This is impossible...but it's happening.

Max Caulfield is laying on the ground next to my desk.

Max Caulfield is standing across the room.

Max Caulfield looks like she's struggling to catch her breath.

Max Caulfield just stepped out of a shadow too small to have possibly hidden her.

Max Caulfield is frozen, as still as a statue.

Max Caulfield is strolling across the room, a smile on her face. Coming up to the bullet that hovers between myself and that friend of hers (Claire? Kelly?), she leans forward to peer at it curiously.

My face throbs painfully and I'm unable to draw any breath through my nose, but I manage to ask, "What is this?"

Ignoring me, she reaches up to casually pluck the bullet out of the air, slipping it into her pocket.

"Answer me!" The nasal pitch of my own voice just makes me angrier.

"Why?"

The question brings me up short; as does the mildly amused tone she asks it in. Why would she feel compelled to answer me? It's not as though she'd consider me an authority figure anymore, and I imagine that my attempts to kill her and her friends have effectively wiped-out whatever esteem she'd held me in.

I'm embarrassed to admit that it takes me a second to remember the gun in my hand. Bringing it up, I glare at her over the sights. "Because you're useless to me if you don't."

"Ooh. Scary."

"I don't know what this is, but I'll kill you if you come one step closer."

"Uh-huh." She starts to wander around the room, pausing to casually inspect a lens set that's worth more than her education.

"You think I wouldn't?"

"I think you'd try." She picks up the Hasselblad from the couch, curiously turning it over in her hands. "I know you'd fail."

"Put that down."

"Sure." She carelessly tosses it over her shoulder. I watch in stunned disbelief as it sails gracefully through the air, my stomach lurching when it strikes the floor and the lens audibly shatters.

"Don't worry. I saved this." I look up to see her holding the camera's memory card. When did she have time to remove that? She barely held the camera for a second. Then, grinning widely, she snaps it in half. A wave of blistering rage rushes through me. Not for the camera's sake - as expensive as it was, it's ultimately replaceable - but the memory card. Every single photo I've captured tonight...

"Oops."

"You...you..." A red haze coats my vision. Hundreds of unique, breathtaking moments, lost forever. "You fucking bitch!"

She doesn't even move when I raise the gun again. I squeeze the trigger...and nothing happens. I try again, and again, but it refuses to budge. The slide is the same. It's like the entire gun has been fused into a solid object.

"Tried," she notes. "And failed."

"How..." I turn the gun over on my hands, confusion briefly overpowering my anger. Even the pain of my undoubtedly broken nose seems to fade. Nothing appears to be wrong with it. All the pieces look like they should move normally. "Did...did you do this?"

"That's a stupid question," she laughs. "I mean, it sure as fuck wasn't you."

"How?"

She rolls her eyes, tossing the remains of the memory card to the side. "Don't waste my time asking stupid questions about things you couldn't possibly comprehend."

Dropping the useless weapon, I surge forward to deliver another punch, aiming to destroy the smirk she has the nerve to point at me. I put her on the ground before, and this time I'm going to make sure she stays there. I wind up, swing...and it's like hitting a brick wall. A blinding flash of pain rockets up my arm as at least one of the bones in my hand splinters.

She doesn't move so much as an inch.

"Feel better?" She asks, unimpressed, ambling past me and over to my desk.

I clutch my injured hand to my chest, retreating a few steps. "How did y-"

"What did I just say about stupid questions?" She interrupts, and for some reason I just let her.

This...this isn't Max Caulfield. It looks like Max, but it isn't. The girl I've coveted since the first moment she walked into my classroom is gentle and timid, like a fawn emerging from the forest into a frightening world. But this girl...there's something wrong about her. The way she moves unsettles in a way Max never could, like everything soft about her has been ground down to razor sharp edges.

"What do you want from me?" I don't want to ask, but something deep inside me desperately wants to appease her. Hopes that I can somehow convince her to leave me alone.

She doesn't look back, staring at the frozen form of what I believe is the real Max Caulfield. "You don't have anything I want."

"Then wh-"

"I don't want to be here," she says, cutting me off. "But she just won't stop. She won't ever stop, and I can't force her to. Max has to choose to move on."

I've got no idea what she's talking about. For some reason, I'm not sure I want to.

