Chapter 12: Ground Zero

Max

July 25th, 2017

12:17 PM

High Providence, Meridian Prime

Portal Gateway

As my sister/cousin and I walk through the portal, I fumble back on the floor. Landing on my back and coughing up blood. My skin burnt and my clothes and gear were torn to shreds. Alex bends her knees to tend to me.

Alex: Max! Jesus Christ, Max. You're coughing up blood! You're not gonna make it!

David: (comms) Max, come in! Its David! Max? Alex? Does anyone read?!

Alex: David, it's me. I read you, but Max is in bad shape. She took a whiff of that fire breath back there and I don't think she's gonna make it.

David: (comms) Holy shit. Max, if you're hearing this, please say something. Anything!

Max: (coughing) I feel like death, David. (cough)

David: (comms) Oh, Max. I'm sorry. Please hang in there.

Then Chronos's voice is heard through my mind. Offering aid to my critical condition.

Chronos: (telepath) Max, it's me again. Hold still. Let time heal your wounds.

The Time Shard on my gauntlet lights up. Then I feel a slight sting inside my body. Chronos was linking his power to the shard for the shard's power to heal my heavy wounds. Alex watches it happen. The shard's power combined with Chronos's dissolves the burns that scared half my flesh from my left arm towards my left cheek. Once the healing process is finished, I gasp for air and breathe back in. Then I sit up once I'm fully healed. Alex touches my shoulder to ease me up.

Alex: What just happened?

Max: Chronos. He healed me.

Bryan: (comms) Is that Max? Put her on. Max, it's Bryan. Come in. Are you okay? Is Alex still with you?

Max: I'm okay, Bryan. Barely. Alex is fine, too.

Bryan: (comms) Oh, thank goodness. What happened? David told me you were badly hurt.

Max: I'm alright now. Chronos was able to heal me. Where are you? We just walked through the portal gateway.

Bryan: (comms) We're on the inside, too. But I think we came in through a different gateway. Look like David, Cayce, Captain Cage, and Heard, and are in High Providence. The ruins of it anyway. By now, Joanna and Alkaline must have a head start on us. We should to the ark pronto. Do you two still have the codex?

Alex: Yes, we do, Dad. Tell David and the others we'll catch up and meet you at the ark if possible. I'll take good care of Max. Alex out.

Alex helps me up on my feet and the two of us start walking out of the portal gateway. My wounds were healed but my clothes and gears were still shredded. I was going to have to live with it for the rest of the mission.

Surrounding us are some ancient markings on a wall. We're definitely in a ruin of some kind. We have to be inside High Providence by now.

Alex: Max, you need to slow down, okay? Getting yourself killed is not gonna win us this war any quicker.

Max: Rachel was right about one thing. This is a one-way trip. And if I'm gonna die on this island, I'm taking Ares with me.

Alex: Just don't ever go running out there like that again, okay? I still need you with me.

As we make our exit, we make our grand entrance into High Providence. What we see before our eyes is our dream come reality. The lost city of High Providence and its Ark of Genesis towering the center of the ancient underground city. It was a beautiful sight to behold. The city itself was built with ancient buildings that appeared to be older than King Arthur's time. The Ark of Genesis was a very tall pyramid with a massive blue light on top of it. Something we never thought we'd see for real since our childhoods.

Max: My god.

Alex: Holy, shit. Would you look at that?

Max: Alex Caulfield, welcome to High Providence.

Alex: This must be ground zero.

Max: And that must be the ark. Something we've dreamt of seeing since we were kids.

Alex: So, I guess this is it, huh?

Max: Yeah, this is it.

Alex: I need you to promise me something. If I don't make it, you'll get this done, right?

Max: We'll get this done, Alex. You and me.

Alex: Yeah, but…if I don't…I helped get us this far. And that's close enough for all this to count, right?

Max: Count for what?

Alex: For – I don't know, just…all the bad I've done.

Max: Alex, please. You've done nothing bad. Not on purpose.

Alex: I got you involved in a museum heist in Seattle that nearly got me killed, destroyed our family…Max, I betrayed you on that cliffside when Joanna spilled the truth. Is any of that not bad for you?

Max: We all do bad things, Alex. But that doesn't mean we can't own up to them. I know you can.

Alex: (chuckles and smiles) Yeah, hey, Max. Just so you know, I'm sorry I manipulated you into this. And I'll show it to you. Not tell it.

Max: I know you will. No turning back now, right?

Alex: Not at all. Let's go meet up with Dad and David and get to that ark.

