Author's Preface
For days, it felt as though she were floating as scattered pieces of herself within this void of nothing , neither alive nor truly dead, like weightless particles drifting through the sea.
When those pieces eventually assembled after taking time to find each other, her soul, her conscious, and her reason for being returned; she was put back together in orderly fashion from her mind, to her heart, and to the nerves that streamed everywhere else before being coated on with flesh, her flesh.
In her fetal bubble, her golden heart sang its first beat of life, gently but generously. When she lifted her head from her balled fists, she heaved in her first breath in ages.
Rachel had come back to life.
When Rachel's eyes slid open, some white lights quickly blinded her. When they sharpened into focus, they turned out to be just a couple of ceiling lights hanging above her bed in what appeared to be a hospital room.
With her movement constrained, she moved her head around the room to try and get a better angle, but it proved difficult due to grogginess and this breathing tube that forced down her throat, the latter that was the main fuss.
Without really thinking of the risks, she lazily reached up to grab the plastic tube to carefully remove it from her mouth. Once the pipe, greased in her saliva, was out of her windpipe, she laid it gently to her side.
Next, she shuffled her weight up to a sitting position and raised her knees to rest her head against them so she could let the rest of her body catch up to this gruelling waking procedure... if she was even in her own body at all.
When that thought crossed her mind, Rachel wound back to check out her own body. Her hands ran over her legs, her thighs, her waist, and all around her torso; she didn't need to check her bosom or other privates to make sure that she was at least the right gender .
"W—Where am I?" She murmured, her voice coming to. "How... am I?"
Her body was still that of a girl's, which was for sure, but she didn't feel that it belonged to her; despite being dead for several months, Rachel remembered every curve, nook, and cranny of her own body, and that was when a realization cleared her senses.
"Is this...? Am I in... Max's body?"
When she touched her face, she noted the difference in complexion in her jawline and the surface of her cheeks, slightly rougher than her own.
When she looked around the room once more to find the screen of her... Max's heart monitor was frozen and distorted; she had once again frozen time, but not through her own will. She couldn't tell whether she or Max was causing this, or their combined presence altogether.
Speaking altogether, Rachel peered back down at Max's chest and lifted her gown to get a good glimpse of her glowing heart. Whether it was hers or Max's was yet another thing she couldn't tell.
Ironically enough, being inside this other girl's body... was as alive as she ever felt since her own life ended, just being able to feel everything like a normal human again.
Finally, her chest gleamed brighter until its shine flooded the whole room and the open doorway.
"Mom! David!" She heard a voice shout from outside, Chloe's.
"Chloe!" Rachel then called for her.
After a pocket of silence, she heard Chloe's footsteps cladding up to her room, and when she entered, Rachel ceased her blinding aura.
"Max!" Chloe sprinted towards her, believing, of course, that she was Max. "You're awake!"
Rachel awkwardly welcomed the hug that snagged around her like a bear trap. After enjoying the warmth of her missed embrace, Rachel decided to cut to the chase, knowing how bizarre she was going to sound. "Chloe... it's me, Rachel."
It was only at this point that Rachel also realized that she was speaking with Max's voice, which would make the situation even harder for her friend to believe.
However, Chloe must have sensed that something was off when the punk backed away from her with that perplexed look.
"What. The. Fuck !" She spat.
Rachel decided finally to fill her in. "I need to explain myself. This is where you come in."
Chloe remained frozen for a minute, much like everyone else at the moment, before she eased down a bit. "Okay." She whispered as if it all suddenly made sense. She went for the nearest chair and dragged it over so she could sit in front of her friend with her arms folded to hear her out.
"Start from the beginning." She commanded.
With an understanding nod, Rachel shuffled to face Chloe as well and closed her eyes gently as she proceeded to explain in the best way she could while patting the glowing orb in her chest.
"I somehow managed to transfer my essence into Max's body to keep her alive when she had that second seizure, back in the diner."
Chloe raised an eyebrow as she tried to make a conclusion. "So... you're her life support?"
Rachel nodded. "I'm literally holding her together, mind and soul."
Chloe leaned forward at the edge of her seat. "Is that how Max survived the operation?"
"It has to be." Rachel shook this time, not quite so sure herself. "My heart's regulating hers, at least that's what it feels like." She then looked to the floor space between them, her face drooping to that of sadness. "It took everything I had to keep her from falling into that nothing forever." She gazed back up into Chloe's eyes, brimming with tears again. "She wanted me to end it, and I refused. Now, here I am in her body, somehow having taken over her consciousness like some leech ."
Chloe could taste the disgust in her friend's voice from that last statement.
"It's some sort of side-effect, I suppose." Rachel shook and sighed. "I'm so sorry, Chloe. I thought I could do it on my own, but she's more powerful than I imagined."
Chloe reached an arm over to touch her shoulder. "Is there a way we can still help her, Rachel ? Is Max still in here?" And as an afterthought, she also had to ask this. "And how come everyone in this hospital is frozen except for me."
"Let's just call it selective timing , like how I froze those cops who tried to shoot me." Rachel regained some composure. "And to answer your other question: yes . There is one way, but it's very risky; this is where you come in ."
"I'll do anything." Chloe declared. "Just bring me my Maxy back."
Smiling through Max, Rachel shuffled up her bed again and motioned Chloe to the space she made for her. "Sit up here and face me." She instructed.
