Author's Preface
Any familiarity of her surroundings was now lost to Max as she found herself falling through a never-ending rabbit hole, while strobes blasted like cannon-fire from every direction. Her whole body, arms, legs, and even her neck , stretched like gum and flexed like a pretzel. Her limbs twisting in such angles should have brought her the excruciating pain of her bones fragmenting, or tenderizing . Yet, she could only register the sensation as much as rubber with electricity.
With the piece of her sanity that still lingered, she imagined this force, this friction , stretching her out into an incredibly long spaghetti, or perhaps even a string tight enough to fasten on a guitar. Bizarrely enough, the physical numbness made this unusual circumstance somewhat relaxing, assuming there was a bottom to this pit, to which she would find out in a couple of seconds.
She was faced-up when her back met the bottom with the thud of a sinking pebble meeting the riverbed, followed by her head; it was neither painful nor pleasant, but nonetheless preferable to what she expected. Her neck and limbs retracted instantaneously, snapping her head, hands, feet, and all other joints back in their right places.
Fatigued, Max drew her eyes shut to pass out as she conjured the blue butterfly again, its wings fanning with grace, with simplicity... with liberty... tranquillity .
In a matter of time, the hipster's surrogate family could feel her fit easing down in their bracing arms. When it relented, they could at last release some of the tension that hardened their lungs. Chloe studied her nerd friend closely, detailing her oiled forehead, her pale sunken cheeks, her beaded lashes, and the steady motion of her chest rising and receding like waves lapping at a shore during a golden hour as she now laid unresponsive, yet alive... barely . Her bleeding stopped too, at least it seemed.
A closer inspection, however, brought the punk's waning concern to the stirring motion beneath the teen's eyelids, shifting it back to the opposite process. Whatever could be going on in her conscious after that trigger just now, Chloe could only hope was more lenient than the odds she pondered over.
Lacing her nails through her bear-brown hairline, Chloe inched her lips towards her chapped ones. "Hang in there, Super Max." She cooed.
"Your family is right here, baby." Her mother joined in, raising Max's hand to her longing heart while she hooked and arm around her husband's. "Me, Chloe, and David ."
Watching these two women lodged an ache deep within the vet's thick exterior; David wished so badly to come up with any comforting words of his own to offer them all, but his tongue remained tucked. All he could do was look on in pity, envy, and admiration.
Shortly, a heedful finger found its way onto Chloe's shoulder and prodded her lightly.
"What?" She spat, whirling to see that it was Kate.
"I think you need to see this." Kate never really knew this punk bluenette, nor Rachel, but she knew from observation that they were close outside of Blackwell.
From the way this girl had her fixed her stare to the outside through the windows, Chloe decided to take her word for it. Blowing out her annoyance, she lowered Max with the level of care she would give to a baby and rose to see for herself what everyone was so transfixed on.
The very moment she caught her own glimpse of the mysterious glowing figure, and the face, her heart stopped, ice showering her body.
"No... No fucking way..."
Shaking in denial, she threw herself against the glass window nearest to her, blinking rapidly as to be sure she wasn't hallucinating, because her eyes had to be playing tricks. There was absolutely no way this was Rachel; last time they found her, her rotting corpse was wrapped in a bag, buried in their junkyard; Max was right there beside her, and despite the stench, Chloe recognized its scent as hers alone.
A blend of different emotions took control as they had Chloe shove through the crowd towards the exit, hellbent on confronting this... impostor . Just when she reached the doors, however, David caught her around the waist. "Oh no, you don't! What do you think you're doing!?"
"Get... off me!" She tried thrashing, kicking, and elbowing in an attempt to break free from his hold, but his arms were too big and strong to give.
"That's not an option, young lady!" He growled, dragging the stubborn teen back away to make way for the officers to scamper out to deal with the situation instead.
The entity loitered in the middle of the road as the enforcers formed a perimeter in front of the entrance and levelled their firearms at her. They held this stance while their fingers loomed nervously over their triggers, ready for anything , as they were taught.
