Dreamcatcher

Chapter Sixty-Three: Suffer With Me Pt. II

The effects of the IV quickly affected Chloe as she began to feel drowsy, her eyes became more difficult to keep open.

"I'm so proud of you for following your dreams. