Max came to her senses with a gasp, hands shooting to her neck on instinct as she lurched violently where she stood and whipped her gaze around, pupils rapidly dilating in response to the stimulus of an entirely white room. She was scared, no question, her heart beating in her throat and adrenaline coursing through her veins like fire, her expression wracked with fear and confusion in equal measure. The only experience she could recall that was even remotely similar to this was her visions of the future back in Arcadia Bay, of waking up in the midst of the violent storm set to destroy the town... only this was a different kind of shock. The storm was torrid, noisy, frenzied. This...
place, on the other hand... it seemed so calm, so still... so
bright... what
was this place?
'Where am I? What's happening?!'
Maybe not the most together of reactions, but not an unreasonable one for an eighteen-year-old photography student subjected to such a sudden shift in surroundings. She wasn't clueless, though. Her brain knew exactly where she was. Remembered exactly what had happened. As her mind adjusted to the sudden shock of such unfamiliar surroundings, reality set in.
And with it, despair.
So... that was it.
The end. Game over, man. She was...
she was dead. There was no rewinding from that. She'd let everybody down, as per usual. All the people she wanted to help, who she cared about... Claire, Jon, the Coalition. Her parents, Rachel Amber, all of Arcadia Bay... and Chloe. She couldn't be there for Chloe if she was dead. She was abandoning the one person in her life who meant the most to her... and this wasn't even the first time.
...
No.
No, no,
no! It wasn't fair! It w-wasn't... why did it have to be her? What the hell did
she do? Yeah, so maybe she hadn't exactly done herself any favors by speaking out against Naoya and Kazuya in the last round, but...
but why did they have to kill her? She was only eighteen. She was just there to avert catastrophe and keep too many people from dying. She wasn't a threat to anybody. The only thing special about her was that she could rewind time, and now... Now she couldn't even do that. She was dead. She was dead.
'...Rewind. Rewind! Fucking REWIND!'
The thought was repeated with more and more determined fervor every time she repeated it, the recently-deceased girl grabbing fistfuls of her own hair as she strained her mind to do something.
Anything. Her power could fix this. It had reversed death so many times before. It could reverse hers, right? Right?
It didn't work.
All Max accomplished was developing a killer migraine, no pun intended. She continued trying to force her power to work for a solid thirty seconds before she gave up and sank to the floor, an anguished sob wracking her frail frame as she hugged her knees to her chest and buried her face in them. She didn't have the will to listen to anyone right now. She just wanted to be alone.
No, wait... that... that was the
opposite of what she wanted. She didn't want to be on her own at all.
She wanted to be with Chloe.
Was it weird that, as the harsh reality that she was dead sunk in, her thoughts kept zoning in on her best friend? Not her parents, not her own life, just... Chloe. It was so cliched, but Max swore to God her life actually was flashing before her eyes, and it was putting into perspective just how heavy a part of her life the blue-haired girl actually was. Chloe Price practically embodied her life. They'd been together so long. They knew so much about each other. They might as well've been attached at the hip at birth. Max could hardly even fathom existence without her, now, and that was after spending five years away from her in Seattle. They needed each other.
After all they'd been through... was this
really how it was going to end?
"...I'm so sorry, Chloe."
That was all she could manage to say. Fuck the afterlife. Fuck the gates of heaven, fuck whatever this was. Max was sitting right here with her thoughts until whatever asshole of a God there was figured out she wasn't gonna move and granted her the sweet release of nonexistence--
...Wait, how long had that monitor been there? It was just running static, but Max still couldn't help but let her gaze be drawn towards it. She couldn't really look away. And as the pale, ethereal figure appeared and started speaking, she blinked her eyelashes in confusion. What was this? The afterlife welcoming package? Christ, even heaven was commercialized? Max decided to just listen for the time being, her eyes crinkled as she digested the figure's words...
...Oh.
Well, now her massive internal monologue about how being dead sucked and the whole life flashing before her eyes bit just felt pointless and silly. =w=
Max sheepishly rose to her feet, taking a deep, deep breath to ease her nerves and folding her arms habitually. In her panic, she'd forgotten Kalifa and Kaku, the two dead among their number who'd managed to find their way back to life. And suddenly, a whole lot of that panic and despair seemed to alleviate as if by magic, dissipating into nothingness. It wasn't over yet. There was hope.
She remained quiet up until Alice and Joseph appeared, blinking a few times in surprise after having seen their corpses so recently but nevertheless giving both an awkward wave in greeting. What was she supposed to say? "Hi, how was death?" At least they'd secured their way back... hopefully Max would be so lucky.
After a few moments, however, she did think of something to say. She took a few steps in Alice's direction, tapping her on the shoulder to get her attention and offering a wan smile as she rubbed the back of her head.
"Hey, Alice. Listen, when you see Chloe again..."
Max wiped the last of the moisture away from her eyes, blinking off the last of her tears before continuing.
"Tell her I'm coming back."
Oh, yeah. She was ready to do whatever she had to. Max Caulfield owed Chloe Price, and she wasn't gonna let something stupid like death keep them apart.
@Klutzy Ninja Kitty @Schnee Corp Lawyer @afterlife @I needed more angst in my life
