Chapter Text

The wind bites at my face as I make my way up the hill. A swirling vortex of debris and water crashes into my hometown. I can hear it crushing everything in its wake. The people and places I love. The trees, the animals. Its as if time and space themselves are infuriated by what I have done. And now they want to desolate everything I could have touched. I struggle up to the top, where the lighthouse sits. And when the beacon crashes on to me for the 4th time I don’t flinch: I just let it happen.

...

“Max!”

Someone whispers frantically, shaking me awake. I open my eyes into total darkness, the now familiar sound of severe thunder filling my ears. My heart drops down to my toes. This is actually happening.



“Max, are you awake? Please be awake.” She sobs. When I recognize the voice as Victoria, the last 24 hours return to my mind. Those god-awful pictures, the strobe lights, and…and the bullet through Chloe’s skull. I feel like puking but there’s no food in my stomach.



“Victoria? What’s wrong? What’s going on?” I whisper back. My throat is dry.



“Oh thank god. I thought you were dead. You’ve been out for hours.” I sit up in the darkness, trying to clear my head. An angry clash of thunder erupts and then it shakes the entire room. Victoria grabs my arm, trembling. I can hear her sobbing again, under a heavy downpour of rain from up above. After a couple minutes she loosens her grip.



“Sorry.”



“Its okay"



“I’m really really scared.”



“I know. I’m scared too."

"Do you know where we are?"

"No."

...

"What the hell is that storm outside? It sounds like the fucking apocalypse. I heard like 5 trees fall and I--"

We both are interrupted by the sound of a door opening. The harsh noise of the rain raises then goes back down when the door slams shut. I realize who walks in by the sound of his shoes. Those black loafers striding across the ground in a dreadful, monotonous succession.



One

-

Two

-

One

-

Two

Over and over until the rhythm drives you mad.

A ceiling light flickers on, illuminating the entire room. The room which I now realize is the dark room. When my eyes adjust Jefferson is standing over me, soaking wet. There's a pistol in his left hand and I recognize it as the gun he used to kill Chloe. Mr Jefferson is studying me. I cant tell what exactly he's thinking about. Chloe. Me. Victoria. Murdering me and Victoria. Like....Like Rachel Amber. I shiver at that last thought.

Mr. Jefferson scratches his goatee and looks at Victoria. I look over too. She's a mess. Her eyes are puffy and swollen, like she'd been crying for hours. Her hair is completely ruffled. The cardigan she was wearing the other night is torn, there's a little bit of blood on it. Victoria doesn't look up at Mr Jefferson. She just shakes and looks down at her shoes.

Its quiet.

"Victoria?" I say. I put my hand on her shoulder, and her breathing calms down a little. She brushes her bangs out of her face, and looks at me with her bright blue eyes. She doesn't seem mean or anything. She doesn't look like a bully. In fact, she kind of looks like Kate when I saw her standing on the edge that roof. I force myself to smile at her.

"Max" Mr Jefferson finally says. I look up at him. His voice has that same patronizing tone. I narrow my eyes.

"What do you want." I snarl. It hits me again. Chloe falling in slow motion with a bullet through her skull. Laying in a pool of blood. Right next to Rachel Amber.

when I rewind I'll let chloe do whatever she wants

He smiles really big at what I said. His creepy thin lips stretched out, displaying 26 perfectly white teeth.

"Geez Max, you're moody today." He laughs, like we're still in the classroom.

I stay silent and continue to glare at him. Imagining all the things he did to Kate and Rachel and now Victoria. My blood steams, my entire body shakes with rage.

I try to pull myself up, but my head is swimming and my body feels 100 pounds heavier.

GET UP MAX

Panicking, I try to stand up again. But my legs give out under me and I collapse back onto the cold floor. My heart is underwater in dread and everything keeps turning and turning.

I can feel tears coming on, but I hold them back.

You can still rewind.

So I extend my arm out in front of me, the past, present, and future running through the circuits of my brain. I squeeze my eyes shut and focus on pushing the world back in time, feeling my memories fly past my fingertips like pushing your hands against water. And as I do this I can hear jumbled sounds of the past inside of my mind. Everything there ever was swirls, like a vortex. But no matter how hard I push and think that world doesn't go back. I'm too weak to focus. I'm too weak.

You cannot give up Max

I push harder even though it feels like my head is about to combust. I can feel warm blood drizzling down my nose, but I keep going for Rachel and Kate and Chloe and....

I open my eyes, Victoria is staring at me. She's staring with a look I have never seen on her before. Her eyes gleam with the most genuine kind of concern. The type of concern you show to someone you really really love.

"Max, you're bleeding." she says quietly. I can barely make out what the words are because my mind is so light and dizzy. But when I look into her terrified eyes, blue like the waves of Arcadia Bay, I'm doing it for Victoria too. So I push harder and harder, my head shaking from exhaustion.

