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The world mourns in shades of grey and blue.
Absence seeps into the late of night, into the chamomile tea brewed to ease sleep, blotting the dark like watercolor on wet paper. It laments, painting the landscape with missing pigment and form. It floods the quiet with waves of silence—though it cannot kill the cicadas and the rustling wind, nor the forlorn hooting of owls.
It is the gentlest of requiems.
The sunset of the evening was beautiful, and still the Moon looks to cry tonight. She bleeds a murky blue into the mist, far from the clouds (wisps and froths lulling forward now, merely passing by as the cosmos weeps). The universe is finite and that will never be clearer than tonight, stars hidden away by the clouded veil, the universe unseeable.
Not a soul wanders the streets tonight—the wound is too fresh, carved in too deep, quickly becoming infected and red. It is already festering under the shroud of night. They said the compline in church, a final prayer before the lights were turned off and they hurried to their beds, crawled under the covers and started to cry. Not many of them would sleep tonight.
One tries. Pale light streams out of her window, a lonely patch in the terracotta wall. It, too, is colorless. Max has hunched over her desk, the manmade blue of a laptop still swirling sickly in her face, playing a video she’d clicked on hours before. Maybe it was a podcast, or lithograph tutorials or ambient music to calm her down. It hardly matters now. A notification sound—obtrusive and reverbed and squelchy—startles her awake from a perpetual nightmare.
Kate, she blurts, mind still half-lost to sleep, bones cracking with the sheer speed of her body sitting up at the tiny wooden desk. She doesn’t get an answer, and she should’ve known she wouldn’t, but it takes her a long breath and a look around the room to remember why. Because Kate is no longer there to answer. Kate left on the rooftop with the falling of rain, droplets melting into the tear tracks on her cheeks.
Max drops her head, checking the notification lighting up the pixels of her phone.
It is 11:34pm. Swiping the screen reveals a simple text from Chloe.
[I have something to show you meet me in front of campus] it says, bordered in orange. Chloe follows up with another message, but Max doesn’t read it. Her head throbs.
In the corner of the room Alice, Kate’s pet rabbit, scutters in her cage. She watches Max get up with her glassy, dark eyes, stomping her feet with quiet thudding sounds, thud, thud. Max had moved her cage out of Kate’s room after... after the evening, and now it would be the girl’s job to take care of her if nobody else stepped up. Maybe Kate’s sisters would be willing to take Alice in? They seemed like the caring sort, from the little Kate had ever mentioned in passing. Either way, Max feeds the rabbit a carrot before leaving her room, clicking the door shut behind herself.
Outside the building, moths fly against the artificial flame of a streetlight, wishing to set their filmy wings ablaze. They keep trying in vain. Though they cannot see it, a shell of glass keeps them safe from the pearl’s glint within. They will live a month longer, chasing the burning flame.
The hallway of the dormitory is pitch-black, with the exception of the flickering flashlight in Max’s hand and the swarm of candles on the doorstep of room 222. The doorway is crossed with yellow barricade tape. Max’s heart drops to her stomach.
A portrait of Kate sits framed in the midst of a candle ocean. In her photo, she smiles, looking young and carefree and untainted by everything from the past, unforgivable, just utterly shitty week. There are red flowers and crosses and small written messages left in the memorial shrine, all in the memory of Kate, whose light died out too soon. Max feels anger run up her veins and thrum in her blood. Had the same people who’d written notes now shown their compassion to Kate while she lived, Kate would still be here and not in the sub-zero temperatures of a morgue somewhere downtown. Kate, who loved to draw and do charity work and have tea parties and play the violin. Sweet Kate, who only saw the best in people and believed there were angels.
The anger dwindles down to a weak ember and Max unclenches her fist, too exhausted and heartbroken to let herself get riled up. She kneels to pick up a lit candle, lighting another with its trembling flame. This is my prayer for you, Kate, she mourns. Bless your gentle soul... The flames melt into a mirage in her blurry vision, becoming but dots of glowing light. Max herself was never that religious, the musty red carpets and hard wooden chairs her only real memories of going to church as a child (rarely as she went there), but for Kate she was willing to do anything. To Kate, faith had always been something cherished.
