despite the pain, I tried to pry my eyes open. At first, I thought I couldn't open them, but then I realized that there simply wasn't any light. Or, at least not much of it. I tried to speak, but I couldn't muster so much as a croak through my parched throat.
"Max? Max!"
The familiar voice prompted me to turn my head. There, in the darkness, I could just make out the shape of Victoria's features. I tried to sit up, and just like that, I felt her arm behind my shoulders as she helped me up.
"Kate! Give me a hand."
I wasn't sure who did what, but I managed to get down a few gulps of water from a bottle offered to me. As parched as I was, I couldn't get down half of it before I started coughing. Each one made my head feel as though it were exploding. I surrendered, and Victoria seemed to sense my intentions as she helped me back down. "Where… What?" I croaked.
"We're in the basement of the dorm building," Kate said, her hand squeezing mine.
"The storm trapped us here," Victoria added. "The building above us collapsed."
Storm?
It came flooding back to me. Chloe died. Murdered by Jefferson. But not all was lost. There existed a Polaroid that could still fix everything. I just had to find it. I searched Warren's room over and over and over again, using rewinds to keep the storm at bay, but it wasn't there. Warren must've had it on him, wherever he was.
"W-Warren… Where's Warren?" I choked out, my voice scraping through my parched throat.
"Brooke said he went to the Two Whales for lunch," Kate said. "No one has heard anything from the outside, though."
The image of the storm from my visions haunted my mind. The driving wind and hail drowning out the voices around me as the whirlwind began to devour the waterfront. Houses and shops alike, lifted from their foundations to shatter into dust by the unstoppable storm. The storm I caused. Summoned by the abuse of my powers.
The vision ended, leaving me gasping for air. It vaguely registered somewhere in my mind that my name existed on the breath of repeated shouts. That didn't matter. Warren mattered. Or rather, his picture did. He perished in the storm, but no pain remained in my heart to mourn that. It didn't matter if he lived or died. Only if the picture could be found. That was the only thing that mattered.
The only thing that could undo Chloe's death.
A strange wave of disorientation washed over me along with a tingling sensation I couldn't quite place. Everything felt distant. Then, nothing.
"Max?" Victoria shook the motionless girl. "Max!" In the dim light, I could just make out the shine of Victoria's eyes as she looked up to me. "What's wrong with her?"
Max twitched. An arm, then a leg. Soon, her whole writhed atop the stacked boxes that made her makeshift bed. Instinctively, I stepped around, moving my hands to gently probe behind her head. The surface there below her head, while firm, wasn't too hard. Still, I kept my hands at the sides of her head to try to keep her from hitting her head.
"She's having a seizure," I said, keeping my voice steady, even as panic rose in my chest. We couldn't do anything for her, trapped here in the basement.
"A seizure? What do we do?" Victoria asked, her hands hovering around Max's shuddering body, both eager to help and fearful of what harm they may do.
I shook my head. "Lynn used to have them when she was younger. We just… try to keep her from hitting her head and pray that it ends soon."
"A seizure? What do we do?"
A wave of deja vu washed over me, so intense that I could swear this just happened. "I… Um… We just wait and hope it ends soon."
"And if it doesn't?" Victoria pressed.
I kept my fingers at the base of her head, letting my hands cushion her head each time her body convulsed. Though I tried my very hardest to keep myself calm, memories of the time we had to call for an ambulance for Lynn crashed through my mind. I could still hear the sirens.
I blinked, the sudden light hurting my eyes. The sirens weren't just in my head. I heard them. Looking down, I found my hands devoid of my rings and much smaller than I remembered. "What…?"
"Kate! Step back so they can get through!"
My mother's shout made me move, even as my mind scrambled to catch up. It was a memory. Max needed me, and my mind got stuck on Lynn when the paramedics came because she wouldn't stop seizing. I hugged myself as the scene played out, just as I remembered. Pop held Lynn in his big, strong arms while mother rushed to the door to let the paramedics in. They rolled in a gurney, snatching up Lynn and attaching her before they started preparing needles and things. In a rush that felt like just a few seconds, Lynn was out the door.
Just like I remembered, Pop came over and kissed the top of my head. "We're going with the paramedics to make sure Lynn gets better. Lord willing, everything will be okay. You just watch your little sister and we'll call as soon as we know anything. Okay?"
I nodded, not fully understanding why I was still trapped in my memory. "Sh-she will be. The seizure will stop before you even get to the hospital," I said, remembering how angry Mother was at the whole situation afterward.
"I really hope so. But we need to be there with her, so you're in charge. Call Mrs. Stinson if you need anything," he said before ruffling my hair. "I'm counting on you."
Wait.
That wasn't what he said last time. I mean, I remember him telling me to call our neighbor if something came up, but I definitely had a fight with my sister after they left. Because Pop said to watch her, not that I was in charge. What was going…
Everything started to go white.
The next thing I knew, I stood in the basement, again with my hands on the back of Max's head.
"Kate!"
I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I looked up to see Victoria's face right in front of me in the near-blackness. "Wha… I-sorry! I think I just spaced out for a minute," I apologized as I turned my attention back to Max.
"Shit. Don't scare me like that," Victoria said, her worry leaving her with a sigh as her hand slipped free.
Just as soon as her hand left, it grabbed me again. "Shit. Don't scare me like that." That same sigh and I felt dread in my heart as her hand left my shoulder again. Could I be having a seizure, too?
The shaking and shuddering ebbed away quickly, and I felt all my muscles relax as I realized that Max's seizure found its end. "Thank goodness." I heard a bevvy of questions asking about Max and realized only then that we had drawn a crowd. "I think… Her seizure is over. She should be okay, now."
All around us, muted cheers and sighs of relief sounded in the darkness. I felt a new hand on my shoulder, as a soft voice echoed in my ear, "You did good, Kate."
A warmth spread through my chest at the rare praise from my mother. She tried to coax me back to the little spot we'd set for ourselves in the black, but I insisted on going back over to Victoria. I couldn't get the weird deja vu out of my head. I just needed to know that I wasn't going stir crazy trapped in this basement.