Disclaimer: Anything familiar to you, I don't own. This is a work of fanfiction for personal amusement, fulfillment and maybe a bit of self-therapy. I make nothing from any of it. Cheers.
Chapter Sixteen: Kraipale
September 25th, 2010
The world existed in flashes of being. Chloe was lost in that disorienting, confusing mess. The ground beneath her feet shifted from rocky to green to mud from one moment to the next. Other moments, it didn't even exist. Millions of voices echoed off of walls to the world she did not think existed. Nothing around her was solid for long. One moment, she looked out to the ocean and a horrible gust of wind rocked her on her feet. The next, there was nothing but void and voices. Chloe closed her eyes against the world coming into and vanishing from existence, but it actually did nothing. Eyes open or closed, she saw or did not see the same. It made it impossible to get her bearings straight, to know where she was walking or if she was covering any ground.
The physical, mechanical motions involved in walking were hard to focus on. The voices weren't voices. They were a voice saying several things at once. The wind picked up, jostling her even when the world was void. A loud crashing sound stuck out over the voices and then an explosion. The world came into being and she swiveled her head around looking for the source of the explosion. The world flashed back out. Chloe had been in a couple of what Arcadia Bay's finest called 'raves.' In the moment, she chose to seize onto the comparisons in her mind, a world that was dark and did not exist when the lights went out.
This is shitty music then, Chloe thought, beginning to feel desperate. Those lights came on but instead of illuminating a crowd of writhing, sweat-drenched people it showed some sort of outside scene, somewhere away from too many buildings. Chloe steadied herself and stood still. In time with the sound of wind and that voice which spoke over itself, the world continued to come into be and then extinguish itself again. Focusing, she got snapshots of dirt and gravel, tree root and rope, one tall, slim building whose top she did not see at first, but when it came back she recognized. The lighthouse, Chloe told herself. Okay, you've been here this long but at least you know where here is- sometimes.
Trying to focus on the voice let her pick out phrases but she was having difficulty understanding what she was seeing and hearing at the same time. She felt lightheaded. For a moment, the bench she and Rachel liked to go and sit on together came into being and it lingered a bit after the world fell away around it. Then, it too fell to void. Okay, she thought That settles it. You're at the lighthouse. The ocean is ahead. She walked carefully forward. This isn't right. Sometimes she felt gravel beneath her feet, stones which dug into them. Other times, there was nothing and she was not sure if she was moving up or down, forward or backward.
Dream logic, she told herself. This is a dream. The voices continued, and she slowed to allow herself to pick at phrases like "This is the end," or "Everyone will die, in one great gust" or even, "I should be put up against a wall for this." Chloe was disoriented but she would never not recognize Max Caulfield's voice. As if that was a signal, two forms slowly curled into view as the world came back. One of them remained when it left again. It remained a steady, real point in a false or hollow world. Chloe walked toward it.
"I did everything I could," the voice said, the rest suddenly quieting. The world came back, but it was blurry, hazy and disconnected. The lighthouse floated feet off of the ground and threatened to blow out to sea with the wind. Something that might have been Arcadia Bay appeared unnaturally far in the distance. That solid form turned sideways and Chloe thought, for a moment, that she was looking at Vanessa Caulfield. The bench Chloe and Rachel loved so much sunk into the blurry, distorting earth and did not come back.
Vanessa was speaking, but the body-less Max-voice was combating whatever she was saying. Chloe stepped farther to the side and drew a deep breath. This was not Vanessa, at all. Her eyes were wrong. Her chin was wrong. Dressed in a familiar sweatshirt, though it was soaked through, was Max. She looked older, more mature, but it was Max. Chloe strained to hear what she was saying, unsure why she had not noticed Chloe approach. The voices in the background faded to a whisper, until they made up the raging wind.