Max blinks her tears away and stands back up.
Down the hallway, an open door to a heavily postered room reveals another soul who couldn’t sleep the hurt of the evening away.
Hey Dana, Max offers quietly to the cheerleader sitting on the couch. How are you doing?
Dana’s eyes are redrimmed and glassy, though she clearly does her best to avoid Max’s gaze. She clutches her head, body drooping heavily against the red leather. I just can’t stop thinking about Kate... and if this is my fault too, her voice cracks. Kate was her friend, as far as Max knew.
I think we’re all responsible for what happened, Max tries, the words sounding hollow even to her own ears. Was there anything more she could’ve done? She should’ve listened more, been there...
Not you, Max. Dana looks her in the eyes, the blue of them now a grey. The world still looks so grey. You were close to her.
Max shakes her head. You were nice to Kate. That’s all she needed from everybody else here.
Dana frowns, and the regret in her eyes shines through—Max knows she’ll be seeing that expression a lot in the coming weeks. Kate’s shadow will keep looming over the academy.
The rest of the conversation flows through Max’s brain like water down a drain, something about Victoria and the Vortex Club and people sneaking out tonight. Dana looks tired as she talks about it, and Max pities her. Kate wouldn’t want this.
Get some sleep too, Dana, Max urges. I’ll see you later.
Dana hangs her head low and sniffles. Max pats her on the shoulder, really tries to put some warmth into it even as her own body feels frozen solid. She doesn’t know if she succeeds, but she has to head off. Chloe must be impatient already.
Outside, fireflies glow green. They are small dots in the dark of night. One of the streetlamps has burned out. The schoolgrounds look empty without the bustle of students, the lonely benches and grass patches awaiting friends. The campus looks like a cemetery.
Max knows there is another altar of candles and crosses at the root of the stairway, but she quickly rushes past it. Her heart can only take so much, mind chanting Kate, Kate, Kate...
Even though it is late, Principal Wells sits on one of the porches, slouched in on himself as he talks in a hushed voice. At first, Max thinks he’s on the phone, but quickly realizes there is no one he’s talking to. She tries to sneak her way past, but the old stager sees her in the dark.
Miss Caulfield, he starts, sounding weary. You have to be stealthier than that. You’re not supposed to be outside your dormitory at this hour. You know that.
I’m sorry, Principal Wells, Max apologizes, feeling any prospect of fight drain out of her limbs. She has barely slept a quarter hour and the mood in the dormitory is suffocating. I’m still upset about Kate, she therefore explains, biting her lip. I needed some air and space to walk.
The principal clenches his jaw, the muscles and teeth wired unnaturally tightly together. I’m sorry you had to go through that today. You tried to help, but...
She tunes his voice out and focuses instead on a workable way to sneak past, her mind not functioning quite as well as she’d like it to. With everything that had happened earlier—forcing herself to rewind until utter failure as she stumbled to the rooftop—she’d lost quite a bit of blood from her nosebleeds, already a bit anaemic anyway. The light-headedness wasn’t seeming to go away any time soon.
In the end, her powers come in handy, and she manages to rush past the unknowing principal fumbling with his keys.
For whatever reason, Chloe thinks it is the perfect night to pull a scare on her, blue hair and dark leather emerging from seemingly nowhere to boo in her face, but even she quickly realises Max isn’t having it tonight.
Chloe, I watched my friend jump off a roof today, Max grounds out, feeling a frown tug down at her lips and her eyebrows furrow. I don’t think you need to prank me tonight. You always trip out on me for not being there for you but... is this how you’re there for me?
Chloe does look apologetic then, eyes darting around. I’m–I’m sorry, Max. I... I wasn’t even thinking, she stutters, finally choosing to look at the ground. I suck.