"And it's not as though I didn't try to get her to," she continues. "I tried to reason with her. I tried threatening her. I screwed with her senses, her memories, and even her sense of self - no idea how she pulled herself out of that one. I left her to do her 3-month-jumps idea, hoping she'd get exhausted or scared or run out of food and give up along the way. I tried bribing her with a life of wealth and contentment. I even lowered myself to begging her."

Why am I listening to this nonsense? Why don't I just make her stop talking?

"But despite my best fucking efforts, she'll never give up. She'll never stop chasing her happy ending, and it always ends in disaster. Countless broken, aborted timelines layered on top of one another until the whole fucking thing collapses and the clock has to be rolled back. Then it just starts again." She laughs humorlessly, gesturing to the real Max. "There's a word for that, you know. For a problem that causes itself."

I should try to do something. I could pick up the nearby tripod and bludgeon her or I could try to make an escape. But something keeps me rooted on the spot. A kind of perverse desire to understand what this is. I look down at the spare DSLR on the table beside me, briefly wondering what she'd do if I tried to capture her image, then look back up to find her glaring at me.

"Am I boring you?"

"N-no?"

"I've seen how this all plays out, Mark. The same processes applied successively under the same rules. The same repeating events nested within the same repeating events echoing again and again and again like a fucking song stuck in my head and always ending the same fucking way! Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to try and stop a living, breathing recursive event?!" Her rage feels like a physical shove but vanishes as quickly as it appeared. "Tell me something, Mark. Do you know what happens at 8:01 am on October 9th, 2015?"

Bizarre as the question is, she actually seems to expect an answer. "No?"

"Of course you don't." She nods. "The problem is that I don't either. No one does. No one can. There's never been an 8:01 am on October 9th, 2015, because the minute before that is when Max Caulfield decided she knew what was best for the universe. That's how this whole thing starts, again and again, no matter what I do to prevent it."

Enough of this. My interest is giving way to self-preservation. Whatever the hell this is, I don't want any part of it. The instant she's not looking I make a break for the exit. The door is shut and I'm certain I get it open before she catches up, but when I try the mechanism won't budge. Like my gun, it looks normal but might as well be a single piece of solid steel.

"It's rude to leave without saying goodbye, you know." I turn to find her leaning against the wall, an unamused look on her face.

"I don't care who you are or what you have to say," I growl. "Let me out."

She doesn't respond, staring back at me silently.

"Let me out of here right now!"

Still nothing. For a second I'm tempted to attack her again out of sheer frustration, but a fresh wave of pain from my wounded hand convinces me otherwise.

"I actually tried helping her this time," she finally says, turning to walk away. "Fuck knows I'd tried everything else, and I figured that whatever damage it caused had to be better than this."

As badly as I want to get out, it's clear that I can't. So, like before, a twisted kind of curiosity urges me to follow her back into the bunker's main room. "What are yo-"

"And you know what really pisses me off?" she asks, interrupting me again. "It almost worked. After everything, she actually almost had it."

Why am I allowing her to talk over me like this? Even if I can't hurt her, there's no reason for me to be so fucking submissive. "I don't ca-"

"She was right fucking there, just inches away from having everything she needed to move on. This endless fucking cycle could've finally come to an end." She spins around and glares at me so hatefully that I feel my stomach lurch. For a moment, I'm afraid I might throw up. "And then you had to go and kill Victoria."

Confused, I glance at Chase. Though she's as still as a statue, she's clearly alive. "But she's...she's not dead."

"No, you definitely killed her. Over and over and over." She kneels down next to Victoria, reaching out to softly brush a hand over the motionless girl's hair. "You didn't kill her, though. She's a fighter. But then, you already know that don't you?"

I feel my face throb again, as if it's trying to remind me, but I refuse to flinch. "You're not making any sense."

"Sure I am." She shrugs. "But while the rest of the storm's survivors could be compensated for, this was different. This was a death Max both directly caused and directly prevented. Her very own pocket paradox, and that made things more complicated. It's just lucky that there was an alternative, or we'd have really been in trouble."

We stare at one another silently for a long moment, until I feel compelled to ask, "Alternative to w-"

"To Victoria not dying." She cocks her head to one side. "You remember Victoria, right? The girl you killed?"

She keeps interrupting me! Why do I keep letting her interrupt me?!

"But she's..." I hesitate, struck by the galling sense that some critical detail is being intentionally withheld from me. "She's not dead."

"No shit," she mutters, rolling her eyes.

This is absurd. "Then what in the hell are you talking about?!"