Chloe jumped as something else came to be mere inches away from her. Slightly leaner, her face contorted in worry, thick rings beneath her eyes, this new something was a someone, it was Chloe. She looked broken and tired, wearing eyeliner that was clearly a day or two old and a tattered dark jacket, she was soaked, as well. With her came the pouring rain, so intense that it cooled even her, the real Chloe, as she had to force herself to think of herself, to keep clear. This other Chloe spoke and as she did, Arcadia Bay eased back toward the lighthouse, coming closer and closer until it looked almost natural in its positioning, and something massive appeared just off of the coast. Chloe remembered it distantly, as if from, as if from a dream, Chloe thought, laughing to herself.
Neither the Older Max nor the Older Chloe heard her laugh. Distantly, she was sure she had seen this storm before, in a dream. This made simultaneously no sense and perfect sense. The storm was cyclonic and looked larger than Arcadia Bay itself. It was moving in at what might be a snail's pace if it weren't for the fact that it was so very large. It was on course directly for Arcadia Bay. Chloe didn't need to be told to know what would happen when it reached the town. The water beneath the storm rebelled against the order of things, waves swelling.
"All that would take," Older Chloe said to Older Max, "is for me to-" Older Chloe turned toward the ocean, words lost by tears.
"Fuck that," Older Max screamed. The world dimmed and quieted. Older Max grew still and then, in a familiar event, both of the forms in front of Chloe dimmed, too, until they were see through, like ghosts. The disembodied Max voice began to speak again, over and over, concurrently, discordantly. What little of the world which remained solid began to shake. Chloe stumbled about, looking for anything stable to hang onto. There wasn't anything, not post or tree or bench which was not moving. She fell on her ass and could do little but cover herself, listening to the voice and wait for the shaking to stop.
"The storm approached the town."
"He was a monster yet she worshipped the ground he walked on. It made her sick until the end."
"They stood alone on the rocks. One cried, the other screamed. They both surrendered in their own ways."
"Frank Bowers stayed conscious the longest- he actually burnt alive."
"You are my number one priority."
"We caused it."
"She caused it."
"Victoria's body was never found."
"You are all that matters to me."
"One thought she didn't deserve it. The other was so sure."
"One wanted herself for the world, the other wanted her over the world."
"I couldn't make this choice. She couldn't make this choice. She made it. I made it. Why can't I see?"
The storm came back into being, the ocean rising like grey walls around it as it made landfall. For a moment, Older Max and Older Chloe appeared, embracing. Screams and rage, destruction, explosions sounded. For a moment, Arcadia Bay came back into Chloe's range of vision in sharp detail. In the next, it was undifferentiated debris, scrap, trash, bits and pieces of structure. Chloe did not need to get closer to know what had happened.
"Max, I'll always be with you." This voice was different. This was her voice, her own. With it, another world came to life. This one was nighttime, dark and concrete. Chloe didn't want to see it. She did not want to see the shattered shell of Arcadia Bay, not for anyone. One look around her showed that this was not where she stood. .
"Who the fuck names their kid Calvin?" the Voice-Max asked from nowhere in particular. Chloe stood on the edge of a street, on a dark, shattered sidewalk with weeds coming through it. Beside her, Older Max was bright and clear. She looked deranged, hair wild, eyes heavily lidded and making her seem barely conscious on her feet. Sometimes, Chloe thought she saw another form taking shape behind her, but it never did. From that spot, a new voice was whispering and Chloe knew it was whispering to Max, but it was impossible to make out what was said. Chloe turned to follow Older Max's line of view.
"When she stood over his hospital bed, she could smell him pissing himself," Voice-Max said from all around her as the world quite literally spun. "She told him if he didn't want her to finish the job, he'd stay quiet and count himself lucky. She smelled more than Calvin's piss before she left him there, cowering and blubbering." Chloe saw herself again as the city street with it's buildings large and short and rundown came back to life, sprinting across a dark parking lot. Sometimes the lot was gone. Sometimes Older Max left but somehow, Older Chloe remained clear and defined. Someone, a tall if thin man, was giving chase, shouting at her.