I’m not trying to be a bitch but... Max rubs between her eyes at the spot where her headache is exponentially worsening, I’ll never get the image out of my head of Kate jumping off that roof. All because my power didn’t work. She chokes up. ...It didn’t mean shit.
The blue-haired girl steps closer, grinding her teeth together in a nervous tic before she speaks up hesitantly. I know seeing Kate fall was horrible, Chloe says. I don’t even know how to deal with that, so I just... act like an idiot. But it’s your badass power that’s going to bring all this to a close. We just need to connect the players. She rubs at the back of her neck, the fireflies flying past behind her in an animated scene.
Max feels newborn determination curl at the base of her spine, seeking to be voiced. And find out who really killed Kate, she rushes to add, crossing her arms. We have to stop this from happening to anybody else.
Chloe goes on to quip about something and Max does her best to respond, but her memory stays stuck on the rooftop of the academy, in a moment mere hours before. The golden cross on Kate’s necklace had been the last thing to hit the ground. Max suddenly feels like vomiting, mind reeling until Chloe starts talking about Rachel and she has to compose herself. The blue-haired girl’s voice always goes soft as she talks about her missing... well, they must have been lovers of a sort. Or at least that's how Chloe paints the picture.
They need to stay strong for each other. It’s just Max and Chloe now.
After crossing the schoolgrounds and witnessing a very concerning interaction they’d rather not fixate their thoughts on, the two end up breaking into the school building (all Chloe’s idea, Max feels apprehensive about it at best). The hallways are dark and dusty, the floors sparsely littered with paper scraps and trash.
You can rewind if we get caught, right? Chloe states, too laid-back and normal about everything as she tends to be. You have mad powers, Max.
The reminder stings like the stab of a dagger to the heart.
Tell that to Kate, Max whispers and Chloe shuts her mouth.
They search around the school for a while, looking for clues, anything to tell them about Rachel’s fate. About Kate’s. At one point, Max stumbles onto a pile of photographs stacked atop one another haphazardly. One of them is Victoria’s, the other Daniel’s, but there is also one shot by Kate, in it a firefighter aiding a child and a grandma. Oh Kate, Max thinks, grazing her finger over the crinkled edge of the photograph and frowning. Even when you were sad you tried to see the good in the world.
As she returns her way to Chloe, stepping away from the clutter of the classrooms, she passes by Kate’s locker in the hallway. It looks so lonely, blue metal reflecting Max’s face with her flashlight, and it seems that Kate’s memory is etched into every corner of the building, into every dust particle and every crack in the wall paint. It hasn’t even been half a day.
Progress is slow, the sand in the hourglass wet and unmoving. The duo get their first clues after recruiting Warren and blowing up the door to Principal Wells’ office. Max and Chloe snoop around his files and emails, sneaking from one tab to another and opening feeds with the click of a mouse. They don’t find much, with the blatant exception of a drawing on the computer screen signed by Nathan, and written proof that Chloe’s step-douche definitely knows something about the strange things going on...
‘Rachel in the dark room’ reads the drawing, pencil lead etched in overlapping text and messy lines. Max’s blood goes icy for a brief moment, before Chloe speaks up again and they try to move past it.
They head out before the entire Arcadia Bay police force can arrive, leaving the office with more questions than answers.
Chloe suggests going the pool. Max complies. This is often the formula with them.
Max plunges into the water behind the blue-haired girl, the surface of the heated water shattering against her body before she swims up to her friend. The dark blue stripes on the bottom of the pool are visible under the lit turquoise water, and Max thinks the pale pink of her bra stands out too much against it. Chloe doesn’t comment, thankfully, too busy cracking jokes.
A waterfight ensues, which neither of the girls win. It doesn’t matter—the fight doesn’t last long anyway.
I wish Rachel was here, Chloe says, turning to float on her back. Watching the profile of her face, Max sees sadness settle into her features. She would totally love being in here at night. Wish you guys had met each other...