Alex and I walk down some stairs. Between the staircase are statues with movie spears. Pointing in the direction we're walking. It wouldn't be our golden ticket nor our red carpet to High Providence with mechanized statues to show us the way.

Alex: Even the statues get to be our welcoming committee. Somehow, I knew they would since I was sixteen.

At the bottom of the staircase, we see an old fountain that appears to have water still running. Water that must be centuries old. The water even looked fresh, too. Talk about water supply aging like grace.

Alex: Incredible.

The two of us approach the fountain with the running water to observe it.

Max: This is how the city could thrive down here. The whole place must be fed by an underground spring.

I dig into the water and drink it with my one hand that scoops it. The water tasted fresh as I predicted.

Max: It's clean. Amazingly, it's still running after all these years.

I take another scoop with my two hands to drink more. Alex just takes the water and splashes it on her face and hair to clean herself up.

After our refreshments with the fountain, Alex and I step away and walk near a ledge. Where we could see the light above the ark was now glowing red. When the light was blue just a minute ago. Awkward. We turn our heads to each other. Awed by the change of the light's color.

Alex: Now that's a hell of a thing.

Then suddenly, the bang of a gunshot roars through our ears. We pause and tremble in shock. Then a blood stain is seen spilled inside Alex's shirt. Alex turns her head downward to see her wound. The bullet had hit her through the heart!

Alex: Wha -?

Max: No.

Alex drops to her knees and I catch her by the arms. Behind her is Joanna and Alkaline at a distance between us. The latter holding a sniper rifle in his two hands. It was his gun that shot Alex. Joanna and Alkaline themselves walk away from us while I stare at Alex's lesser-than-life body.

Max: Alex…Alex, no, please! No!

I lay down Alex's lifeless form flat on our ground. Her body bleeding from the gunshot wound to her chest, her eyes open, her mouth dropped, her face cold and flatlined like a pouched animal. Alex was dead.

Max: Alex!

I then take a step backward. This can't be. I can't lose Alex again. Not like this! Alex was lying dead on the floor. Similar to how Frank did when Chloe shot him in Arcadia Bay. Before I rewound. God, no. I lost her again!

I turn my head back towards Joanna Prescott and Elias Alkaline. Who enters a lift of some kind with mechanized doors. The two get on the lift with Alkaline still holding his sniper rifle that shot and killed Alex with a one-shot and a one-kill. The two take a glance at me maliciously. Then the doors of the lift closed in front of them. The left then descended the two to where they were going which would unquestionably be the ark. They were one step ahead of us. My face is painted with rage. Wanting them to pay for killing Alex. And that's when I chase after them.

Before I could reach for the elevator lift, ConDef soldiers stopped me in my tracks. Shooting at me in their sights right before I jump for cover. Of course, they would. With Lady Joanna and General Alkaline here, their muscle couldn't be too far behind. I pick up a rifle and start shooting back at them. As I hit one ConDef soldier with my bullets, the soldier then exploded into flames. A fire demon of some kind which was off-putting. A demon that resembled one of the Revenant variants of the undead Fallen army Ares was controlling. The soldier himself was now a walking match lit with red-hot infernal fire. Still firing his rifle at me. What was going on here? Was this Ares's doing?

I shoot back at the demonic soldier and he burst into oblivion. The soldier explodes into nothing when I eliminate him. Something wasn't right here.

More ConDef troops came and I fought back with my rifle and time powers. Dodging bullets with my Time Dash and deflecting them with my Time Shield. Every soldier I successfully hit transforms into fiery Revenants. This had to be Ares's handy work. Whatever magic he had given Alkaline's men, it seemed to have worked each time a bullet struck them.

Once every enhanced ConDef trooper is eliminated, the door to the lift opens, and that is when I make my way down. As I'm on the lift, the door shut and the elevator takes me downward. As I make my descent, I try and process everything that just occurred in the last five minutes. The light on the ark turned red, Alex was dead, and those ConDef troops transformed into Revenants as soon as I shot them all. What was happening here? Was that all real? Did any of that just happen?

The elevator comes to a stop. Then the doors slide open. And then Alkaline appeared at the doors who seemed to have been waiting for me to come down. Alkaline smirks and chuckles with malice. Then finally, he tossed a smoke grenade at me to blind me before the ConDef general ran away. I cough up the smoke and run past it. Seeing Alkaline running off with a clear visual. I was now pursuing him.

Max: Alkaline! Come back here you son of a bitch!

I chase after Alkaline through the ruins of High Providence. This chase was going to be more personal than our chase back in Rome.