"You psycho lezzer, bitch!" Older Chloe didn't turn back. Something metal glinted on the ground behind the man in one moment, beside a strange, lumpy shape. Then all of that was gone. Chloe looked back at Older Max, whose face was one part realization and one part agony. Chloe glanced about. An old but large hotel stood across the street from them, seemingly where Older Chloe was running from.
There was no longer a street in front of her, but a car was approaching. Chloe knew where this was going, she knew what was about to happen. Her Older self locked eyes with Older Max, stopping in her tracks where pavement had been moments before. Confusion and shock overrode Older Chloe's panic. Not the real Chloe's, though. Her fear was not gone. She screamed at the top of her lungs, trying to wake up. She did not want to see it. Older Max was sprinting in the next moment over a mangled corpse. Then, the world shifted again and Max was in the lot, and she was the one chasing. The man was running. Older Max was screaming, or maybe that was the world around her screaming. The parking lot was not well lit but there was light enough for the knife to glint in Older Max's hand. The thin man tripped, no longer anger and rage but complete and utter terror. Chloe saw the outline of Older Max flinging herself on top of him, of the plunging knife and Chloe jerked her head down. In the process she was unable to avoid the sight of her own body collapsed in the road just in front of a dented bumper, head twisted unnaturally on its neck. This is too much. This is too much.
No more, please!
Chloe woke up screaming. It was not an intentional choice but she rolled over, head knocking against Rachel's. Chloe scrambled up and to her feet, head jerking around. An inch to her left, Max was climbing to her own, eyes wide, face pale, turning on her feet. She slammed her own mouth shut, squeezing her eyes against a pounding head. One foot in front of the other, she rushed from the building. Someone's hand-it had to be Rachel's-was jostled loose from her knee as she turned.
Vicious and vile, some of last night's indulgence painted the dirt only eight or nine steps from the little cement shed's entrance. Conflicting flashing images ran through her head and distracted her from the majority of the pain. She was just dry heaving by the time she felt a hand between her shoulder blades. The gesture was familiar as Rachel's attempt to calm or comfort her. When she was sure there was no way she would be ill on Rachel, she turned around, wiping her mouth with the back of her arm. Her head ached and her eyes watered and when she tried to talk it came out as blubbering.
Rachel embraced her, muttering absolute nonsense in the most soothing voice Chloe had ever heard her use. Chloe did not fight the tears but she could not stop herself from trying to explain what was hurting, what was wrong. Over Rachel's shoulder, she could see Max, only two or three steps away, watching her with wide, aware eyes. Very aware. Chloe understood what she had just experienced better from looking in them, they were guilt and shame. Dream. Her dream. Max. Max's nightmare. Everyone dies and then I do too. I've never seen or felt or heard of a dream like that, where so much of it wasn't there.
"It was hers," she told Rachel through desperate attempts to breathe, through bile and burning. She had to stop trying to explain but she gestured helplessly to the girl behind Rachel. Rachel half released her stepping aside. Chloe hoped she did not take this wrong, but couldn't care in the moment. Max approached tentatively and stopped a foot away, turning almost to the side, looking pointedly away from her. "Your dream," Chloe gasped. "Yes?" Staring at the ground, Max nodded. "Here," she said. "Come here." With her eyes closed, as if she expected to be struck, Max did as she was told, moving almost laterally as if to only expose a small part of herself to Chloe.
Without moving her left arm from Rachel's shoulders, she reached out, leaning forward almost violently with her right arm and pulled Max as close to her as she could. In the moment the three stood uncomfortably close together. Chloe wanted Rachel to understand, desperately hoped she did. She was rewarded when the girl's other arm wrapped around Max, and brushed against Chloe's right. Max did not break down as Chloe had, but her long sigh was shaky as if tears were close to the surface. Chloe could not stop hers yet.
"Never seen anything like that," Chloe told her. "Never before. Never wanna again. Sorry. So sorry."
"Not your fault," Max said, and judging by the way the three of them shifted, she suddenly squeezed Rachel as tightly as she did Chloe. "That one was all Max."