When Chloe tired herself from her struggle soon enough, David relented, yet kept a firm hand on her shoulder just in case. All they could do now was watch the unfolding scene before them like everyone else.
Finally, one of them summoned the courage to step forward. "Who are you?" He asked the entity, wondering if she would understand.
The entity eyed the approaching officer directly but withheld any response.
"Are you Rachel Amber?" He continued.
He still got no answer.
"Can you understand me?"
The figure simply reached up to fiddle with the blue feather under her ear, and then peered past the uniforms inside the Two Whales to spot a peculiar blue-haired girl staring back at her.
Chloe observed the way this doppelganger twiddled her fingers around the accessory exactly the way the real Rachel did. Her Rachel.
For the first time, the latter's face furrowed from its neutral demeanour to take on what appeared to be a look of question as they drew out their shared glances.
The entity felt a connection with this girl somehow. There was some sort of connection, a sense of familiarity, much like the name, Rachel . Did she know this girl? Perhaps, there were memories... from a previous life.
Simultaneously, a mass of thick brooding clouds materialized all at once out of nothing. They welded together until no ray of warmth from the early day could shower through anymore.
Everyone beneath the diner's shelter clamoured and backed further away from the windows as they watched this unnatural shift in climate, fearing the worst of yet another great storm.
"Don't move!" Bellowed the cops. Their anxiety had increased into fear, as evidenced by the clattering of their firearms in their shuddering fingers.
The entity didn't flinch whatsoever. Instead, she reverted to her neutral demeanour as she proceeded to scan through the rest of the Two Whales' interior to find Max slacked in a far grievous shape than what was last seen of her.
There, this middle-aged woman in an apron was cradling her head in her lap while this other girl with a bun, dressed conservatively, crouched over to wipe the blood off of Max's face ever so tenderly with a wet tissue.
"Do you think she'll be okay?" Kate had to ask.
Joyce could only reply with a hum, uncertain, as her eyes rested on this girl, this wonderful young soul who brought so much joy back into her daughter's life, and theirs too. Ever since William went, he left behind a scope of vacancy. While Joyce eventually found solace with David, Chloe had to fend off her loss by herself, scared, lost, and angry.
When Max, another allusion to their long-lost past, entered their lives again, the woman realized just how important her role was; from the moment she first entered her diner and their home, she managed to pick up the pieces of their broken family slowly but surely and glued them back together with her emanating kindness. Fences that were long overdue for repairs were mended at last, thanks to her.
When Kate cleaned off the last smears of blood, she looked upon the ailing girl with sympathy, then up to Joyce, hoping that her next choice of words could offer some easiness. "When I was up there on the roof, I thought... everyone had abandoned me... including God." She inhaled and persisted. "I believed that the world would be better off without me as a part of it anymore." She welled up, returning full-on to that memory. "And then Max appeared right behind me like some sort of angel and pulled me back from the edge and convinced me that my life wasn't over." Kate smiled down to Max, a tear falling onto her face. "She saved my soul, and I'll never thank her enough."
Joyce smiled too and nodded.
"I'm praying for her, heart and soul. I wish I can do more."
"You've done more than enough, sweetie."
Kate accepted this as she got up to leave the two alone again.
Neither of them had any idea how severe the damage that was inflicted on Max truly was when the entity analysed the girl's organic network through her flesh to see the horrific result herself. The part of her nervous system rooting from her spinal cord all the way to her brain was now yanked and fried... almost . That last crash of her powers had to have taken its toll on those circuits; her life was literally hanging by a thread now.
If that last thread gets severed, her mind was going to pose insurmountable danger to everything.
Everything .
Wasting no more time, the entity returned her attention to the cops, who were still training their weapons on her. With serene grace, she raised a hand at them and spanned her fingers.
This sudden action triggered one of the officers to open fire; the rest followed suit. Bullets broke out in splashes of fire from their respective gun barrels as they darted through the thickening air towards their target.
At the first explosive crack, everyone inside shrieked and dove to the floor, covering their heads for dear life. Chloe, on the other hand, had to be thrown down and body-shielded by David, as she was a bit too bewitched.