Max turns to float too. We will. With all this stuff going on, I’m starting to think everything is related... Water laps against her chin, small ripples caused by the movement of her limbs. And I want to find out why for Kate’s sake. She didn’t deserve to die...
Chloe frowns. Max doesn’t see it but she hears it in the tone shift of her voice. Your power is changing everything, Max, the blue-haired girl comforts. Especially you. I can already tell. You’re not so chickenshit anymore.
The joke isn’t A-tier but it’s enough. Max does chuckle lightly at it. Thanks, girlfriend.
They swim up to the edge of the pool to talk, pale skin reflecting light blue, the pool tiles slippery and cool under their arms. It’s a stark contrast to the warmth of the water.
You know what I mean, Chloe continues. Max takes the chance to sneak a glance at the girl’s sleeve tattoo—red flowers and blue butterflies and a golden skull. You’re becoming like this force of nature.
More like luck of nature, Max states, insecure. Come on, my power failed trying to rescue Kate... Maybe I’m just stumbling back and forth in time... for what reason?
You didn’t stumble when you saved me, Max.
Max can’t say anything to that, biting the inside of her cheek until she tastes iron, a very bad habit that she can't seem to shake. She thinks of how she couldn’t save Kate, but had saved Chloe. Multiple times.
The blue-haired girl inhales. It’s time to start moving forward in time. And we’re obviously connected since without me you would have never discovered your power, right?
Max allows for a small smile. Absolutely. You make me feel like I know what I’m doing.
And you make me feel like I have a reason for still being in Arcadia Bay.
I hope so...
Stop being so goddamn humble. You’re like the smartest, most talented person I’ve ever known.
More than Rachel Amber?
It isn’t the right thing to say by a long shot, and Chloe gives her a disapproving look, but they quip about it and all ends well. The chill of the air starts biting Max’s nose, and her hair feels dried by chemicals, but she forgets all of that for a fleeting, serene moment. Two girls at a pool, lifting each other out of the deep end.
Don’t look so sad, Chloe whispers at the end of their short conversation. I’m never leaving you... The sound of her voice is uncharacteristically gentle and warm. She looks pretty, Max thinks. The aspiring photographer leans her head against her arms and looks at the other girl, a silent smile on her lips. If all else goes wrong, at least they’ll still have each other. Max and Chloe against the world, for Rachel and for Kate.
They escape the pool and narrowly avoid being caught by a patrolling guard, hiding together in a cramped bathroom stall before making a run for it.
Chloe drives her pickup truck back to her house with Max on the passenger’s seat. Her auburn hair drips water onto the fabric cover (in desperate need of some patching and mending, maybe she could help with that). The cold is seeping into her body quickly, but with Chloe at her side, she finds that she doesn’t mind.
When they arrive, the house is dead silent—nobody else is awake, which they are glad for. Chloe would be grounded for life if Joyce and David found the two breaking into the school at night to have a secret swimming meetup.
In Chloe’s room, the blue-haired girl strips to her underwear and puts on a clean t-shirt, quickly falling asleep on her bed, but not before gesturing for Max to do the same and join her. With only a hint of embarrassment, Max does so and struggles to fall asleep under the stripes of an unironed American flag and a wall mural of pin-up poster girls in risqué outfits. She lays there surrounded by heaps of dirty laundry.
But even as she tries to get some shut-eye, tosses and turns in the crumpled sheets and feels the back of her neck sweat, sleep comes to her painfully slowly. It lulls between flashes of thunder and dark clouds, emerges from somewhere in the gaps of a memory with a golden cross and the falling of rain, and the heart-breaking sound of a collision.
Max wakes up to the storm again, lying down on wet cliffside rock under a towering lighthouse. She blinks groggily, trying to wake herself up. Wasn’t she just in Chloe’s room, after they’d been to the pool? Hadn't they fled to Chloe's house, covered by wet clothes and the smell of chlorine. But this moment feels more like the future, or rather the present. And it has to be—Max has been to the dark room. She has seen everything, felt the GHB run up the veins of her neck and blackout her brain, heard the shutter of the camera and flash surround her like some sick, digital circus.
