Author's Preface
"Max... it's time."
Dread unfurled through her body as she stood on the cliff next to the lighthouse, watching the menacing tornado creep closer towards Arcadia Bay, a monster she created. Everything that happened, all the death and destruction, was her fault. All she had to do to undo her mistakes was to go back in time through her photo, the one she took of the blue butterfly in the girl's bathroom back in Blackwell and...
Max squinted hard in contempt. She couldn't even mentally put the words together what she had to do.
Standing right beside her was none other than the reason for all her decisions, Chloe Price. Her best friend, her partner in crime, whom hadn't always been the most pleasant of individuals, especially to her, was now offering her life in exchange for everyone else.
After everything they had been through, their reunion, their fun, their fights, their adventures, and every other nook-and-cranny of moments they had shared up until this moment... all of it had to be erased for the 'greater good'.
No.
It can't be.
After all this... was she really supposed to just let her best friend die, believing she had been abandoned? Was she really meant to die, not knowing what happened to Rachel? Believing she had no one? Was she really meant to just bleed to death in some smelly old bathroom, with Nathan Prescott standing over her corpse?
"IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT!?"
The bluenette standing next to Max flinched at her sudden outburst. She wasn't yelling at her, but rather at the storm, or whoever up there was the twisted mastermind of all this.
The short brunette stared outward, panting in fury, the photo clenched in one of her fists. Choosing to say nothing out of fear that it would sway her decision, Chloe waited. It had to be this way.
"No..." she heard her mutter.
Before Chloe was given a second to process what Max meant, Max tore up the photo and let the wind carry it away from her hands.
"Max!"
"This is MY timeline!" Max cried, eyes welling.
Chloe froze in shock, and Max followed suit. It didn't take long to let sink what she had just done; she had denied Chloe her death... at the expense of everyone else’s lives... just to save her.
She should have felt rage that Max decided to sacrifice all her friends that are surely down there, as well as her family. Instead, what she felt was fear, regret and... relief?
The tornado had finally breached the shore, and only continued to move inland to begin its massacre. Everything in its path was kicked up, ripped open, turned over, and dismantled.
When the realization of how many people that she had condemned set in, the time-bender's defiant anger was replaced with horror and regret.
What have you done?
Without turning to face her friend, she could imagine those same exact words spiralling madly in Chloe’s head as well, just like the tornado. She couldn’t look at her now. She had lost her anyway for sure. She would never forgive her for this.
"I'm sorry." she mustered the courage to say, still without looking at her, her timid voice drowned by the wind, yet was heard anyway.
Max dropped to her knees and wailed, grief overpowering her. Her screeching alone pierced Chloe more than any noise the storm could offer, and it was unbearable to listen to.
After a moment of hesitation, Chloe closed their gap of uncertainty by embracing her from behind, resting her head on Max's shoulder to provide whatever comfort she could in the wake of all this.
"It's okay, Max."
"No..." Max shook her head.
"I'm here. Still here."
Max just continued to sob loudly to try and mask the distant sound of the town getting torn apart, possibly masking the screams of those lives being ripped from them simultaneously.
Something in the back of her mind was telling her that a price would still have to be paid... just not with Chloe anymore.
The morning after the storm, Arcadia Bay was left a scrambled landfill of what it once was. Bodies sprawled, vehicles overturned, houses scalped, and all sorts of other structures chucked where they shouldn't be; in fact, nothing here was where it belonged anymore.
"Max?"
Max jolted from her daze to squint up at Chloe sitting next to her in their pickup truck; her friend had been driving them through this muddle. Throughout the whole trip, Chloe stayed focused on the road, hell-bent on finding any survivors, whereas Max was elsewhere; she had been uncomfortably quiet since the storm had passed. Her friend didn't like this demeanour.
Once they came across a roadblock made by a timbered utility pole, Chloe stopped her truck and set it to park. She rested a hand on her forehead, tired, frustrated, and worried.
