"All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle." - St. Francis of Assisi
"The light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." - Book of John 1:5, King James Version, America Edition
With a slight squeal of the brakes the rusted and weary truck slowed to a stop at the drop-off zone in front of the academy, its passenger door opening a second after. A pair of worn chucks impact the pavement, and with a parting grace Max waved goodbye to Chloe, watching the truck leisurely drive down the street to the lower part of town.
Hell of an alcohol tolerance, that's for sure.
Scoffing to herself and shaking her head, Max thought her judgement of Chloe's driving to be harsh. It wasn't like Price had downed a keg of beer or something, just one bottle was all she had back at the junkyard. To be fair though, Max concluded that any amount of alcohol, whole bottle or otherwise, would really mess with her system if she dared to try it. Such is the plight of the lightweight.
As if I'd ever want to drink.
She watched the dull orange glow of the outside lamps turn on, framing the brighter magenta sky above and the blackening ground below. She had half the mind to snap a pic of it, but then remembered the other six instances where she'd done the exact same thing and thought better of it.
So, she made her way to the dorms, taking it slow this time and watching the slight gust blow the dried leaves of shrubs across the concrete, admiring the trees standing strong against the encroaching cold. Appreciative of her reliable light-grey jacket, Max pushed the dorm entrance open, basking in the slightly warmer air within the building.
Perhaps, some sleep is in order—wait, I forgot about that History assignment.
With a groan, Max trudges up the steps and walks onto the second floor, shuffling her feet towards her door and ever so ready to curl up in her bed and not do that meaningless assignment. Far too occupied with rekindling friendships and shaky dreams was she to be thinking of schoolwork. Yet no sooner had she closed her door and set her messenger bag down by her bedframe did she feel the buzz of a text message.
A weight completely forgotten up until now hits Max full force, and her eyes grew wide upon seeing who texted her.
Kate: Hey Max, could you bring back that book I let you borrow, 'The Storm of Steel'? I need it for an assignment coming up.
Shit. Shit, shit—shit!
In a frenzy, Max set about tearing through her room for the book, finding it on the small oval glass table next to her couch. Quickly taking her stuffy shoes off, fiddling with her jacket nervously, Max typed out her response—
Max: sure, i'll be right over
And with a steadying exhale did Caulfield step out, cross the hall and stop at Room 222. Indeed, she'd forgotten she was supposed to check up on Kate ever since she got sidetracked by Warren and Chloe. Well, technically Kate doesn't know that Max was going to stop by earlier today, but it still burdened Max's heart that she'd completely sidelined her friend.
Screw it, no time like the present.
With a gentle knock, Max waited for the muffled come in, before opening the door.
It was dark. Terribly dark. The only source of light were the rays of the sun that reflected through semi-closed blinds. The room was more shadow than anything, and Max could only see Kate because of the white shirt the small blonde wore. Marsh was hunched over her desk in the opposite corner of the room, and between her and Max was a plethora of disregarded clothes, personal items Kate had forgotten to clean up—or most likely, didn't care to clean up.
"...Kate?" she whispered. It was hard to tell if the blonde heard her.
The sorrow in this room, small but ever lurking, weighed Max's shoulders down as she closed the door with a click and carefully treaded over to her friend. Kate didn't acknowledge her walk over, nor when Max stood behind her for a long moment, and only when Max approached her side and whispered her name again did she slightly jump and look towards her door.
"Oh, I-I thought you—," she cleared her throat, and spoke in a less raspy voice, "um, hey Max."
She thought I wouldn't even stay.
"Hey, Kate."
In most cases, it's Max who is the source of awkwardness, tripping up on words if flustered and tripping over herself from spacing out. Yet now, Kate seems to have caught a bad case of Caulfield syndrome as she fidgets in her chair, her eyes darting to the book Max held in her hands. Taking notice, Max holds it out to her.
"Here's your book," and Kate obliges, taking it and setting it on her desk.
"Thank you."
Again, with the silence.