Max: You're dead! Do you hear me?! You're dead! You're gonna pay for killing Alex!

I shoot my rifle at Alkaline but I seem to miss every time he dodges my shots. Even when he was in my line of fire. That can't be right! Something here just wasn't right!

Max: You come back here, you…!

Alkaline turns toward a corner. I follow him past that corner in my pursuit, but as soon as I do, Alkaline is gone. Just a dead end and a concrete wall.

Max: Where did he go?

I turn around and I'm no longer in High Providence. I'm in the Tillamook Woods. The camping grounds I went to when I was ten. The camping trip I went to with Chloe, Alex, my dad, Uncle Bryan, and William. What the actual fuck?

Max: This is impossible. Where the hell am I? These are the Tillamook Woods. I haven't been here since I was a kid. What's going on with me?

My eyes didn't deceive me or so I thought. These were the same woods I camped out at eleven years back. What was I on? What was in that water I drank from the fountain that looked too clean to be polluted? Was I poisoned or drugged with some kind of hallucinogenic in the water?

As I'm walking through the woods, I hear screams and roars behind. The familiar sound of Fallen Revenants behind me. Manifesting out of nowhere as a whole horde of them was now chasing me like the zombies they are.

Max: Huh? Oh, shit. Oh, no. Oh, no!

I start running through the woods while being chased by heard of Revenants. There were too many of them to shoot down while I was running wasn't going to dry up my magazine just trying to shoot a couple as I ran.

Max: This can't be happening!

As I run past a tree, I transform into my ten-year-old self with the clothing I wore to the camping trip. Still running from the horde. This was Night of the Living Dead or The Walking Dead type shit.

After that, I slip into a ditch that comes out of nowhere and then I find myself falling and screaming down a narrow hole. Then, I fall on a smooth surface of some kind. I get up to see myself transitioned to my seventeen-year-old self and inside the Burke Museum in Seattle which Alex and I broke into the year before I returned to Arcadia Bay. Revenants were still coming and I still got up and ran for my life. Running past halls, museum exhibits, and displays as the Fallen horde kept pursuing me. In whatever vision of my past, I was in and however it was occurring.

Then I find myself transitioning into the sewers under the museum. The same sewers I escaped from the museum guards in with Alex, Fernando, and Kristen. And then I see Alex as her twenty-year-old self near the edge of a sewer pipe. Alex falls and I run after her.

Max: Alex, no!

I catch Alex's arm in the nick of time. Hanging onto her by the ledge. Same way I did when she allegedly died in my arm.

Max: I got you, Alex. Hold on!

Alex: Max, help me.

Max: Hang on. I'll pull you.

Alex: Save me. Please.

The gunshot rings and the bullet pierces across Alex's skin. Her mouth leaking blood. Then she falls as the water current in the sewer takes her. Just how it went down all those years ago.

Max: No! Alex!

Then comes the most bizarre hallucination yet. I'm transported to not a memory from my past with Alex. But rather to a relic from a bygone era that took place in my senior year in high school. Back when my time rewinding saga all began. I was sitting down in Mark Jefferson's classroom inside Blackwell Academy. Monday morning of October 7th, 2013. How could I be here again? I feel like I've already experienced enough of this Jefferson lecture to last a lifetime.

Jefferson: Alfred Hitchcock famously called the film "little pieces of time," but he could be talking…

The scene was so accurate. I was sitting down at my seat and table. Mark Jefferson lectured the class on the table he was leaning against. Taylor throws the paper ball at Kate. Victoria's phone goes off. Everyone from Alyssa, Daniel, Stella, and Hayden was in class as well. How could this be so? Whatever I was on, wanted me to relieve this exhausting moment in class again. But why?

While Jefferson was talking in class, I turned to my right to see not the beautiful scenery of the Blackwell courtyard, but the hellish gray skies that had been clouding over the Meridian Prime warzone. Raining the meteors that had been spawning Fallen variants. Then, while Victoria answered Jefferson's question about Diane Arbus, Fallen Revenants spawned on the courtyard grounds. Marching their way towards the windows of the classroom. As they reached the windows, they began banging on the glass.

Everyone but me was oblivious to the situation. This was reminiscent of my nightmare back during the Arcadia Storm but with birds falling to their deaths replaced with Revenant variants of the Fallen. The Revenants themselves kept snarling, roaring, and hitting the glass with their monstrous hands to break into the classroom. The glass itself was now cracking and as soon as the glass reached its breaking point, the windows shattered loudly. Its shards breezed across the room as I flinched my head the other way and covered it with my right hand while shutting my eyes to keep myself unharmed from the flying glass. When I opened my eyes, the classroom was empty.