Max appeared as though she hadn't slept for a week now, and who could blame her? Looking at her friend now, it's like all the colours had been sucked dry out of her. She had to reach out; they needed each other more than either could yet realize.
"Max... there could still be some people." Chloe placed a hand on her shoulder but felt her tense up.
"Some people..." Max was like a shivering stowaway, "... out of how many?"
"We can't lose hope." Chloe reassured her, though actually half-believing her own words. "For all we know, my mom and... stepdad... could still be alive, holed up in the Two-Whales. Heck, Warren could even be there."
Max sighed and managed to ease to her touch a bit. She also managed a small nod as well.
"Look at me, Baymax."
Taken a little by surprise at her nickname, Max turned to finally lock eyes with her, and suddenly, she found herself lost in the warmth of her blue ones. She remembered now why she made this choice.
Chloe too took comfort in the faint smile that eventually formed itself on her best friend as she chuckled at her new nickname.
"Lean on me."
Automatically, Max lowered her head on the punk's shoulder, the one with her sexy tattoos. She felt her pain subsiding, and that was good enough for now.
Somewhere else, away yet not too far from Arcadia Bay, something else manifested in the flattened woods where the tornado had finally, mercifully, ended its path of destruction.
A glowing matter, the colour of amber in its dead centre, expanded and grew tendrils that formed two pairs of legs, then a body, and then a head, which then formed ears. Its birth wasn't pleasant. Rather, it was jittery and unstable.
The aura finished and had taken the form of what appears to be a doe.
It lingered momentarily to stretch its back, neck, and legs, and then proceeded away from the deforested site. It was drawn to a source of power that felt somewhat familiar to this being, and it was going to seek it out.
Eventually, the amber doe found a road passing through the trees and decided to follow this route, as if knowing it would lead where it desired. Shortly enough, it passed a sign that read, You are now 5km from Arcadia Bay .
And as if it was an afterthought, a long blue feather materialized, hanging under the doe's right ear.
Unable to go further in their truck, the two girls continued their search on foot. Chloe led the way while Max lagged behind.
The silence that filled the area was deafening. The only sounds that would accompany it were either the trickling of leaking drainage, the sizzling of torn power lines, the creaking of broken wood ready to break off of whatever structure it was part of, and the distant cawing of seagulls.
Max squinted up to see those birds gliding through the air like it was all fine up there, like they didn't have to worry about whatever situation was below them; Max envied them. This would have normally been another good photo opportunity for her, but she had neither her camera, nor the spirit.
She was so focused on what was above her that she tripped over a piece of rubble on the road. Luckily, Chloe had noticed her stupor and caught her before she could hit the ground.
"Fucking hell, Max."
Chloe kept a hold of her for what felt like a minute. She was seriously starting to worry, like if she was to let go, her brunette would just lose balance again.
"You're hella looking like you're about to pass out."
"I'm fine." Max muttered.
"No, you're not."
She faced Chloe again, her drained eyes trying to look reassuring. Her head was angled and wobbling like it could at any moment come loose off her neck.
Chloe cupped a hand on Max's cheek and gazed into her blue eyes with her own intensely.
"Come on, Mad Max, I know it's hard. I need you right now." She was now trying for the 'strong motivator' appeal.
"Chloe..."
"We're gonna find the Two Whales, okay?"
Max nodded rather timidly but took in a deep breath to calm her nerves.
Right then, a sharp pain twisted in the side of Max's head, and she dug her sharp nails into her temple as she collapsed, groaning in agony.
"Max! What's wrong?" Chloe dove down to scoop her head off the ground. "Oh God!"
Fresh blood had begun pouring out of her nostrils again. It wasn't a moderate stream like usual, but it was like an aggressive faucet. It ran down her face to the underside of her chin, then down her neck, and dripped onto the pavement where it was already growing a puddle.