They waited through the silence that followed after the ringing settled. No sound of a body hitting the hard pavement was ever heard, nor any scuffing of shoes or jiggling of lethal hardware from the cops as they moved.
Chloe cleared David off as she dawdled back up. The others did the same, though not as eagerly as they kept on their toes. The result of what occurred contradicted to what they expected. What started off as bewilderment morphed to disbelief once each individual examining the scene understood... moderately .
The authority figures were standing with their guns out just like before. The big difference was that they were now still as mannequins, no natural sway in their stances at all. The trails of misting smoke were floating from the noses of their weapons, literally stuck in mid-motion. And as for the bullets... there they were, suspended just less than a meter from the face of Rachel, halted in their trajectory.
She froze them.
"What the actual fuck?" That was Chloe's natural verbal response to any situation so bizarre.
David, reading Chloe's mind, dragged the punk away back to the spot where her mother with Max stayed.
Briefly, Chloe was able to recall that time when Max described to her how she had stopped time with her while trying to stop Kate from jumping to her death. It was then that a realization poked her neck like a sharp stinger. Could this thing be like Max? And is it really Rachel?
With the sheriffs immobilized, every other person who could still move freely scrambled for the farthest corner away from the entrance and panicked as the entity set foot inside.
She paused to try and recollect as she made a three-sixty-degree turn like a steady roundabout to take in this interior; it was Deja Vu for her. Her gaze stopped across the counter on Frank, who had his arms folded around a screeching Pompidou. Peering into the perturbed eyes of this gruff man, she could sense a familiar link with him as well.
Frank looked at this girl, this one girl whom he shed layers for, that he showed to parts of himself that he would have never allowed others to see. Inexplicably, he found himself in danger of welling up her longed presence.
Next, the entity steered her head sideways to the end of the diner where her counterpart laid and strode towards them. She hardly minded that Chloe and David stood between them. When Joyce caught on with what was happening, she scooped Max up and backed farther away while David pushed his stepdaughter behind him.
The hardened security guard of Blackwell did his best to tame his own fear while he raised a hand to the approaching creature, motioning it to stop if possible.
To his, and everyone's surprise, the entity did just that.
"Who are you?" He dared ask, his voice stern but seeping hints of alertness. "What do you want?"
The entity extended her finger, and all whirled their heads to see it pointing sharply at Max.
"Why?" Chloe suddenly stepped up, zipping in front to face this 'Rachel'. "What do you want with Max?"
"Chloe!" Joyce wheezed. "What are you-?"
"Who the hell are you really ?"
The entity continued standing there, wordless, which frustrated her.
"FUCKING ANSWER ME!" The whole diner flinched.
The silence pressed on. The entity gave a puzzled look this time and placed her fingers on her temple to try and piece this girl together. She reopened the archive of her past life and fumbled through until this same blue-haired girl started appearing in those memories like Polaroid photos.
Sitting together in a pickup as they followed the path of a narrow road cutting through the forest...
Posing next to the lighthouse with the tangerine sunset as their backdrop...
Pressing their faces together for selfie...
Two monkeys jumping on the bed with weed in their hands to music blasting from her radio...
Sudden recognition gleamed all over the entity's face when she opened her mouth to utter, then sliding her fingers down to her heart. "Rachel."
Everyone recoiled with a unanimous gasp when this creature spoke for the first time.
"Now... I remember."
Chloe inched closer, scanning up and down the form of this being who now claimed to be her long lost friend. "It's really you... isn't it?"
A ghost of a smile right then stretched across 'Rachel's' face as she directed those same fingers to her next. "Chloe."
The bluenette cupped her own mouth to barricade oncoming sobs as she heard her own name from that voice. "I... thought you were dead!"
"I am dead."
"Wait, what?" Chloe lowered her hands and furrowed in confusion. "What the hell does that mean?"
Rachel broke her gaze and squinted hard, memories of her last moments flooding back. Chloe sensed this as well and understood quickly. Facing her old friend again, she chose instead to just answer one of her earlier questions. "I'm the reason this is happening to Max."
"How?"
She swallowed. "Because... her powers came from me."