And I can't do it. I can't reach it. I'm too fucking weak. I can't save Chloe or anyone in this town. She's really really dead. Forever. I can feel warm salty tears welling up in my eyes. he killed her. and now she'll never be happy. no matter what I do.

And I just let it all rush out of me. The dam breaks. Everything thats been inside of me since Monday morning. Kate jumping, Chloe in front of the train, Chloe in front of the mouth of all those guns. Even I killed her. At least she wanted it that time, but then I had to kill William. There was so much death, but then there wasn't. Those timelines where everything did go wrong, the death and the blood and the screaming. Kate jumping back in time, flying like an angel in the reversing rain. Their deaths still live in me. In my soul. Even though they are no longer real.

"Why are so many people supposed to die." I whisper under a fit of sobs. Victoria moves towards me and I burrow my head into her shoulder, wrapping my shaking arms around her back. I let go after a while and hug my knees. When I look up again, she's smiling at me, with those same eyes full of concern. And she's smiling a real smile. One that she never shows to anyone. And for some reason, it gives me the strength to stop crying.

I manage to look at Mr. Jefferson. He grins at me like before. I feel smaller knowing he saw the meltdown I just had.

"What were you doing there, Max Caulfield?" He jokes, water dripping from his hair. He takes off his glasses and cleans the fog off the lenses. "Telekinesis? Magic? Come on Max, you're a smart girl. Don't you know that I have all the power down here?" I look at him, still dazed from trying to rewind. Rain continues to beat down in the silence. Victoria wipes the blood and tears off of my face with her cashmere sleeve. Mr. Jefferson is right. Whatever he drugged me with is keeping me from using my abilities. I'm completely powerless.

A chill creeps its way under my skin and I realize how invincible I've been these past few days. I've known somewhere deep down inside that the invincibility wasn't forever. But I never expected to lose it in a situation like this. A hopeless situation. I desperately needed it here. Because really bad things happen here, and I can't stop any of it if I'm just the girl I was a week ago.

but you're not

I'm not.

I can still feel the time sifting around me. I'm still drowning in it. All those Max Caulfields from different timelines. Their memories still pulse inside of me. I'm not anything like who I was before all this, even if I'm no longer a human time machine. I've become a vessel for billions of scenarios and interactions. I'm not just one single thing anymore.

I could die here I suddenly realized

I could die here and then everything I saw and felt and remembered and heard would die with me. I have to live in the present now.

"Max, leave some space between you and Victoria." Victoria and I looked at eachother and simultaneously realized how close we were. Victoria turned pink and I promptly scooted away. I don't know if it was because of the given situation, but being that close to her didn't feel....weird. It felt.. well like I'd done it before? Even though I hadn't. My head throbbed just thinking about it. I ran my hands through my hair and glanced back at her for a second. She was looking too, with an equally confused expression.

We both snapped out of our gazes to the sound of Mr. Jefferson walking away. His loafers clacking on the ground, the clacks echoing off the walls of the bunker. As my eyes followed him, I touched the side of my neck. The skin was hot from the blood pulsing inside, and it beat faster and faster like a man banging on a drum during some primordial ritual.

"Here's how we're going to do this." He says. He's fiddling with something at a nearby table. I lift my head just enough to see what he's doing. There's a syringe in his hand. He sticks the syringe into a container labeled "hydromorphine" that's filled with some kind of brown liquid. Goosebumps spread across my skin as the brown liquid steadily pumps into the glass tube.

5 Ml

10 Ml

15 Ml

20 Ml. He pulls it out and taps the side with his latex gloved finger.

And then he starts walking towards Victoria.

Blood somehow pounds through the valves of my heart even faster.

"What are you-" I begin to stammer.

But before I finish he jerks Victoria's head up and jabs the needle into the side of Victoria's neck. He does it all in one angry, abrupt motion. I watch completely frozen as the needle plunges into her flesh and the hydromorphine pumps into her body. She has no time to react. No time to scream or gasp or even breathe. It just happens.

I have no idea what to do as I helplessly stare. She doesn't last more than 10 seconds, before she succumbs to the drugs. And finally, before her conscience falters and tumbles into the darkness, she looks at me. Her eyes screaming "HELP ME. YOU KNOW ME." And in that moment I do know Victoria Chase. And I also know that I can't help her. So I just stare back.

I can't do anything.

I place my hands over my slackjawed mouth, and just stare at her limp body.

And I can't do anything as he lifts Victoria's body up to place her in front of the cameras.

"Max get up." He commands me.

"No." I beg, tears filling up my eyes again. He drops her, and she flops on the ground like a ragdoll.

"Please" My voice is trembling.

I can't fucking do ANYTHING

"Don't do this."