"I'm- I'm sorry," Chloe replied as she came to her senses, releasing them both. "Your head?" she asked Rachel.
"It's fine," Rachel told her, carefully, clearly. "Are you going to be okay?" Chloe shook her head.
"No, you will," Max told her. "It will calm down," Max stepped back from them, as if self-conscious. "It will, Chloe. Go back inside and sit down." Chloe reached out for Rachel and the thespian's fingers intertwined in hers automatically. Chloe lifted her head and opened her mouth. She wanted to ask Max where those dreams came from and what they meant, why they were so violently broken and disjointed, why nothing seemed to exist for long. There were so many questions, but she couldn't make any of them make sense.
"You have that one a lot?" Max first nodded and then shook her head.
"A little less each time," she responded, in a senseless tired tone. "I'm losing it. I'm losing all of it, waking or sleeping. Mercy." She sounds broken. For a moment Chloe feared she would see that harried Older Max in front of her when she blinked. She did not. Rachel looked concerned at them both, but Chloe didn't think she could understand how disorienting this dream would be.
"They all died," Chloe whispered as Rachel led them back to the shelter.
"They all died and she - I never forgot it," Max answered. Hazy, Chloe did not say anything else as she ducked back into the shelter. Steph was chugging from a gallon jug of water. Mikey was, the lucky bastard, not showing signs of so much as a headache. Her own skull felt like it was being hammered. Her mouth felt like it was trying to force down broken glass. "Hold tightly to the walls, you look like you're about to fall over." Chloe took Max's advice and stayed close to the edge of the room until she and Rachel settled themselves on the floor. Rachel pressed close against her, questions visible on every inch of her face. Chloe clung tight to her in response.
Steph opened her mouth to speak to them all when Max turned and unceremoniously stumbled out of the structure, oddly leaving behind one of her shoes. Rachel jerked upright slightly and turned her head to the doorway, then back to Chloe. She looked powerless. She wants to go after Max, Chloe understood. Fuck it, maybe she should. Chloe shifted her arm from Rachel's shoulders, to send the message that she was going to be okay where she was. If Max really had just experienced that nightmare, if that was really her dream, Chloe was not sure she was really okay. She's talking like she's in a daze.
"What happened?" Steph finally managed.
"Bad dream," Chloe answered, mustering most of her focus into sounding completely calm as Rachel got back to her feet, not to read unnecessarily into it. "Really bad dream. I guess I wasn't the only one who was having one." Gesturing toward Rachel's retreating form as she chased after Max, Chloe turned her head from Steph to Mikey, who was placing his glasses on his face and looking at her with genuine concern in his eyes. Fucking Mikey, she thought, why do good people have such big hearts?
"Really, Chloe, are you alright?" he asked her, absently (and uselessly) knocking dirt from his jeans. His shirt was on backwards and he seemed to be trying to make it sit comfortable on him. He was so far gone he actually lost that last night. By that point I was the only one who could fucking walk straight. "That was some scary shit."
"You're telling me," she responded, her stomach churning. "I'm sorry, I'm really sorry I woke up like that. I've never had that happen in my life. My nightmares are intense but they're nothing like that." Steph shook her head and stood up. It only took her a second to cross the room but she sat down next to Chloe, opposite of where Rachel had just been.
"Hey, it's alright. I mean, Mikey wishes he'd worn his brown pants, but we forgive you." Mikey shook his head, looked down and seemed to realize what was wrong with his shirt. Looking embarrassed, he stood and fixed it. Chloe strained to hear something, anything from outside. "Man, that was some birthday party, though."
"Yeah it was," Max replied from the entranceway, seeming a lot more composed. "I think I enjoyed the dice rolling more than the campfire, but the company was the best part." It took Chloe a second to look up and match Max's eyes and in that way she came to understand Max's difficulty with eye contact during intense moments. When she did, though, a version of the determined, stony Max was back in control. "So other than Chloe and I having shitty dreams-" More like dream. "This was probably my best birthday party since I left Arcadia Bay." Mikey nodded, looking a bit impressed.