"It's really not that complicated, but fine; I'll explain it to you." She gives me an infuriatingly condescending smile. "Victoria died, because you killed her, which prompted Max to start screwing around with other people's fate, as fucking usual. But that meant you didn't kill someone you killed, which – believe me – leads to all kinds of nasty shit. You with me so far?"

"I..."

"Anyway, it turns out that there was an alternative to be taken advantage of because, for once, Max Caulfield actually offered up a solution to a problem she created. Go figure. Her last-second reality-bending Hail Mary meant Victoria could live, even though you killed her, without Max having to save her life. So, Max's do-gooder bullshit notwithstanding, you actually didn't not kill her because, as you can see," she points to Victoria. "She isn't dead, because she never was."

The more I try to follow along, the more jumbled my thoughts feel. "But...you said I killed Victoria."

"You did."

I glance at Max, still lying utterly motionless on the floor. "A-and she stopped that?"

"Almost."

"But Victoria's not dead."

"Also correct."

"I...I don't underst-"

"For fuck's sake!" she shouts, bursting to her feet...except she doesn't. It's Victoria that stands up, even though Victoria is still laying prone and frozen on the floor. "And I thought Max was slow!"

"H-h-how are you...?"

"Oh, you like?" Victoria smiles, striking a pose. "You know, for all the noise you make about innocence, you can't deny you were always a little curious about what was going on under these oh-so-fashionable sweaters."

"N-no," I stammer the lie, repulsed by how badly I'd been tempted to claim what Victoria had offered me the other night.

"If it helps, you'll never find out." She leans back against the desk, smiling coquettishly. "I've got other plans for you."

I don't even want to imagine what she means by that, and the notion of trying to run again flashes through my mind as I quickly glance toward the door.

"Go ahead," she says, as if I'd voiced the idea aloud. "You still won't make it, but it'll be funny to watch you try."

I don't move, telling myself it's because I refuse to give her the satisfaction of seeing me try to run away, and not because I'm scared.

"No? Too bad." She shrugs. "Anyway, that whole thing with Victoria is really just a symptom of the way bigger issue. That issue being Max Caulfield's unrelenting willingness to fuck around with the fabric of reality trying to rescue her annoyingly death-prone girlfriend." She sighs, looking down at Max again. "Even she doesn't truly understand how far she's prepared to go."

"What are you..." A sudden and intense wave of exhaustion rolls over me, like I've been awake for days. It's so hard to focus; I can barely hold a clear thought in my head. "Wait...what were you saying...?"

"What I'm saying, Mark, is that Max can and absolutely would tear the universe to shreds to save her love. And that by the time it came to that, she'd do it without a second's hesitation." She laughs, shaking her head. "I'd never ever say it to her face, but I kind of admire her for that. That kind of absolute, unyielding devotion isn't something you see every day."

Pushing off the desk, Victoria (but she's not Victoria, is she?) strolls over to the blue-haired bitch who very nearly got the drop on me. What was her name? So hard to remember...

"What's really infuriating is that it goes both ways. If their positions were reversed, Chloe would do the same in a heartbeat. If someone hurt Max, she'd burn the world to a cinder if she thought she could catch them in the flames." She reaches out to tuck a lock of blue hair behind the girl's ear. "It drives me insane when people talk about true love like it's a good thing. True love – not that Hallmark card horseshit but actual, true love - is just about the most terrifying thing I can imagine."

"I...uh..."

What was I saying?

"Max Caulfield and Chloe Price," she sighs. "They'll never, ever stop trying to find each other. And as long as they're separate, they're chaos fucking incarnate."

I blink. I don't turn my head or look away. The lights don't flicker, and I don't hear the sound of movement. I just shut my eyes for a fraction of a second. But when I open them again, Victoria is gone and Kate Marsh is standing right in front of me.

I jump back, startled, and my heel catches on a light cable I should have known was there. I try to keep my balance, fail, and end up falling in an undignified heap on the floor. Before I can recover, Kate leans down until her face is only a few inches from my own, and the malicious glee in her eyes freezes me where I sit.

"Oops," she says, nothing but sweetness in her voice. "Looks like you took a tumble."

Then she smiles, and I swear I'll die happy if I never have to see a person smile like that again.

"S-stop that."

"Stop what?" she asks, innocently.

"That." Her smile is wrong. It's bent and twisted and folds in on itself in countless places and it's completely normal and I think that looking at it is driving me insane. "Stop smiling like that. I...I hate it."

