The gunshot echoes in her ears, tears wetting the floor below as she holds her right wrist in a vicegrip with the opposite hand. She barely hears the door slam open as thoughts echo in her head, bouncing off each other like a pinball table.

I killed her.

It was what she wanted.

It's my fault.

The town would be dead otherwise.

She forcefully slams her head back against the bathroom door, silencing the errant voices in her head, but hears another right next to her, a head turning around the stall to see who's there. David Madsen, the paranoid yet well meaning security officer. He consolingly grabs her shoulder and lifts her up, using himself as a brace for support. They exit to see Nathan getting handcuffed by police officers, who give David a sharp nod and remorseful expressions, before hauling him away.

She doesn't remember how long it takes, only that it takes too long. The investigations, the meetings, everyone giving her sorrowful looks. It doesn't matter, none of it matters. Now they care. She gives off so many I'm fines that the lies and half truths make her blood feel like tar, and eventually she drags her body to the street and just walks. Walks for hours, maybe more, until her feet feel like they might fall off.


As soon as the familiar waterfront comes into view, she sees it. No, she feels it. Like a light sputtering in and out of her very soul, it's there. And then it isn't. And then it is, in sharp focus. A storm larger than she would have ever thought possible last week, and yet eerily familiar and sharp. And then an echoing sound emerges, a sputtering, croaky mess of a sound. It takes her about a minute to realize that it's her. Her own, pathetic laughing at the sheer cruelty of it all. Of course it's not over. Why the fuck would it be over. After Chloe convinced me to let her die to stop it.

The tornado gets closer and closer, wider and wider. She steps in lock step with it, approaching its form as the ground under her feet turns from footpath to gravel, to grass. A few more steps, and she'd reach it. But before she reaches the edge, she's grasped by two thin arms, easily encircling her torso. Her movement stopped, her body goes limp and tears start flowing again, unbidden and unceasing. Eventually they move to the bench, so as to not be so close to the rocky cliff-edge. The person, revealed to be Kate, sits next to her with bated breath, not wanting to start the conversation.

"How did you know I was here?" Max says, not looking up from the rocky cliff-face.

"I didn't, I followed you here after what happened at Blackwell. You didn't seem... well." Kate admitted with a bit of shame, as if that was worth apologizing for. Max smirks a bit at that, an expression alien for both the situation and her attitude before now.

"I'm fine. Really. I just needed some... air." She lies as easily as breathing, but the look from Kate seems like she doesn't exactly buy it. "Me and Chloe used to come up here a lot, split the difference. It just... seemed right."

Kate lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding, and leans back a bit on the bench. "I see, it is a nice view. I used to go to a church that had a view quite like this."

"Oh? I haven't been to one in-" Max starts talking but her vision distorts, the tornado sputtering in and out of view, but even when it's out of view, it still feels like it's there, echoing inside her head.

"Max? Talk to me, what's wrong?" Kate says but she barely hears her, her body feeling wrecked. Like she's turning time back and forth, but nothing changes, it's just the feeling of it that echoes back and forth. Back and forth. Then it starts burning. Like a fire inside her brain and going all throughout her body, even her eyes feel like they've got the hottest of furnaces powering them. Until, it stops. The pain slowly subsides, and even the tornado vanishes. But something's wrong. Why is she here? She was just in class before, answering stupid questions from a teacher, and now... at a lighthouse? She turns to look at a worried Kate eying her with abject panic.

"Kate? Why am I here? Where is this?"