I then get off my seat and look around the classroom. There were no propaganda posters in the classroom. With images of me with the words: ENEMY and ConDef soldiers underneath. Even posters of Ares with the words: EON AUTERNUM written down. There were also pictures of Meridian Prime with the heavy fighting between Chrysalis, ConDef, and the Fallen on the island. Even more disturbing pictures of Ares beheading me. Yikes! I even see graffiti on the table Jefferson sat down on. Saying: The Traveler must die. I even picked up the paper ball Taylor threw at Kate. I unwrap it and the note says: I hope they remember you. – Ares.

As I attempt to exit the classroom, Jefferson stops me.

Jefferson: I see you, Max Caulfield. Don't even think about leaving here until we talk about your entry.

I cringe at the idea of what this imaginary Jefferson has to say to me this time. Without much choice, I turn around and approach my former art teacher. Dreading what he'll say to me and what I'll say to him back.

Jefferson: Max, I just want you to know –

Max: Stop! No, don't tell me. You want me to come to your dark room because my purity inspires you so much. Well, I've got news for you. The answer is no! Goodbye, Mark.

Jefferson: Not so fast. Please, hear me out for just one minute. May I?

I concede. Not that I wanna hear anything he has to say, but I have to.

Jefferson: Firstly, call me Jefferson. Not Mark. Secondly, the dark room could not be further from this discussion. You astound me, Max. I've truly underestimated you from the time you first enrolled in my course until now. You've come so long since that shy geek in class. First, you make me your enemy. Then there was Derrick Crosby. Now there's Ares. I could never picture you four years ago overcoming such adversaries. Yet here we are. Ever the survivor you are.

Max: Is that why I'm here, Jefferson? So you can flatter me about Crosby and Ares? Two enemies of mine which both give you a run for your money?

Jefferson: Please, Max. I'm not even competition with those two and wouldn't dream of trying to come on top of them. I once thought you were disposable when I wanted to capture you for my work. I now realize it was a mistake too. You and I are not so different. The years between this room and now have proven to me we are more alike than ever before.

Max: (scoffs) We are nothing alike. Period!

Jefferson: Oh, but we are. And it's not just our talent for photography. It is the common pasts we share. I too was scrutinized by Joanna Prescott as well. In fact, we were both lovers once in my day.

Max: You were what?!

Jefferson: Who do you think I was on the phone with when you talked to me about Kate? Joanna had been on your case since you left Seattle. I was one of her plants watching you as well with my status as a Heard of Whales member. Then there was Crosby and Sean Prescott when you were being framed for Arcadia's destruction. Once the three of us were out of the picture, it was down to Joanna herself and her new lover General Alkaline.

Max: Why are you telling me this? Why should I believe a man who tried to murder me in his dark room? Much less a figment of him?

Jefferson: Whether you want to believe me is all down to you. Joanna had also been monitoring your friends, too. Chloe Price, Rachel Amber, and even your cousin Alex Caulfield. Or should I call her your sister you left for dead in a sewer?

Max: I don't need this from you. You're dead to me and I don't gotta believe anything you say.

Jefferson: No, you don't, Max. What you do need is to WAKE UP!

Jefferson slaps me and then I wake up back in High Providence. I'm back on the elevator lift I took. The doors are open and I walk out back into the same aisle I had chased Alkaline in. Or so I thought. My vision is a bit different than before. Everything is now hazy and blurry. Whatever poison I took was far from worn off.

Max: Oh, no. Oh, God. What is this?

With no other route to go, I simply walk down the path from before in High Providence.

Max: Everything, everything is moving. I gotta get out. I gotta get moving. No, no, no…no. What is this? What is happening?

At the end of the aisle, my vision clears up a bit, and find myself at a door past the corner Alkaline disappeared to. I try opening the door and there's no way to.

Max: Oh, there's no way out. There's no way out. (turns around) Oh, no.

Then I hear the lift behind me move again. Someone was coming down after me. More ConDef troops had manifested as they came out. Whether they were real or not matted none. I needed to take them down.

Max: They're here. I'm gonna kill them!

A grenade launch lies in front of me and I pick it up to blow their asses into smithereens.

Max: You killed Alex! I'll kill you. You killed Alex. I kill all of you!

I fire the launch and three of them go up in smoke. Some of them are dead before they transform into Revenants. I even use my Time Freeze on a pack of them to stop them in their tracks. Then fire a grenade on them. Then they're all blown away with a single explosion as soon as the Time Freeze wears down. Everyone's eliminated. I drop the launcher and return to the door.