Max's vision blurred and shimmered next, much like it would whenever she bent time around her, only this time it was more aggressive. Looking up at Chloe's silhouetted face with the bright sky behind her, she looked mysteriously angelic. This glimpse shined upon her like another Polaroid she could capture and add to her collection. Soon, everything went blinding white.
Overexposed ...
And then...
It passed.
The pain. All the bleeding. The brightness. It all receded.
Max came to as her vision steadily rendered back to normal. When it did, she could make out the image of Chloe cradling her face, her eyes bloodshot with tears, and her gaping mouth crumpled with grief. She was sobbing hard , like her lungs were being squeezed.
Regaining some strength, Max lifted a hand to brush her cheek to let her know that she was fine now. As soon as Chloe realized this as well, she hauled her into a bearhug and continued sobbing into her shoulder.
"You scared the hell out of me!"
"I'm... okay now, Chloe."
Chloe shook her head.
"It's not okay! This is my fault!"
"No, Chloe!" Max brought their faces together.
"It is! Did you use your powers again? Did I die again?" Looking into Chloe's puffy eyes broke her heart.
"I didn't! Not this time! Never again!"
Chloe settled down eventually.
"It just—happened." Max continued. "It—just came suddenly and—."
Max shook herself.
What's going on?
She was stuttering now. Her brain was still fuzzy, probably still recovering.
"I thought you were having a seizure." Chloe whimpered. "I thought I was about to lose you too."
Max narrowed her eyes, having regained some footing of determination.
"You won't—lose me! I won't leave—you!"
At that moment, Max lunged in to press her lips against Chloe's. Chloe was taken aback at first, but then eased into her kiss almost immediately; it was icy, yet warm. She pulled Max ever closer until their chests, their hearts, touched one another.
"I—love—you." Max managed to utter.
"Same to you, hippie."
Chloe leaned her forehead into Max's and combed her fingers through her rumpled hair. She wanted this to last forever, but both knew they had to get moving again.
After cleaning the blood off of Max's face, they continued through the wasteland. Max was in front this time, leading the way, while Chloe stayed closely behind, monitoring her.
"I th—think we're almost there now."
Chloe hummed to her statement but said nothing. During the rest of the way, she almost hadn't taken her eyes off her friend. Since Max had that attack, her speech had become even more cluttered, and as for the way she was walking now... she was looking unstable .
Chloe herself was starting to tremble just from watching her.
What is happening to her? She wasn't like this before when she had her nosebleeds.
But this wasn't from her powers this time, as she claimed. How the hell would she know? Normally, her nosebleeds her just a minor hindrance from overusing her powers. This, however, was surely different.
"Chloe? Max?"
Both girls shot up to see a middle-aged waitress revealing herself from the doorway of a ruined diner that they recognized all too well.
"Mom?" Chloe cried.
"Oh, thank God!"
Joyce darted after the girls to embrace them both, tears of joy flushing out.
"I'm so glad you're both okay!"
"I'm glad you're here too, mom!"
The two teens returned the hug.
Max felt a wave of relief wash over her. Joyce was alive. That means others could have survived too.
Joyce released her death hold and turned first to Chloe.
"Where the hell were you?" Her voice was raised in a mixture of love and fury.
"We were at the lighthouse." Chloe said. "We were looking everywhere for you. Max saved my life."
Joyce turned to Max next, her eyes lit with pride and gratefulness. She checked the girl up and down like she was another daughter; looking at her face, she could sense that something was off, but she was too washed over with relief right now.
"The Lord truly did send a guardian angel, didn't he?"
Max bowed her head humbly while Chloe rolled her eyes.
"Did—anyone else m—make it?" Max finally asked.
Joyce too took at the strange way she delivered that question but smiled reassuringly.
"Why don't you both come inside and see?"
With that answer, Joyce took the girls into the diner, away from the debris.
They were safe, but nothing in Max's guts gave the impression that they were out of the woods yet. Chloe felt that too.