He walks back towards me and I'm a child and he's 8 feet tall. He grabs my arm and yanks me off of the ground. I let out a scream, in some pathetic hope that there's someone out there to hear me.

But I know there's no one. Its just me and him now. I cry a little more, dreading whatever the fuck he wants me to do. He pulls me close to his body, so I can feel his hot dry breath as he talks. I squirm, but he is so much stronger than me.

"For now on, you are going to do what I tell you when I tell you to do it." His whiskers brush across my face as he holds me against him for a few more moments. I can feel his clothes, drenched in rainwater. He doesn't raise his voice, but each word has a weight to it. He pronounces each syllable with careful, calm, calculating precision.

I nod, looking down at my shoes. I don't want him to see my eyes. I don't want to see his either.

"okay" I whisper in my smallest voice. He leads me towards the cameras. I can walk now. The drugs have worn off enough.

I look onto Victoria. She's totally passed out. Her porcelain legs bend and cross over eachother. Laying on her side, her arms and face lean towards the camera. Messy blond hair strewn across her pale face. Her lashes gently laying over closed eyelids, and her soft pink lips slightly parted. Everytime she takes a breath, her diaphragm expands and her lips open up a little more. I blink. I know I've seen her like this before. No not drugged. Sleeping, peacefully. Images flash in my head of her laying in my bed in another life. Sleeping and laughing right next to me. I remember her warmth. And the smell of lavender in her hair. The humour and life in her eyes when I made some stupid joke. I cock my head. What were we in that timeline?

She looks so tranquil and undisturbed. And kind of beautiful. You find beauty in the strangest places, don't you? But this isn't the Victoria I know. This isn't the girl who makes fun of my polaroids and calls me a lame hipster. This is some drugged, horrified, vulnerable Victoria Chase. This is an entirely different person. And the Victoria Chase that the other me knew, that was a different person too. Something fluttered inside of me despite all the darkness and terror. Even with the storm howling outside and Mark Jefferson standing behind me. It grew and grew and I imagined that if we got out of this, maybe I could see if that connection from another life was in this life too. And everyone I love could be happy. And it all could be right. I smiled at the sunny photograph in my head, all of us on a road trip to Portland. Its the golden hour and Victoria's holding my hand....

I blinked and reminded myself where I was. Mr. Jefferson put his hand on my shoulder and I flinched.

"Max, I'll say it again. You are a very talented young photographer."

"Thanks?" I couldn't believe I was having such a friendly conversation with the man who shot Chloe in the head. But I cant think about that right now.

"As an artist, what do you see here?" He asked me, pointing at Victoria like she was a fucking bowl of fruit.

"What do I see?"

"Mhm."

"Oh I don't know, Mr. Jefferson. Maybe a 18 year old girl you drugged and kidnapped and brought to a creepy bunker in the middle of no where? What else would I see?"

He stopped for a moment and considered what I had just said.

"Max, I realize you might be a little 'freaked out'...

holy shit

...but when I look at it from without a moral standpoint I for one see a real 'Kodak Moment'!"

I just stared at him in disbelief. There's no way he actually said that. Maybe I'm being pranked or something. Maybe I don't even have powers, and Chloe is laughing her ass off somewhere in a room watching me from hidden cameras. What the actual fuck.

"You have such a brilliant eye. Can't you see the beauty in framing a person whose exterior self is completely shattered? A candid shot of them completely naked, without anything to hide who they truly are. Desperation and fear leaving nothing but the rawest form of man: the essence. Frame that Max."

I squinted at him. "You want me to take...pictures of her?"

He nods.

I turn around to look at Victoria again. She's still laying there, completely knocked out and helpless. I think of those twisted pictures of Kate. Sweet innocent Kate. All the pain that she's endured because of what Mr. Jefferson did to her. I cannot do that to another person.

"No. I couldn't. It's so...wrong! Why don't you understand that?"

"Don't think of her as a person under these...circumstances. Think of her as your subject."

"Is that how you thought about Rachel Amber? When you killed her?"

His face intensified as the room went deathly silent, and that dread came back to my heart. He took off his glasses so I could see his dark grey eyes, which were the color of storm clouds. They were still and soulless in his sockets. The moment went on for a long time with him looking at me with those haunting emotionless voids. Was he feeling anything? Did he ever feel anything? I was some trapped animal, completely petrified and unmoving. Just staring at its own predator. He shoved me backwards and I stumbled, tripping on a lighting wire and falling to the ground. I hit my head hard. Visions of the vortex flashed in my head.

"If you mention Rachel Amber again, I will have to kill you. And if you don't take the fucking pictures, I'll kill Victoria. And it will be all your fault Max." Blood pounded in my ears, I waited 5 seconds before getting back up. I looked into the viewfinder and found a good shot. Stomach bile rose to my throat as I pressed the shutter.

The camera flashed.