Keep it together, Max. You can get through this hallucination. One way or another.

As the door is open, I walk inside a room with another fountain. Much bigger than the last one. Except this one was empty. No water running whatsoever. At the end of the room, I see another likely mirage. It was Alex at the other end of the room.

Max: Alex? Alex?! Hey, Alex! No, no, no, she's…

Alex then walks out of the room from the door at her side. The door itself seemed to close behind her and not with solid doors. The door alone manifested some kind of wall out of thin air blocking the exit from me as I tried running towards it.

Max: Alex, I…I…no, no, no.

As the doorway is sealed with no way out, I turn around again and see a pump on the front side of the fountain. I walk towards it and push it downward. Then in comes actual water pouring into the fountain. As the water is finished filling up, I see reflection of myself in the water. Walking towards a spinning wheel built on the left side of the fountain. Whatever the reflection was about and why it stopped there, it must mean I had to walk towards it.

I'm at the spinning wheel and I turn the wheel leftwards. My own reflection is spinning the wheel in the same direction as well. Once I'm done turning the wheel, my reflection in the water starts walking elsewhere. I follow my own reflection towards the other wheel on the right side. I do the obvious and start spinning the wheel rightwards this time with my reflection following suit.

Once I'm done turning, I see a small bright light in the water at the center of the fountain. Whatever it was, was I going after it. I step into the shallow water of the fountain. Getting my shoes and pants wet as I do. I reach into the light and pull something heavy from it. When I'm done pulling, I see myself staring at me angrily. My other me seizes me by my throat and she tosses me in a gaping hole in the middle of whatever. I fall down the hole and scream for mercy. Falling into a bright light into nothingness. And when I'm done falling, I find myself in another memory of mine.

I now find myself back inside Chloe's truck. On the same Monday I reunited with her four years ago. If memory served correctly, Chloe just saved my ass from Nathan Prescott in the Blackwell parking lot and Chloe is now driving me to her house. Whatever reason I had to relive this memory was beyond me.

Max: Man, Nathan Prescott is messed up. And dangerous. This day never ends.

Chloe: "Oh, and thanks, Chloe." After five years, you're still Max Caulfield.

Another blast from the past for whatever fucked up reason this fucked up hallucinogenic was making me rehash it.

Chloe: Don't give me the guilty face. At least pretend you're glad to see me. Or maybe you'd rather see Alex right about now.

Max: What?

Chloe: Don't play dumb with me. I know why you've been bailing on me all these years. It all fits now, doesn't it?

Here we go.

Chloe: So, what? My dad dies, you move, and you replace me with your cousin, sister, whatever. Is that it?

Max: No, Chloe that's not it. I didn't replace you.

Chloe: You might as well have. You didn't call, you didn't write, not once did you even so much as send me an email all those years you were gone! Why? Because you'd rather be stuck in your misfit adventures with Alex Caulfield. That's why.

Max: Chloe, that's not you talking. It's this fucked up hallucination or whatever. It's not like Rachel replaced me like you think Alex replaced you.

Chloe: That's totally different, Max. I'm not the one who left. You were. Rachel had my back. Alex had yours. Whoopty-doo. You couldn't have me and Alex in your life? Was nothing we had five years then special?

Max: Chloe, stop it! This isn't you!

Chloe: No, you stop it! This is me! My life has been so fucked up in this fucked up little town that you couldn't write one love letter to me from Seattle, could you? You wanted to go on your dream adventure to Meridian Prime to find the Ark of Genesis. Well, you got your wish, Max. Now Alex is shot dead and Rachel is buried six feet under, too. And I hope you're happy. Now…WAKE THE FUCK UP!

I now suddenly gasp awake. Not toward another hallucinogenic memory. But back to reality. I appear to be inside the fountain I was just at. Only this time, it's empty again. And there are skeletal remains scattered inside with broken pottery lying around, too. Even the doorway where I had seen a fake Alex is unsealed as well. Part of me knew I was no longer hallucinating and the poison I must've drank from that other fountain had just worn off as well. The question was, did Alex die in front of me? Or was that an illusion, too?

Note: As of writing and uploading this chapter, I have finished and played Life Is Strange: Double Exposure. Such a mixed bag of a game and the first LIS title that might be the most mid yet. Which is unfortunate considering it is the first game since the original to bring back Max Caulfield as the protagonist. Hoping there's still a bright future for the LIS franchise Deck Nine could still bring us. Say no more. Do tell me what you thought of the game in the reviews if you can.

Stay tuned and golden!