Chloe removed her beanie, jacket, and shoes, as she followed that first step.
"Come closer."
"How close?"
"Chest to chest."
Reluctantly, Chloe shifted until her knees touched Max's. Rachel took one of the bluenette's crossed legs and hooked it around over the thigh, and then did the same, and vice versa.
This kind of position became rather awkward for Chloe. "Are we gonna be practising some sort of sex ritual or something?"
"Don't get excited." Rachel responded, reverting to her serious monotone.
"Okay... but seriously, what are we doing?"
"You're going to be entering Max's mind." She stated bluntly, shocking the girl. "You need to find her before she loses herself completely. Can you do that?"
Chloe took a moment before answering determinedly. "Abso- fucking -lutely yes!"
"Good."
In truth, she had no idea if this would work, but the hope of seeing her beloved was what drove her to do this.
With that, Rachel pulled each other together until their heads were chinned on the other's shoulder while they embraced.
Chloe imagined Max, the real Max, speaking to her as Rachel whispered into her ear. "Close your eyes. Take some deep breaths. Breathe all the way in. All the way out."
Chloe did as instructed and took in a bagful of air with each intake and freed it as steadily as possible.
"Escape your worries. Escape from outside. Escape inwards. Time does not affect you. Feel yourself drifting away from this world and into the next entirely."
As she continued cycling these long breaths, Chloe felt a hum of energy wrapping around her body, flowing through her veins like a smooth electrical current.
"You're a blue butterfly dancing in the open air."
Next, she could feel her consciousness leaving her body and floating up like a weak helium balloon, passing into the astral realm, even though she remained still and her eyes stayed shut.
"You fly back to Mother Nature, where all the trees and flowers are. You are looking for a doe, a lone young doe."
" You did it. " Rachel's real voice boomed from everywhere delightedly.
Chloe felt a lick of cold air brush her exposed skin. When she opened her eyes, she gasped and swayed around as she found herself now sitting amid an endless lime grass field, washed over by the tangerine sun gleaming down through the passing fog surrounding her.
" This is where you come in. "
Chloe rose to her feet and idled there to take in this magnificent scenery, her eyes almost watering. "It's beautiful. It looks like something straight out of Deviantart ."
" This is the world where Max's mentality escaped to. You must find her. "
"How?"
" Feel ."
"What? What does that even..."
" Each setting you find here represents an aspect of her life, whether a memory, her imagination, or something reflective of her character. "
Chloe rests her hands on her hips as she thinks over this. She drummed her fingers until she conjured some idea of what this setting in particular was. "Well... I don't recall this area, so it's definitely out of a dream somewhere." She frowned however as a sense of familiarity itched her. "But there's also something else... something..."
" Nostalgic? "
"Yes." Chloe snapped her fingers. "But where the hell do I start?"
" Where do you feel that you should start? " Rachel asked her.
As Chloe thought over this, she then heard a faint chatter from the distance through the thickness of the mist; it sounded like that of a child.
"Come on, Che!" She heard.
"Max!"
Finally understanding what Rachel meant when she told her to feel, it suddenly became general for Chloe to just wander that way. The voice sounded a lot younger, but it was definitely Max's, she was sure of it.
Moving through this field, she felt light as a feather, yet immovable at the same time.
" Find your ikigai. " Rachel's voice hushed from the heavens.
Back in the hospital, time resumed its course, but everyone jolted at the passing sensation of power.
Joyce, David, Ryan, and Vanessa, all went rigid for a moment after returning to animation. Their hearts raced, their breaths sharp and hurried.
Max's parents were left bewildered by the experience; even though it went by in a split second, it felt as though their spirits were held in a deadlock. But what was foreign to them was more familiar to Joyce and David as they looked to each other knowingly.
"W—What happened?" Vanessa stuttered and looked to the others. "Did anyone else... feel that?"
"Max!" Joyce cried.
Immediately, she and David, followed hazily by the Caulfields, rushed back to Max's room where they found a huddling group of nurses and doctors flocking just outside her doorway, shielding this golden blue brightness that was coming from inside.
The parents forced themselves through the crowd to the front where they discovered their entrance being walled by some... aspic barrier.
"What is this?" Vanessa cried.
Daringly, Joyce touched the surface to find her fingers passing through what felt to her like hardened clay as they distorted. She pulled her hand away and looked at David. "Do you think this is another time distortion?"
David could only shrug and shake his head.
When Max's parents got their glimpse into the room, they gasped at what they saw.
There, sitting on the hospital bed, Max and Chloe were wrapped in each other, both bodies expelling the different-coloured shines; Max's was golden while Chloe's was cyan.
"Max!" Vanessa shrieked. She was about to dash inside, only to be restrained by her husband. "Let go! That's my daughter! What's happening to her!?"
No one could answer her question.
Joyce, deciding to keep her head level, turned to the other woman and gripped her shoulders to calm her down. Once she did, Joyce tried comforting her, one mother to another. "It's okay, Vanessa. Whatever this is, we have to leave it in their hands now."
Vanessa shot her the darkest frown she could conjure, too stressed to understand what she was talking about. "Elaborate." She ordered.
Meanwhile, everyone else, including David, continued to be mesmerized, both perturbed yet fascinated by this image; the juxtaposed gleams of Max and Chloe embodied some sort of Yin and Yang .