"I mean, it beats the shit out of my last birthday," he told her. "I was out of town, so no hanging with Steph or anyone else." Max approached and held a hand up in front of Chloe. Chloe reached up and struck it with a high five. She hoped that the gesture and the look on her face would be free of any condemnation or any blame. None of this was Max's fault. Max settled herself on the far side of Steph and after a moment Rachel rejoined them, clapping her hands together.
"Okay, so we weren't supposed to be up this early, but I've got some money to spare and a fucking hankering for something." Chloe's stomach protested but she knew, as was often the case, that she would feel better with food in her stomach.
"Fuck it, let's go to the diner," Chloe told her, struggling to get to her feet.
"Are you sure?" Rachel asked her. "I mean, your mom…"
"My mom thinks we all slept at Steph's last night," Chloe responded. Then she turned back to Steph "Oh, by the way? We all slept at your place last night."
"I gathered that," Steph replied. She sounded a little short. "Fuck it, let's do that food thing."
"This is a lot of people for The Beast," Max commented. "I think I'll sit in the back and get some fresh air." Rachel, taking pity, reached down and offered Chloe her hand. Steph mirrored the action on her other side and between the three of them they got Chloe standing.
"Me too," Mikey said. He paused, then, as if remembering something. "Oh shit, Chloe?"
"Yeah?"
"I wanna come with you when you get started on your sleeve, if they'll let someone watch." Chloe nodded, amusedly recalling his enthusiasm for it, when she finally showed the boy her plans. He was actually a little touched I put something in to for him. Chloe thought the tiny wizard's hat was a little diminutive, but Mikey was the supportive type. He had loved it.
"Alright then," Steph said. "Am I shotgun or do I get sandwiched between two gorgeous ladies?" Rachel sighed and turned toward the exit.
"Steph, it's too early for your wet dreams." Mikey whooped. Chloe smiled. Max's nightmare hung over her but as she turned her gaze on Max she could see in the girl's eyes that it hung over them both. The shitty thoughts in her mind the night before seemed paltry in comparison to that dream. As soon as, unbidden, the memory of her own corpse rose to the forefront of her mind Chloe turned and gestured outside unable and unwilling to sit idle much longer.
It was unusual on any day for five teenagers to walk into the Two Whales Diner in one big, lumped group. For this reason, when Chloe opened the door various people turned from the counter or a few booths to watch them enter, even if only for a second. Chloe brought up the tail end of the group and entered behind Rachel. For a moment, Rachel glanced worriedly back at her and Chloe was forced to wonder precisely what she was thinking. This is way too fucked up, she thought, taking the thespian by the hand and leading her (and by extension the rest of them) to a booth without looking around to see where her mother was in the diner.
"Simon, get ready, I think we're about to have a big order coming in," her mother's voice called from somewhere near the counter. A man grunted from the grill.
"I'm sorry I was so shitty yesterday," Chloe whispered to Rachel as they and Mikey eased into one side of a booth. Max and Steph settled opposite of them, chattering about the session the day before. "I was just- it's not important but, I'm sorry."
"It's alright," Rachel said, though she looked confused. If Chloe tried to analyze that, she wasn't going to be in a very good mood when she was done.
"So," Mikey said as soon as everyone had grown quiet. "Dad says we're definitely leaving this summer." Chloe exhaled, turning her attention toward the boy, who looked crestfallen.
"I'm sorry," Max replied, reaching across the table to pat him on the hand. "Why didn't you tell us?"
"I didn't wanna bring anyone down last night," he replied waving her concern off. "I just thought you guys should know." Steph hummed briefly, then spoke, thoughtfully.
"You know," she said, taking a second to uncharacteristically pull her hair back in a very short ponytail and discard her hat. "I think we can come to a nice stopping point or at least a place it makes sense for your character to bail out by then." This seemed to give Mikey a cause to smile slightly, which just confused Chloe. To her it would have been one more reminder that she had to leave everyone behind. Suddenly, she felt like she could better understand Max's predicament a couple of years prior.
