Chapter Text
Chloe figured when you were born, it was with a soul as pure as whatever-the-fuck came before. There were no stains, no imperfections; the soul, the mind, or whatever was a battery free from the stain of corrosion.
Then real life hit.
The imperfect world impugned onto the perfect, shortcuts were taken, others forced their bullshit onto you and slowly but surely the soul, or the mind, or whatever it was that defined the human part became tarnished. It still glimmered sometimes, under the right light, but by and large the soul that entered the world wasn’t that radiant, flawless gemstone that came before.
It was something a shade darker, more hardened - a protective shell instead of a glimmering star at twilight.
Then, as Chloe long suspected the universe was apt, things steadily continued to grow worse. She figured in her own soul nothing gleamed anymore. Nothing shone and nothing glimmered, and she felt a dismal sort of sardonic amusement at the idea.
Max, Nathan, discovering the corpse of perhaps one of the only things Chloe still held precious, that rotting, sickly sweet stink that had pervaded her nostrils. All this she remembered in absolute clarity. After that was when things started to get blurry.
The indistinct figure standing over Max, the agony of the gunshot just beneath her ribcage, the nauseating pressure that made breathing an agony. She recalled dimly those last few seconds looking up at the stars, before the final flash of light directly in her eyes, like another star being born.
Who would’ve thought dying would be so beautiful?
She figured that was that. One doesn’t remember anything after that, scene closed, the curtains fall. This ugly, disappointment of a life had finally engulfed her and she felt this sort of weary satisfaction in the instant of the Flash. Finally, for the last instant of her life, Chloe wasn’t angry anymore. Finally she could rest.
Then she opened her eyes.
——&&&&——
Blinding light, agony and a fading sense that something was very wrong buffeted Chloe around like she was the center of a storm. She coughed something that tasted of metal, rolled over and groaned aloud. The agony swelled, then bizarrely seemed to fade away in a neat curve till the agony only existed in her memory.
Cautiously, Chloe sat up, levering herself first onto her elbows, then, finding no exquisite lance of pain, onto her dirty jeans.
She spat again, seeing the blood hit the dirt. She didn’t seem to be injured however, and after spitting several more times to get the taste of blood out, she wiped her face off on the back of her hand. She felt her pockets for a phone. Nothing. Not even her bag had survived apparently.
She was in the junkyard, and it was daytime. That much she could take in at a glance. Her most recent memories flared up in her subconscious, the grave, the bullet, the … acceptance. She felt like she was going to vomit, but spat again, keeping it down. She searched her pockets, this time for cigarettes and, finding a pack, lit up.
Her hands shook even after she took a monumental drag, the tremors of her flesh shaking ash from the tip of the cigarette. She was certain she had died. Someone had done something to Max, and then proceeded to blow Chloe’s brains out.
Chloe coughed and nearly vomited again. The familiar taste of the shitty, Bay cig tasting more like ashes in her mouth. She tried to summon that characteristic anger that had gotten her through her dad’s death; tried to fuel the rage that had gotten her through the stares and the alienation her final years at Blackwell and found that it wouldn’t come.
Something was wrong. She should be dead, or at the very very least bleeding out her life into the rust-colored dirt of what had been her favorite place on Earth. She frantically looked around for Max, but other than her, and an inquisitive rabbit, the Junkyard was deserted.
Chloe tried to summon a choking cry but found it just as insincere and hollow as the anger had been. The numbness seemed all-pervasive now. She settled for lighting a second cigarette and taking a couple steps toward the train tracks, and the long road home.
She wondered where her truck was.
——&&&&——
Rachel figured she knew the ins and outs of most people. She’d always had a gift for knowing what people were thinking and it made her generally love people all the more. They seemed to fuel her, imbibe her with their strengths and grant her a measure of their ..
Whatever it was that was at their core. If they were happy, she would share their happiness and if they were sad, she grieved with them.
Sure other people had their ups and their downs; their moments of sadness, weakness and rarely hate, but she had never known anyone to be cruel, and this lent her a burnished coal of optimism buoyed by the certainty that she knew what was right.
For her, life was an endless summer day into which she poured every measure of the happiness life gave her right back into it.
She figured that everybody could feel like she did if they had had the right help.
Her father had shaken that belief. Fractured her silent surety that everyone could be basically good. Chloe had helped - god had she helped - and although wounded, Rachel faced the dawn with love and optimism firmly held in her heart.
——&&&&——
Rachel woke vomiting and crying into dirt that seemed to press in all around her. She gasped in air. Trying her best just to breathe and concentrate on her surroundings. Then she remembered the numb feeling of narcotics leeching the very life from her … where was her phone? What had happened?
A million thoughts ricocheted around her head and Rachel actually whimpered, nearly vomiting again.
The laughing whisper of Nathan’s voice, the sting of the needle all seemed to tear at her, to break her down into her atomic parts. Rachel had no solace, no hope; the world had betrayed her.
After a period of time she heard twigs break somewhere close to her. She sat up, wiping snot and tears carelessly and looked around her.
She had no idea where she was. The trees around her meant nothing, and the sun, high overhead did nothing to alleviate the feeling of dread that rose up inside her to wash away all cogent thought.
Twigs snapped again, this time closer. Heedless of anything else, Rachel stumbled her way to her feet and fled in the opposite direction, branches and bushes scratching her like clawing fingers in her wake. She didn’t realize she’d left the forest until the blare of a horn, and the screech of tires alerted her.
The truck missed her, and began to stop, but Rachel was already gone. Her faith in everything was a broken jigsaw puzzle and her thoughts went to the only person she thought she could trust to put it back together again. She began to make her way back down the hill and into the Bay she remembered so fondly.
——&&&&——
Somewhere, Max felt her vision slacken and fade.
Something warm the color of blood was stealing her thoughts.
She tried to speak, to whisper to god, the universe, anyone and say that she was sorry but the words mangled themselves in her throat. She felt the bizarre feeling of her face twisting itself up around and around like a spiral. She tried to speak once more without really knowing what she planned to say and what she heard was an atonal slurring noise that should’ve frightened her.
Fear was gone though, and everything else was following out the door. She would’ve remarked on how little she knew, if she had the presence of mind to do so. But the red mist was stealing her thoughts from here before they could form. Max was scared, and as her world, her memories faded the fear heightened to terror.
Something was very wrong.
The last thing she saw was a flash of bright blue, a glimpse of an insect’s wing and the odd feeling that she’d done something that shouldn’t have been done.
Then the blackness swallowed her whole.