Max looked to the small mirror next to the door. She hadn't noticed it until now, nor the small towel that hung over it, blocking the glass reflection. The more she looked around Kate's room, the more she noticed the smallest of things. The full trashcan of tissues by the bed, an empty tissue box—two, actually—sitting on top one another on the nightstand, underneath the pitifully small lamp. On the desk, just out of reach, Kate's bible laid shoved to the side; its hard cover was laden with dust. On the navy-blue couch along the wall, her violin sat in its maroon-black case, also dusty and untouched.
Kate used to play her violin in the afternoons, right when classes would end, and everyone would settle into their dorms. It was Max's favorite part in the afternoons, to hear the perfectly somber tones the blonde would play. Even if the others on their floor did not like it, which Max doubted, she took solace in that she would be Kate's constant audience of one.
Kate never plays her violin anymore.
"…uhm, Max?"
"I'm sorry, Kate."
A pause, then, "What for?"
Max's gaze settled on the potted plant sitting on the top shelf of the desk, its leaves forgone and looking to be on its deathbed. From where she stood, Caulfield could see how shriveled and brittle it was.
"I haven't hung out with you since last Friday. I didn't mean to ghost you like that."
"Max it's—" and Kate rotates in her chair, still hunched but now looking at the brunette, "It's fine, I don't expect you to be around me every day."
"I know. I just...I want to make it up to you. Right now, if you don't mind."
Kate looked at her like a doll, lifeless, unknowing and—dare she say it—uncaring.
"…oh, okay," the doll deadpans.
"Um, yeah—like, uh, how about a sleepover?" Max proposed, "We haven't done one of those yet."
"I can't remember ever doing a sleepover before," the blonde sadly pondered. Caulfield frowned at the forced tone in that voice. It was wispy at the edges and carried with it a horrible emptiness.
Something's wrong.
"Kate."
As if shaken from a thought, she looked up, "yes, Max?"
No more dodging, no more tiptoeing, Max strengthened her resolve, "Is something going on? You seem…out of it."
Like that, a few words were all it took to snatch the little bit of life out of the blonde, and she immediately ducked her eyes to the carpet.
"I, uhm…" perhaps Kate was waging that little fight in her head, over whether she should tell Max what was troubling her. Max didn't know, she could only hope that Marsh would just look at her and give her something to go off of, anything.
Doubt strikes Caulfield, and she fears that Kate's just trying to make her leave without being rude. Max is not sure if she should, with how miserable her friend is acting.
"I'm fine with doing a sleepover," the petite blonde suddenly, softly declared. Marsh stood and quietly rummaged through her closet space, pulling out her rarely used black backpack, and moving to carefully stuff her blanket into its confines. With her pillow tucked into one arm and the backpack hoisted onto her back by the other, Kate takes a plastic bag from the top drawer of her large dresser, pulling from it a single piece of the carrots within; and, with a pinch of hay, she gently sliding it into the cage that housed her lone pet bunny, Alice.
Max realized that the Christian was dodging her last question, but let it slide. She needs to stop getting caught up in her doubts and just be there for her friend.
"I'm all set now, is your door unlocked?"
"Yeah, I'll be there in a sec. Gonna say goodnight to Alice," Max assured.
Kate looks back at Max for a second, confused as to why the brunette would say such a thing, but dismissed the thought with a yawn, and excused herself out the room.
Max turned to the blonde's desk, peeling back the book she'd given to Kate and stumbling upon what had been nagging her when she first noticed. Upon the dark wooden surface were a couple letters, wrinkled at the edges.
It was a habit of Max to be a bit of a nosy individual, but always had she justified to herself that she would only be a snoop to her close friends and no one else. In a situation where one wrong sentence or outspoken thought could lead to a very unfortunate consequence, Max was going to take any advantage she got. So, Max read the letters, and she quickly realized why they were so roughened—they were letters from Kate's family, one from her parents and one from her aunt. Both talked about Kate and what happened at the Internationale party the timid blonde went to last Friday.
So that's why.
Max made a point to staying away from parties, especially ones hosted by Prescott and his club, and it seems Kate had walked into that trap unaware. Max had gone to bed after doing some homework that Friday night, so whatever happened to her friend, she had been asleep and unable to help. She reckoned something must have happened, if Kate's parents and aunt sending her letters was anything to go by. A chiding frown swept her face, she should've been more adamant about not letting Kate go, she should've known.