"Careful. You could hurt a girl's feelings, talking like that." The way she laughs makes it feel like there's something scratching my bones. "Anyway, where was I? Oh, right; chaos. See, I'm not a fan of chaos. I don't ascribe to the idea that something good could come out of making a mess of the universe, which is why I really don't care for people who insist on rocking the boat."

She crouches down to my level, never breaking eye contact.

"But just this once, I'm going to make an exception. Just this once, I'm going to give Max what she wants - as much as it kills me to do it – if only to keep her from causing me any more grief. I'm going to save her precious Chloe and punish you for all the things you've done to hurt her and the people she cares about, because apparently that's what it'll take to keep her from breaking reality again."

None of this makes any sense. "P-punish...?"

"Mhm." She nods.

"...b-but I..."

"Don't take it personally, Mark." She's close enough now that I feel blinded by the endless rows of gleaming, perfectly white teeth that line her mouth. "This is one of those 'for the greater good' kind of things."

"...w-what are you?"

"Remember what I said about things you couldn't possibly comprehend?"

"Please...please d-don't do this."

She actually looks offended. "Can you even remember how many helpless girls have asked the same of you? Did it ever save them? Did it help me?" The space around her seems to roll in on itself, and suddenly I'm eye to eye with Nathan. "Or me?"

How did he survive? Did I underdose him? I was so sure... "N-Nath-"

"But then, you never really gave me a chance to ask, did you?" Nathan comments, as though I didn't end his life a few hours ago, then his face distorts again into the utterly impossible. "Did it save me, Mr. Jefferson?"

It's impossible. Nathan could have survived somehow, but not her. Never her. It's utterly impossible for Rachel Amber, looking just as vibrant and alive as she ever did, to be crouched in front of at me.

"Cat got your tongue?" she asks, smiling.

"Y-you...but you're..." I stammer, the words feeling dull and pointless as they fall from my lips. "You're d-dead..."

"Rude."

"You're dead!" I repeat, louder, scrambling away from her until my back hits the wall. "Nathan killed Rachel Amber. We buried her!"

"Yes, you did."

I try to get up, but I can't move. My legs don't even twitch; my arms suddenly lay useless at my sides. "Y-you can't be her! You can't be!"

"Are you sure?" she asks, winking. "I could be."

"But...no." Pitiful. As if whispering a word aloud could make it true. I'm not a religious man, and I've never had much respect for the kind of people who let absurd and outdated beliefs dictate their lives, but in that moment a truly horrifying thought occurs to me. "Are...are you the devil?"

"Oh, Mark." She reaches out, tracing one fingertip along my jaw. "You're not that lucky."

"Don't hurt me," I whimper. It's all I can think to do, and I'm past the point of feeling shame for it.

"Aw, don't worry." She laughs a perfectly normal laugh that somehow makes me want to scream for the rest of my wretched existence. "I'm not going to."

"R-really?"

"No, not really, you fucking idiot," she hisses, her features twisting into a snarl. Her hand lashes across my face a heartbeat later, white hot and blindingly painful. My glasses fly off my face, clattering across the floor as I pitch sideways. My head is spinning, and I can already feel the blood seeping down my forehead.

Her other hand, colder and stronger than it has any right to be, clamps down on my throat and she lifts me like I weigh nothing at all. Her grip is too tight. It should have snapped my neck. It should have killed me. Why hasn't it killed me? I'd give anything for it to kill me as she pulls me closer, pressing a soft kiss to my cheek (the touch of her lips makes me wish I could claw the skin off my own face) before she lets go. I crumple to the floor (ragdoll physics; beauty in gracelessness), where I lay in a heap at her feet.

"Oh, don't look so gloomy." Reaching down again, the Not-Rachel takes hold of my ankle. "This is going to be fun."

I can't respond as she starts dragging me toward the growing shadows. I might as well be a corpse. Maybe that's it. Maybe I'm already dead. I must be because I can feel the worms crawling underneath my skin. It hurts. Why can I feel pain if I'm already dead?

"We're going to come up with so many creative ways to make you suffer," she laughs. "Your mind will have to invent new ways to perceive reality just to feel them all! Won't that be an adventure?"

"P-p-please..." It takes the very last of my strength to force the word out.

"Hush now. There's going to be plenty of time for that later, because you and me?"

She looks down, smiling again. It's an impossible smile. A wrong smile. It's too big for her face. The corners of her lips curl upward, seeming to stretch out past the edges of her cheeks.

"We've got all the time in the world."