Author's Preface
By the time the family of three arrived at the hospital and found a decent parking spot just outside the building, they exited their car to find a large gathering of suits, cameras, and microphones, in front of the entrance. It was the press, having come all this way to make their coverage; it either had to do with the storm, or something else , Chloe figured.
She hoped to God it wasn't the latter .
The security was there with enough numbers to blockade all those journalists and anchors from barging inside.
When one reporter turned her head and recognized the blue-haired punk from the video that went viral just as they approached, she felt the need to call it to everyone's attention.
"Hey, it's her! The other girl!" Aggressively, she pulled her cameraman along as she jousted up to them with her ready microphone. The rest of the press caught on and raced after her to get their scoop.
In less than a second, Chloe, Joyce, and David, had to now wade through a stall of microphones being shoved in their faces, all begging to get a scoop, questions were blowing up at them like firecrackers.
"Can you explain this phenomenon?"
"Do you know what's happening to Max Caulfield?"
"Are you familiar with her?"
"What's happened to Rachel Amber?"
"Is it true that they both have powers?"
"How long have you known the girl?"
"Can you give us any further information about Rachel's whereabouts?"
"What's the entity's connection to Max Caulfield?"
Neither of the three was in any such mood to answer their questions. They just wanted to get the hell inside so they could see Max, but these people weren't making it easy for them by the minute.
With a scowl, Chloe held a hand in front of her face to shield herself from the oncoming blows of camera flashes as David guided her and her mother through this jungle of nuisance.
Finally, they made it to the security. The guards parted to let them through so they could rush through the doors and get away.
Once inside, Chloe huffed on her knees like they had been squeezed between two rollers.
"Vultures." She spat. "Come on, let's get already."
The whole atmosphere became a fridge to Chloe as a nurse led them through the hallway on the top floor. As she felt her friend drawing closer, she was both yearning and afraid to see her, and she couldn't tell which feeling was stronger.
When they found the door to Max's room, Chloe's heart began to drumroll and she held a breath.
"You nervous?" Joyce asked, noticing her tense posture.
Chloe nodded while swallowing.
"She should be fine, honey."
"For Rachel's sake, I hope to God so."
When they entered a room full of life-supporting machinery and IVs, they first found two figures standing between them and Max's bed, faces that neither Chloe nor Joyce would ever see again.
"Ryan! Vanessa!"
"Mr. and Mrs. Caulfield!"
Max's parents came over to greet the family with hugs and kisses.
"Chloe! Joyce!" Vanessa cried, cupping Chloe's cheeks. "It's so good to see you!"
"Right back at ya!" Chloe winked back.
Ryan went over to David to exchange a handshake. David was rather quite nervous meeting these new people who were past figures for his family, but he welcomed them nonetheless.
"I'm David." He introduced himself. "Joyce's husband."
"Nice to finally meet you." Ryan responded.
Vanessa came over shortly to hand him the same greeting. "I heard about what you've done for these people. Thank you so much!"
David smiled a little nervously, not used to such gratitude. "Not thanks really necessary, ma'am."
"There's no need to be so formal with us."
While the grown-ups bathed in each other's welcome, Chloe broke away to approach the lying passed-out figure on the bed behind the curtains. When she brushed aside the blinds, there she found the grim sight of her beloved hipster cloaked in her bed sheet, hooked to various machines designed to keep her alive.
A bandage wrapped all around her scalp covered most of her face, making her almost unidentifiable, and through the little gaps, she could see that all her beautiful hair had been shaved off; the doctors had definitely done their work. Her arm was hooked to an IV. Chloe could also swear she was dead if not for the steady beeping of her heart monitor. But most of all, there was a breathing apparatus tubed down her throat to keep her air passage flowing.
Chloe flinched but refused to let another tear escape this time. Grabbing a nearby chair, she sat right by her side and laced her fingers around Max's limp hand.
It felt so small, so light...
"Hey, baby." She cooed. "It's me, your crime-fighting companion." Chloe rested her longing gaze on her friend's closed eyes. "I can't believe they fucking shaved all your hair off. There will be blood ."
Looking to the window next to them, she gazed out at the baby blue radiance of the sky passing into the room that shone upon them both. She could finally release that contained breath, but it was neither from relief nor grief.
Shortly after, the doctor came in to check on his patient. Chloe and everyone else gathered around him to hear his update.
All peeled their ears as he filled them in on her condition, their operative process, and their next procedure.
"It's some sort of miracle that she survived." He began. "Although she had suffered a severe haemorrhage, we had managed with great adversity to maintain her for the time being."
"What do you mean, maintain ?" Vanessa asked worriedly, mirroring Chloe's thoughts. "Is she not saved?"
"For now, she is stabilized. We are thinking of our next course of action." The doctor shifted his gaze away warily.
Chloe sensed a rat. "There's something you're not telling us, is there?" She interrupted.
Looking at the blue-haired girl, the doctor sighed. "I... don't know how to explain this, so about I just show you all instead."
Immediately, all followed as the doctor closed the door, switched the lights off, and then moved to blind the window to darken the room.