The parents' letter was the more fully written of the two, the message from Kate's dad was probably the best in regard to support. Kate's mother, on the other hand, came off as dubious at best. It was condescending, and Max dared to guess that the matriarch thought whatever happened at the party, whatever it could've been, to be her daughter's fault. A frown grew the longer Caulfield eyed the passive-aggressive words, before shifting to the aunt's letter.
Whoever this 'Auntie Marsh' was, Max could only imagine her as a cranky old hoot, grumpy and with a wrinkly scowl on her face. Reading further and further down the letter, Max was met with scorn, even more scorn, and a bit of disappointment mixed in-between. That was all she could parcellate from the outright hostile tone that conveyed the words.
What even is a Jezebel?
It seemed so unusual of an insult to Max, but to a devout believer like Kate? It's no wonder Marsh looked so shaken. For while Max herself had no proper connection to her aunts and uncles like Kate did, Caulfield imagined it to be something much like what she had with her own parents, and it always hurt to hear her parents' scorn. Looking back to the hall to where her room would be, Max now understood Kate's hollow, lifeless stare.
She likened that kind of blank look to this specific instance from some obscure documentary about the Great War that she'd watched when she was young. Her father was into those documentaries, always putting them on just before she would go to bed. Max never figured out why they fascinated her. Perhaps, she was curious, and wanted to understand why so many people, why whole nations, whole cultures, could hate each other enough to tear each other apart with vicious savagery. Max only remembers this one scene of a soldier, eyeing the camera with a dead stare from under his helmet; and the camera had captured his dirtied, bloodied features, with sunken eyes and a trembling frown, and left him looking more like a ghost than a man.
She likened Kate to that man then. They both had the same feeling, the same half-lidded, sorrowful dull eyes, so worn and tired.
With a heavy sigh, she arranges the letters into the nice stack Kate had left them, placing the book atop and making her way back to her room.
"Uhm, Max?"
Caulfield looks to her leather couch opposite the bed, now clear of debris and draped with Kate's olive-colored blanket. The blonde sat in a crisscross on one side, arms wrapped around her pillow.
"There's…something I want to talk to you about."
Unto the breach, as they say.
Max eases herself onto the couch next to her friend, looking to dimmed hazel eyes in a gesture to continue. Kate hugs the pillow tighter now, for it was the lifeline, the anchor.
"It's about the, uhm…the party last week. The one I went to."
Max is silent, but every glance Kate sends is met with rapt attention, more and more words spill forth and it's all the blonde can say before the tears threaten to spill.
"I just wanted to see what everyone else does," she started, "you know, with their friends. I had heard from Dana and others that I should try going, to see if I'd like it. Yet," and Kate's brow furrowed with dread, "when I got there, it was just…stifling. The music and the lights were just so suffocating. I figured I'd at least try the food and drinks, mother would always make me stay away from alcohol outside of communion, and I wanted to try it," the pillow is not enough, so Marsh disregards it and instead hugs her legs close, her head resting upon her arms.
"It's not even the words that get to me. It's that nothing else matters to them. It doesn't matter that it was only one sip of wine—because of course they wouldn't know what happens at every communion in church—" a shaky inhale, "I can't remember a thing after I took that single sip, it's like—like I'd passed out or something of the sort. I can't remember anything at all—but everyone remembers. Now I'm nothing more than what they saw then, and they won't let it go—it won't stop, they won't stop with the tormenting and I'm sick of it. I went to the police once I woke up, after everything happened. I was hopeful they would hear me out, but after I told them, they just haven't done a single thing about it. I can't get out of this…this damn loop, of nothing but hate."
There's a grief in her words that reminded Max of her reunion with Chloe, when the punk had bawled into her shoulder the day before. But unlike Chloe, who avoided her pain through alcohol and the occasional cigarette, Kate had nothing to channel her stress. Like dropping a Mentos into an open Coke bottle, the pain swells within the girl's soul, overflowing and withering her interior until she is naught but a shell of her joyful self.
A gasp broke the momentary silence, and Max eyed the tears rolling down reddening cheeks. Knowing it to be inevitable, Max hooks her arm around Kate's shoulders, drawing the shaking girl close and giving her the unspoken permission to cry.
