it's you and me | lumax

i know the end

After the darkness, she reaches the light. The light - she can remember in full fragments of her torn memory. There's a little boy, surfboard in hand, running along the shore of a beach. Sandy hair, a bright smile, years before life could turn him into a monster and take him too. He waves at her, though a living barrier prevents her from waving back. The blazing sun caresses her cheek, as she realizes - she can feel it. Her eyes can see clearly taking in the sight of her hands lifting up to her face - no blood running down her face, no broken limbs. It all feels so... peaceful.

She inhales the crisp and cold, salty ocean air, taking it all in, feeling the safety of this unknown world. A part of her wants to stay here forever, but there's a voice, calling out to her. Out towards the horizon, where the sky meets the ocean in a mix of blues, something calls for her to follow it. Because this world, she perceives, it doesn't have them. No Mike or Will, the stubborn Paladin and brave Cleric. No Dustin, the spontaneous bard, and no El, her best friend and magical mage. No Lucas, her stalker, her lover, her home.

Her feet take her along the sand, guiding her across the dunes as they finally meet the cold sting of water. She wades in deeper, the waves crash against her knees with the sand astray piercing her skin, surpassing her as they melt into the shore. The voice calls again as the ocean waves reach out to her, pulling her into the shore. She stumbles in to find herself already washed away in the currents of the Pacific.

Max expects to sink, drown under the weight of the water. But she's floating instead. The splashes and waves continue to against her crash against her body. Then a feeling, deep in her chest causes her to gasp out loud. A revived pulse - a beating heart. It belongs to her, cueing that she doesn't belong in this world. Salt stings her eyes as the sea dances around her body and beating heart. She doesn't fight the tide. Her heart continues to beat as the ocean stills a little more. The light world around her fades, and she submerges under the waves, and a calming darkness takes over.

___

Minutes, days, months, centuries pass. Years, weeks, seconds, she doesn't know. All she knows is the sense of darkness, all around her. She resurges above the waves to find herself in a void of black, but darkness is not all there is this time.

Something, a flaming red, flashes in the distance, and a little flaming-haired girl emerges this time, a tiny, plastic skateboard in her hands. She sets the board down and rides along a road in which there is no one else travelling. No one else but Max. A setting world takes place around her, sun setting, breeze densing in an autumn coolness. But she knows this girl, skating along a lonesome path. That girl is her, many years before - before all this. She wants to ask the girl where where the hell she is, even though she knows the girl won't answer. Though she knows her, the girl on the skateboard won't know who who she is.

Who she is, Max doesn't know either. Is she the girl who dances in a school gym with Lucas at December's Snow Ball? Or perhaps, the girl shopping at a small town mall, icecream in one hand, shopping bag in another. Is she the crying wreck she was, on the day where fireworks boomed and the flesh of her brother teared? Is she the girl who ghosts her friends in a school hallway, ignoring their concern and hiding away in her misery? Full of secrets of wanting things to change, to end, to disappear.

The little girl is far away now, riding away onto the unclear road ahead. Max let's her go, and turns to the darkness swallowing her whole once again.

___

She's everywhere and nowhere, all at once.

An array of scenes play before her, all the memories in her life. Good ones, bad ones, ones she can't even place.

This particular memory shows her a boy and a girl, speaking softly to eachother on a rusty swing set, somewhere near the phantom streets of Hawkins. The sun is setting, sinking in the sky and the scene is tranquil. But then the voices stop all together and a silence sets too loud.

"I think... I think we should take a break," the girl says, breaking the silence, looking down at the grass under her feet moving slowly, back and forth as she swings.

The boy is taken aback, turning his head towards the girl in accusation. "What?" He speaks, the single word filled with hurt. "Max, please don't do this. Not again, not when we've come so far."

Her expression becomes hostile and bitter. "Oh, 'we've come so far'? Is that what this is? Lucas, you and I both know that we're going nowhere." She snaps as he winces away at her mean words continuing. "I mean, at least I'm not. You, with your basketball shit going on. I can't even finish my math homework and everything's going too fast-"
"Then I'll just help you! Come on, Max, you know I'll never leave you behind."
The girl is standing now, turning to leave. The sun is gone now, and with it, any sign of hope in her eyes. "Just- don't, okay? You know what? I'll just let you leave me behind. That way we can go our separate ways, with no more plaguing thoughts about eachother. I don't think I handle this anymore."
"But-"
"It's over again, I guess."

Max watches as the girl she was mere months ago leaves, and the silhouette left at the swing sits lonely in defeat. He's hurt, trying everything he can to help her, but instead, she pushes him away in anguish. She wants to walk up to him in this moment, she wants to make things right, but it all fades away again and she submerges deeper into the void of murky blackness.

___

Once again, she resurges from the void.

She sees the same girl and boy. They're sitting next to each other, hand in hand in against movie seats. There's a packet of skittles in her drink holder, while the popcorn is at his side. Max watches from afar as the boy puts his arm around the girl, whispering something into her ear. She laughs, and the sound of it echoes as the scene fades away into smoke.

Only this scene wasn't a memory. No, this had never even happened at all. Not yet, at least.

Something in her bones tells her, this will be the last ever vision she sees in a while. The end, she felt, was near. But where would she go? Should she find a new place to reside?

This time, before succumbing to the dark, a continuous beeping sounds in the back of her mind. Or is this sense coming from around her, outside her mind, from her physical, broken body?