The photos in Kate’s red binder, in Rachel’s red binder. They’d gone to the junkyard with Chloe before everything went to shit, or maybe it had already gone to shit a long time ago. What had they been doing? They were... digging something up, the smell of decay and rot and the feel of tarp the only traces of it left in her memory. The doe had been there, watching from a distance. Or had it? Maybe it was just her imagination, because Max cannot remember anything clearly.
She's somewhere in the limbo between life and death.
The storm is a monster on the horizon, black and white monochromatic atop the crashing sea. It roars and rips apart the closest buildings on the shoreline, picking up sand and rock as it moves forward and to a photographer’s attentive eye, it looks strangely like a blazing wildfire. The thought is an epiphany.
This is the catalyst, Max knows now, connecting the pieces to the small town puzzle and taking in a breath as if she had only now learned how to breathe for real. This is Rachel.
Raindrops pour onto her face violently, the wind whipping against her weak form with the speed of a hurricane. She stands up, limping towards the bench at the lighthouse’s base, where she remembers the doe once waiting for her with patient eyes. The earth beneath her feet alternates between crumbling and getting mushed, turning into mud against the soles of her shoes until she is slipping and tripping down onto her knees rather than moving forward.
She almost reaches it before the bench disappears in front of her eyes and she finds herself in a void, floating in the absence of gravity. She has been here before, but only once, traveling through time and photographs and trying to follow the correct path, to create the correct reality.
Please, Max finds herself praying to no one in particular, feeling the void fill her lungs and throat, suffocating her until her voice goes out. Just give me one more chance. I can find a way to fix this, to bring an end to it. To save Kate. To save Chloe!
And as quickly as it appeared, as if it had listened, the void dissipates into a scenery of green and a sunny blue sky opens up above. Max gasps for air, face dropping into the weedy blades of grass cushioning her body as she struggles to catch her breath. Her throat feels lined with barbed wire and thorns. When she finally manages to look up, the doe from her visions is there, staring at her with knowing, brown eyes. And how could Max not have seen it before? How could she have been so blind all this time...
Defeated, Max feels a teardrop run down her cheek, cold and wet and salty as it reaches the corner of her mouth. I'm sorry, she says to the doe, feeling her voice crack and her hands dig into the sullied earth of the junkyard. Dirt buries itself underneath her fingernails. I'm so sorry Rachel. This is as far back as I can go. I–I can’t save you...
The doe stands still, completely unmoving with its head held up high. It listens with attentive ears.
I’m so sorry... Max repeats, the guilt building in her stomach and making her feel nauseous. She clutches her stomach in pain.
The doe goes to bow its head, but it sees something behind the crying girl. Its ears perk up and its eyes shine bright.
Max, a voice shouts from somewhere, and the girl turns around to see Chloe quickly approaching, a cocky grin on her face. Max wants to let out a gasp, flail her hands around and seek the embrace of the girl only steps away. Chloe looks alive.
Max, what the hell? You look like shit, she says, oblivious to the storm and the fate of the doe and everything in the dark room. Did you find those bottles?
Chloe, Max says, glancing back to look at the doe but it has already faded away. That is all the assurance Max needs. She stands up abruptly, grabbing onto the other girl's shoulders, who startles only slightly at the force. Chloe, we have to go back to Blackwell. We need to save Kate!
Chloe's eyebrows furrow in bewilderment. Kate, as in Kate Marsh? What the hell’s wrong with her? Is this something to do with your mad time travel fucknanigans?
I'll explain on the way, Max answers, wasting no time in heading back. Gravel, glass and twigs crunch under their hurried steps, but their sounds go ignored in the face of every new revelation. I'm going to save her. And Chloe, she shoots her blue-haired friend a determined look. I'm going to save you. I promised Rachel.
The blue-haired girl’s eyes widen and there is hope in them, more than there has been for a long time now. Rachel? You know where she is?
Max nods.
I have so much to tell you.