"I just can't remember—" but a sob interrupted whatever Kate was going to say. Max cooed into the weeping girl's ear, choosing to whisper hollow nothings to ease the pain. Kate shook, her entire body tensed with each intake of breath. Caulfield knew that Marsh was never one to cry about much, always had her positivity stood firm against whatever life had thrown at her. Yet now she was so weak, so tired of the cruelty from her peers, that every word spun in a negative light struck her heart and left her feeling void of what gave her worth. Kate hated being unable to withstand such vitriol the most. For even when Max whispered that it couldn't be her fault, the blonde surged with self-hatred, and her sobs became harsh as her throat constricted.
"I'm right here, Kate. It's okay."
Max drew her friend into a proper hug and held on tight, as the blonde shuddered the peak of her woes out of her system. Max laid her head atop Kate's messy bun of hair, gently taking her left hand and tracing small circles on the blonde's scalp. Caulfield was resigned to silence now, it was the least she could do for Kate; Marsh needed a real friend, not the flaky person that she'd been up until recently.
Slowly, the shudders subsided to shiverings, the sobs grew quiet and less sapping of energy. Kate slumped in Max's embrace, giving a faint hiccup every once in a while, as the silence grew longer between gasps.
A whole minute, when Max looked to the small digital clock on her nightstand and saw the numbers shift once again; a single minute of silence followed, and the comfort of being the figurative angel for a dear friend kept her from speaking. Max was afraid she'd break the tranquility that comes after a good cry—or a bad cry, it didn't matter in this case. It was the small blonde clinging to her that broke the silence with her small, raspy voice.
"It hurts, so much."
Max hesitated, and held still as Kate continued, "It hurts being alone. Feeling alone. I thought that I could be true, that I could take whatever they threw at me, but I can't. I'm not good enough—"
Kate eased herself from Max's hold and curled away from the brunette.
"And if I can't help myself from this hell, then how am I to help my friends, like you?"
Max felt the little glimpse, that single moment of pure recognition, that came with such genuine humility. She sat stunned, for how should she answer such a question? Should she even dare to, or was it meant to be unanswered, like a rhetorical question that had no truth or every truth behind its unspoken answer?
"Do you think what happened was your fault?"
Kate's eyes couldn't meet her own, "I mean, what if they're right, Max? What if it was all my fault, for going in the first place? I just—"
"Stop."
A lone index finger shushed Marsh, though it was unnecessary as Max's serious look nullified her excuses, "Don't ever think something like that, it's not your fault and you know it. No one gets that drunk off just one sip, something must've happened to you."
Max gripped the one hand that Kate hadn't detached, cradling it like a vise, "Kate, I know you feel horrible right now, but I want you to do this, I need you to do this: Fight, if not for me then for yourself, for these people can't beat you if they're proven wrong."
A trick of the light, perhaps her interior lights shone perfectly then, but Max could see the gleam in Kate's eyes, the swell of tears, hopeful and revived of the one thing the blonde had wished for days on end. That chance of redemption, from the hands of those who had wronged her. And a small, lopsided smile, so unusual as Kate hadn't a reason to smile for so long, snaked across lips and there it stayed.
"...you're right, Max, you're right."
The sudden chatter of the alarm clock dared to ring in Max's quiet abode. It's song of monotonous beeps roused the passion of a hand, that which slipped from the covers of the nearby bed, and with a skillful smack, silenced the cries of the offender. A moment of the previous peace reigned before the sheets were shuffled aside, revealing their owner, half awake, rubbing the grit from tired eyes.
With a sigh, Max slumped up and out of bed, scratching an itch away on her lower back and glancing over to her couch. A messy mop of blonde hair poked from a figure draped with a thick, olive blanket. Shuffling closer, Max discerned the calm expression adorning Kate's face, and felt herself warm up inside, knowing her friend slept without any burden for once in the longest time.
Half tempted to let the blonde sleep, the time on the clock beckoned her to haste. They had only one hour until classes would start, and Max knew enough about Kate that she'd rather an early rise than be rushed by ten minutes 'till. Placing her hand upon a shoulder, Max gently shook Kate awake, and Marsh peeked through her bangs and smiled, greeting this Wednesday morn with a yawn.