"What's going on?" Pried Max's mother again.
"This." Now standing over Max, the doctor lifted the front of her gown to expose her chest, making sure to respectfully cover the rest of her body with the sheet.
Everyone gathered around the bed to stare in shock at the golden orb pulsing inside her chest.
Vanessa threw her hands over her mouth as she backed into her husband's arms.
Chloe and her own parents were just as flabbergasted.
"What the hell is this!?" The punk exclaimed, fearing that it looked like some sort of out-of-this-world infection.
"I... honestly have no clue." The doctor shook. "We were thinking of cutting it out at first. We have no idea what this is, but my instincts decided against it." The doctor then placed his stethoscope on her chest to make sure her heart rate and breathing were still steady. "This might not sound professional coming from a veteran like me, but I believe that this..." He struggled to find the best word to describe this unusual circumstance. "My gut tells me that this prospect might have something to do with her pulling through, barely ."
With this new information or theory, Chloe examined the orb in her chest as she began to put the pieces together. The colour and vibe of this spectacle felt strikingly similar to Rachel's presence back in the diner.
Could she have done this to help Max?
"Rachel." She uttered.
"Excuse me?"
"This has to be Rachel."
The doctor raised an eyebrow in confusion at her statement. "I don't quite follow..."
"You heard about... the entity ... on the news, right?"
It took about a second for him to recollect. "Oh, yes! That's the talk of the town right now, more so than the storm now. I heard about it after the surgery."
"Then can you kinda see where I'm going with this?" Chloe was spinning her hands in hopes of communicating her point better. "I don't know how to really explain it either, but I just know that it's Rachel. Okay?"
The doctor remained unresponsive until David stepped in to help elaborate.
"The entity that we know to be Rachel came and helped her through her seizure. I think what Chloe's trying to say is that she might have something to do with that." He pointed to the aura in her chest again. "It even looks that way too."
Now Ryan and Vanessa joined in the doctor's glare of confusion at the two, filling the room with deafening silence.
It was broken when the doctor cleared his throat and nodded. "Regardless, we've done what we could for now. We'll have to wait for further progress."
With that, he left the group of people in the room, remembering at the last second to switch the lights back on before he was out the door.
Chloe's family stood apart from Max's parents, whose faces read frustration and eagerness for some explanation.
"Yeah, it's a long story." The girl began. "You better sit down."
"We'll take it from here." Joyce stated and shifted past her daughter with David to take the two outside.
Out in the waiting hall, Max's parents were still and mystified as Joyce stood before them to show the viral footage of Max with the entity on her smartphone.
When the video ended, Vanessa slumped back against her chair while shaking her head, Ryan tucking an arm over her.
"I know how hard and confusing this is to accept." Joyce assured.
"It's... so much to take in right now."
Chloe, who had been sitting inside with Max for the past hour got up and headed outside to search for a drink of water, but not before planting a kiss on her forehead.
"Thirsty... thirsty... hella thirsty."
Finally, she came across a water dispenser and ripped a foam cup from its slot to begin filling it up.
But right when she pulled the handle to release a stream of water, a booming silence dropped around the entire building, causing her to jolt back and check all around her.
The faint ambience of staff walking about their business, as well as the low hum of the air conditioning, could no longer be heard.
When Chloe looked back at the water machine, she found that same stream of water sticking out of its nozzle like moulded glass, beads floating at the end of it.
A striking realization prompted her to gulp the cupful she had collected before letting it go in mid-air to run back to where she came from.
"What the fuck is going on now?" She could wonder out loud.
Upon turning another corner, she found all the staff frozen in a walking motion. Approaching one figure, she pressed a finger into the person's cheek to see if her skin had become rock solid. She found that it hadn't when she released her finger and left her pressure point there.
She then checked all over herself. "How am I still moving?"
Chloe proceeded further until she stopped in the waiting hall. There, she found their parents stuck in mid-motion as well while conversing.
"Mom! David!" She called for them, but to no avail of course.
"Chloe!" She heard a voice call to her from Max's room.
"Max?"
Immediately, she spun around and sprinted back into the room.
When she neared the doorway, there was a bright golden gleam shining out from inside; it was too bright to be normal daylight.
Once she entered, the brightness receded. She lowered her hand from her face to gaze in awe at the sight of Max, now sitting upright on her bed with her body expelling that gleam from its center.
Chloe's jaw hung open in shock and elation; her friend was finally awake.
"Max!" She sprinted over to the bed to wrap her in her arms. "You're awake!"
Max timidly returned the hug, only to then give an unforeseen reply with a different tone altogether.
"Chloe... it's me, Rachel."
Chloe threw herself off and gazed at this girl in bewilderment. That voice was Max's, but that tone... she recognized it as someone else's. Her posture and mannerisms were borrowed.
As Chloe sunk in those words, she backed away from the bed anxiously; another presence had taken over her friend's body altogether.
"What. The. Fuck !"
"I need to explain myself." 'Rachel' continued. "This is where you come in."