Life is Strange

Gone and Forgotten

Chapter 1

The sunlight streamed through the window, blinding the girl as soon as she sat up. She brushed strands of blue hair out of her eyes, rubbing them furiously as she tried to take in everything. Something was different and she couldn't put her finger on it. It wasn't the absence of Max next to her. Neither girl was a morning person but she was always the first up when Joyce's cooking was on offer. She, on the other hand, was much more immune to it. When you lived full-time with someone who worked in a diner, diner-type food had a tendency to go stale while it was still in your mouth. But that didn't change the fact that something was different. It wasn't that something was wrong, but there was definitely a change of some kind that she couldn't put her finger on. An emptiness.

'That's probably my stomach.' The thought brought a smile to her lips. Needing no further encouragement, she threw the covers off herself before grabbing her outfit for the day- a pair of black jeans with some ripped patches in them and her sleeveless loose-fitting Illuminati shirt- and heading downstairs. Joyce was there cooking breakfast- predictably. She manned the oven as she pulled out something Chloe hadn't seen before. Whatever it was though, it smelled like heaven.

"You're up early!" She didn't even bother to hide her look of shock as Chloe made her way downstairs properly and headed over to the table as Joyce followed with the metal plate in her hand and Chloe's breakfast on it. "I just put yours in the oven to keep hot. I didn't figure you'd be up this early. What's the occasion?"

"Well, I figured she-" Chloe started to reply as Joyce slid the omelette onto the plate at Chloe's place. That was when she noticed Max wasn't there. She was the only person at the table. She looked up to see Joyce looking at her with an expression of wary confusion. It unnerved her slightly. The whole situation felt very out of place. It wasn't something she liked. "Huh. Guess I was wrong. Does it matter anyway?"

"No, it's a nice surprise." The wariness hadn't quite faded from Joyce's tone. Chloe put it out of her mind and started to eat.

"So what's this omelette?" she asked as she broke off a forkful.

"It's something new I'm trying out." Joyce told her. "It's basically a full meal's worth of food in an omelette so it's just as filling but you get every flavour at once. There's sausage, bacon, tomatoes..." Joyce kept on rattling off ingredients, but Max's absence still bothered Chloe.

'It's okay.' She took a breath to steady her thoughts as she ate. 'Max is probably just in the bathroom. You must have walked right past her an not even noticed!' But something else was catching her attention, too. Everything felt off, somehow. Nothing was feeling right to the touch. The omelette tasted slightly fake and synthetic. Even the world around her seemed slightly glossed over and out of focus. The whole thing made her feel slightly claustrophobic. She finished up as fast as she could before taking her plate to the sink. She needed to grab Max and go for a drive to clear her head.

"Thanks, Mom. That was great." It was a lie that left a bitter taste in her mouth, but at least it was a taste other than plastic. At that moment, a noise on the stairs made her look up. For a brief second she thought it was Max until she realised the footfall was way too heavy and militaristic. Sure enough, David was leaning on the banister and looking over at the pair of them with a vague expression of amused surprise.

"Well, this is a shock. Has my watch stopped or is Chloe out of her room before noon?"

"Oh, ha ha." Chloe rolled her eyes as she flipped him off. They'd actually largely made their peace ever since Jefferson had been busted in a major scandal at Blackwell. David had been the arresting officer and Max had texted him to warn him. Nathan had also been busted in it too. But despite them being on better terms, her insults to him persisted. They were never usually serious and so he tolerated them, but it was just too much fun to stop.

"Oh by the way, Joyce: I just noticed we're running low on toothpaste. Want me to pick more up in town today?" The innocent sentence was enough to make Chloe feel like a torrent of cold water had cascaded down her back. The glossiness seemed to intensify on everything as it crept in further. There was only one place in the house they kept toothpaste. The only way David could have known that was if...

"You were just in the bathroom?" she asked.

"Is that a problem?" Confusion was plain in David's voice. Chloe waved it off, quickly.

"No, you've been coming and going as you pleased since you started dating Mom. I just thought Max would be in there since she didn't beat me to the table like she usually did." There it was. The sense of wariness that Chloe so dreaded was now radiating from both of them. It was so powerful it was almost suffocating.

"Chloe, have you been bringing girls home again?" David asked teasingly.

"Uh, yeah!" Chloe shouted, throwing her arms wide. At that, the sense of unease seemed to subside from the pair of them as they visibly relaxed a great deal.

"Oh Chloe, I was worried you'd been doing something illegal again!" Joyce sighed, throwing her arms around her daughter. "But seriously though, I do wish you'd stop bringing random girls home. At least let us meet them first!" Chloe stopped cold. How could Joyce be saying that?

"Mom... What are you saying?" Chloe practically spat. "I've known her literally forever! You and her mom practically went through your pregnancies together! She was with me on the day Dad died! She was the one standing in the hallway looking totally unsure what to do as I collapsed into a sobbing heap!" At that, Joyce drew back quickly. A stern expression was fixed on her face as Chloe saw all of her inner defences slam into place.

"Chloe, we agreed never to talk about that awful day unless we absolutely had to." Her glare was a strong indicator that Chloe should probably shut up at this point. But that was easy since her next words were enough to render her speechless. "Besides, you were alone that day, sweetie. There was no Max there."

"What...?" Chloe struggled for words as her mind raced frantically. It seemed to be misfiring every other second and it wasn't making the whole issue of thinking any more solvable. "That can't be right! Dad took a million pictures of us with his instant camera! Remember? There was that one of the two of us dressed up as cookies and hugging because we were just about to go trick-or-treating at Halloween?"

"No, you were alone and scowling because no one else would be a cookie with you." Joyce lectured her. "They left you to twist in the wind." Chloe recoiled as though she'd been slapped. That wasn't right! There was no way that could be right! Old memories weren't working so she whirled to face David, deciding to go for something much more recent.

"David, Max was the one who texted you to warn you about Jefferson when you busted him last year! You were openly hailing her the hero of Blackwell just last night! You both wished us good night as we went up to bed!" And what a night it had been. Chloe's skin still subtly tingled from the memory, but she chose not to focus on it for the moment. This was what she would qualify as an emergency.

"First I've heard of it." David shrugged. "Chloe, I put the clues together myself. I busted Jefferson and Nathan before handing them off to the police. I know you're hurting from losing Rachel and all that, but this Max girl didn't have anything to do with it."

"Bullshit." Chloe growled as she pulled out her phone. The one number she would never erase would yield all the answers she needed. She'd ring Max, find out where she was, drag her back stand her in front of Joyce and David. They'd have to remember then. But as she scrolled through the 'M' section on her contacts list, her heart began to thud harder and harder in her chest. She wasn't there. Max's name had totally disappeared. Desperately, she came out of it and started flicking through her photo gallery. She'd taken quite a few phone camera photos of Max over the last few days. There had to be something!

One look sent Chloe's hopes crashing. The photos were still there, but Max wasn't. The photos now just showed the places she'd been. They were totally devoid of human presence. It was as if she'd never existed at all. But that left a much more troubling thought in Chloe's head. How had she been erased? And how the hell was she going to go about getting her back?