"'Morning, Kate."
"Good morning, Max."
A smile communicated their words better as of now, and the two went about their morning routines. Max decided for something more comfortable than anything, that being the many pairs of loose jeans she had in her wardrobe, accompanied by a plain white t-shirt, with a simple black decal of a doe in its center. Kate took her time in sorting her pillow and blanket into a neat pile and bade Max a temporary farewell; they were going to walk to class together, and perhaps their day would fare a lot easier knowing they had each other for support.
Max fit her light-gray jacket into place, admiring herself for that one second of outfit ingenuity before the depression over a lack of choices bit her again. Taking her messenger bag, Caulfield was reaching for her analog camera when a wail resounded from the hall, so sudden and terrified!
Forgetting the camera, Max immediately darted out her room, looking right, then left, only to witness Kate crawl from her open door like a madwoman. The blonde twitched this way and that, and so was it that she was transfixed on the terror clutching her heart, her trembling eyes locked to something Max could not see. Marsh bawled unintelligibly, the words slipping from her grasp, replaced with a garbled slurring of whimpers.
"Kate!" Max rushed to her side, enveloped Marsh in a tight hug, and looked to the cause of the petite girl's woes.
Oh, oh God—
The blonde's dorm room had been visited sometime in the night and was now completely trashed. The drawers from the closet and dressers within were thrown from their racks, the blinds were mangled; some were shredded and laid in pieces below the windows. Along the opposite wall where the two girls could look up and see, in a dried, dark red hue, was an inscription written in graffiti or paint. There, the words NO ONE FUCKS WITH ME BITCH were left in scratchy, impatient strokes.
In the wake of the threshold, just past the open door, was the bloody corpse of Kate's bunny, Alice.
Heaving, the shattered blonde shook like a leaf, clinging to Max and trying her hardest to not break-down, and failing horribly. A commotion of opening doors and hushed voices filtered into the hall, as the other dormmates looked to them, confused. But Max didn't care about them, for she was too busy trying to keep Kate in the realm of sanity, as she watched every piece of her friend's life crumble to oblivion.
A/N - The Storm of Steel by author Ernst Jünger, is a book recounting his experiences as part of the Rifle Regiment of Prince Albrecht of Prussia (73rd Hanoverian Regiment) in the Great War. Most notable about this book concerning the Great War, especially compared to the more popular, more socially accepted interpretation by Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, is that there existed not the totality of defeatism and senselessness of war from men like Remarque, but rather was there also a belief of genuine purpose, that which can be achieved through feats of human/superhuman bravery. For men like Jünger, there was no greater theater of provenance than the theater of war, perilous and merciless as it was, to show the true capabilities of Man and to transcend their previous existence, however normal or cumbersome it may have been. It is this transcending of existence, that which I as the writer appeal to in regard to being a better person in times of crisis, where it seems the world has nearly crushed one's sense of being.
It is by my sole opinion then, that I believe DONTNOD's canonical presentation of Kate to be ludicrous at best. Given the benefit of the doubt, she is not a main character and most likely serves as a catalyst to exploring Max's canonical powers and its limits. So, I reserve my grievances for myself, and try my best to abstain from favoritism, as Kate is indeed my most beloved character in Life is Strange; but I cannot accept the idea that a girl as strong hearted as Kate, who is known most prominently for her faith, her forgiveness, and love for her family and friends, is so easily pushed over the edge by a single, albeit very damaging factor. I do not argue the potency of social stigma when it comes to the ruining of one's reputation and destruction of one's principles, for that is indeed a very critical part of our dependency to the world, and if it be the only facet that one has, its destruction would surely be catastrophic. Rather, I argue that social stigma alone cannot be enough to bring about the idea of something as serious as what occurred in Episode Two of Life is Strange, and that for someone who is as rigid in her faith as Kate is, it would require a more serious, more personal destruction to consider a sin like self-harm, or worse.
It is therefore imperative to Kate, that she either transcend her current existence by appealing to her faith and friends or be doomed to drown in the liquid toxicity of her peers, alone and crushed in spirit.