"I appreciate it," he said. "That feels like a good way to go." The conversation trailed off, perhaps at an ideal time, because at that point Joyce was standing at the end of the table, her arms crossed across her chest.
"Did you kids actually get any sleep last night?" Chloe looked up at her mother. She was smiling ruefully at them, as if they appeared in a predictable state. If she'd seen the beer the five of them had gone through (and the bit that remained) she might be taking a different view of their appearance. Chloe, at least, had to pretend that every noise around her did not cause her head to throb.
"We lost track of time," Steph said, as if prepared with an excuse. "I prepared a little too much for one session and then didn't keep an eye on the time." Chloe listened to her mother's sigh and watched her raise a small pad up to take orders on.
"Well, out with it," she told them.
"Coffee," Steph said. "Dark, hot coffee. And uh," Steph paused in consideration then added, "Two eggs over easy and plenty of toast to soak up the yolk?" Oh god, Chloe thought, that sounds amazing.
"That," Chloe said, "That right there, but no coffee."
"You never did care for it," her mother added, taking quick notes.
"Pancakes sound amazing, Joyce," Max said.
"The more things change," her mother quipped. "Orange Juice?" Max nodded.
"I think bacon and a couple of eggs sunny side up sound good to me," Rachel added. Mikey raised a finger.
"I'll second that, but with toast on the side, please." Polite bastard, Chloe thought. She smiled at him.
"Alright, you guys, just relax. I'll bring out some water in a moment."
"And coffee?" Steph asked, hopefully.
"And coffee." Joyce grinned at them. Heels clicking against the floor of the diner (how the fuck does she do all that in heels?) Chloe watched her mother turn to pass their orders through to the back. A small silence rested over the table, a strange deviation from last night's loud, sometimes raucous laughter and arguing.
"Chloe," Rachel said, nudging her. Chloe looked up.
"Oh right," she said, opening the plastic bag she was balancing on her lap. The table came a bit back to life, though it was mostly in the manner of a few hungover people trying to not give off the sense of being hungover in public. "So, I was thinking about it," Chloe continued, lifting the object out of the bag. "And dad really would have liked this." Chloe settled an old Polaroid camera down on the table in front of her and slid it across to Max. "You really liked using it back in the day and I know it's a little bit worn out, but I think he'd be happy." She glanced up at the girl opposite of her and neither hangover nor nightmare seemed to be bothering her too much in the moment. Chloe couldn't seem to really read what she was thinking though.
"Chloe, I-"
"I get it if it's not really worth using, but I just think it should find a home with someone who would appreciate it, you know?"
"Chloe, shut up," Max said. "I really love it." Chloe did shut up. Max looked like she wanted to say something else but at that point the familiar clicking of heels grew closer to the table. "I think I'll use this one from now on. The other one is cool and all but it doesn't really have the same meaning." Chloe smiled sideways, feeling fingers work between her own, where it rested on her left knee. Glancing toward Rachel she received a comforting smile. Max turned the camera over.
"I think that makes more sense than having it sit in a box somewhere," Chloe looked up as her mother spoke, setting a tray carrying a few glasses down on the far edge of the table. "William used to say that when Chloe had you over for a night, he learned more about photography from you than he thought there was to learn." Chloe was uncomfortable about the look of pride her mother turned on her. "Great idea, Chloe." Water and coffee were passed across the table.
"Thanks for understanding," she told her mother. They shared a look between them that reminded Chloe this was the most they had really talked in some time. As her mother went back to work, a more uncomfortable silence took hold than before, even as Max turned the old camera over in her hands. "So, I've kind of had an idea for the play," Chloe told the group at large, mostly to cover the silence. "I've been sitting on it for a couple of days and I wanted to run it by everyone here." For the next minute or two she outlined the concept and in response received more in the way of support than she expected. What she didn't expect was that when Rachel told her she should bring it up with Mr. Keaton at practice, that she would find herself strong armed into it so doggedly.