Prologue - Doe in a blizzard

After everything, it was the snow globe that undid her. That fucking pristine little doe caught in a perfect little world, forever. It was too much to bear.
A primal scream of rage and agony wrung itself from Max's throat, as she whirled around in a violent burst to hurl the thing across the room. It shattered into a blizzard of shards against the opposite wall, leaving its contents to seep down the wallpaper. With that, Max collapsed into a huddle at the foot of her bed. All her rage had dissolved, just as quickly as it had erupted. Now, all that remained was a hollowness at the center of her, a black and gaping void behind her sternum. Her eyes burned, yet after hours of crying into her pillow, she had no tears left to shed.
How?, she had wondered upon crashing into this new reality. How can this be the right choice? Everything in her rebelled against the idea that what she had just witnessed was, in any way, shape or form, right. Chloe, her Chloe, put to death like a dog, shot to bleed out on the floor of a fucking toilet. And Max, around the corner, hiding, counting down the beats of a too-familiar conversation until its inevitable conclusion. Never had seconds stretched into eons like during these last moments before the bang. And never had Max felt more powerless, knowing she must not intervene, despite the time-bending power of salvation at the tip of her fingers.
It had been Chloe's choice, of course. That beautiful, idiot punk just had to turn into a fucking everyday hero, sacrificing herself so that an entire town may live. Even now, her intoxicating cedarwood-and-tobacco taste lingered on Max's lips, from a kiss a universe away. She almost felt the gentle touch of Chloe's arms embracing her still, a ghost of a sensation, an amputee's phantom limb. She would never forget Chloe, or what she had done. How could she?
But here and now, all everyone else alive would remember was that troubled addict kid that had somehow gotten herself mixed up in some fucked up shit after five years of pointless rebellion and ultimately paid with her live. How can this be the right choice?

And yet, it had been Chloe's choice to make. Who was Max to deny her that freedom? As she had done before - with a different Chloe, in another lifetime - she had merely allowed that choice to come to pass. This thought, and this thought alone, had provided the faintest inkling of comfort in Max's ocean of pain; had helped her breathe through fits of racking sobs, and had eventually carried her through the pages of her journal, as she had turned to relive the week's events since Chloe's death through the writings of her own unwitting self.
Max - the other Max - had not even recognized Chloe. Only hours later, as she was questioned by police, had she realized that the blue-haired corpse on the bathroom floor was, in fact, her once best friend, murdered. She had been reasonably distraught, of course, and had blamed herself for not contacting Chloe earlier, but her journal entry felt oddly distant, a mere lament of what may have been. After all, she had never shared those weird, horrible, and absolutely precious moments with Chloe. All this Max had ever known about Chloe's life past age fourteen came from one short conversation with Joyce before the wake. Joyce - oh Joyce, thank god for this woman - had not only comforted Max, assured her that she had done nothing wrong, but had somehow found it within herself to sort through Chloe's things and collect some bits and pieces for Max to hold on to. Still, she had seemed broken, a pale and withered husk of her former, radiant self, and merely reading about her pain now nearly broke Max all over again.
At least, though, Kate was alright. Seeing Nathan and Jefferson arrested and her abduction proven had raised her spirits somewhat, and former Max had stood by her. Even blissfully unaware of any power to twist time to her liking, former Max had managed that. Had, at least, managed this one good thing. Reading this, Max caught herself briefly considering the notion of simply settling into this new reality.
And then came the snow globe.

After reading the last journal entry, Max had found herself unable to move. She just sat upon her bed, transfixed, blankly staring at the box with Chloe's belongings through a veil of tears still slowly drip-dripping onto her blanket.
She felt utterly and terrifyingly certain that touching any of these keepsakes would cement Chloe's death into cold, hard fact, a reality whose full weight would come crushing down to destroy her like a falling boulder. While she just sat there, Max could almost convince herself that nothing had happened after all, that Chloe was still alive, in some weird Schrödinger superposition of realities that were allowed to coexist until someone eventually observed them. But she felt - knew - that the moment she touched Chloe's heirlooms, she would collapse that possibility into nothingness and murder Chloe all over again. So she just sat, and breathed, and kept sitting until eventually, the moment passed and her existential dread lightened somewhat.
Then she grabbed the box and, in a Herculean effort, turned it over onto her bed to behold its contents.

The snow globe lay nestled between a robot panda keychain and an old photo of Max and Chloe beaming through the lens at William. Of all the things now strewn across her mattress, the globe had stood out to Max. What a whimsical thing for Chloe to keep. She held it up, shook it, and watched the little doe gaze back at her through a tangle of snow flakes. In all its naive innocence, it still reminded her of Chloe. Sure, Chloe had done a good job of hiding behind a tough, take-no-shit attitude. But underneath all that rage, she had just been a girl that had been hurt too badly, too many times, and that had cared too much to let go. And Max had been ever so fortunate to witness Chloe begin to finally heal, to outgrow her pain, and blossom into something so immeasurably precious.
Not here, though. Not now. Chloe was dead, buried and had never even begun to know that she had mattered at all to anyone. That had all been taken from her. Max would never get to make up for failing Chloe when she had needed her most. And nothing would ever be alright again. Not like this, not without Chloe.
White-hot rage flared up deep within Max, tore its way through her guts, her throat and up, up, up, until it filled her head with its blinding glare and all she could hear was the sound of her own screaming. Her arms moved beyond her control and sent the globe flying on its fatal trajectory.

The moment it burst with a sad, wet crunch, immediate regret flooded Max and quenched the flames of her anger. In its stead, only leaden emptiness remained, and Max let herself sink down like a stone to the bottom of the sea, devoid of all feeling and emotion. From there, she watched the water from the snow globe slowly stain the wall, and did not move until dusk fell outside.
When hunger and her dry throat eventually stirred her, Max gathered up the snow globe's shards. The doe had survived the impact, and she gingerly placed it upon the broken fragments of its former home. Maybe she could try and piece the globe back together, somehow? But some things, it seemed, were simply broken beyond hope. Once more, Max felt overwhelmingly powerless.
Powerless… Powerless!
A thought hit her like a thunderstorm and set every nerve within her ablaze with an electric tingling. Max darted to her bag to grab her phone, paper, a pen. Then back to her journal, and sure enough, there it was. She ripped a photograph from a page and sat down next to the snow globe's remains.
No, she thought. I am going to fix this. All of this.


Author's notes:

With autumn rolling around again, and everything going on in the world at large, this story is a little escape from reality. Life is strange has resonated with me in a way few other games - or media in general - have. And frankly, I've been yearning for some closure reagrding THAT choice for some time now. So, eventually, I wanted to try my hand at providing said closure, and I'd be thrilled if you enjoyed the result.

In a more general sense, the little writing I do tends to be hampered by paralysis by analysis, so this little story here also serves as an exercise to force myself to just put words on the page. With my cluttered schedule, I suspect this undertaking will be a slow going, but I've got the story roughly plotted out and fully intend to finish it over time. That said, I am always grateful for feedback, comments, and constructive criticism. Don't pull your punches: Is my prose too purple or pretentious?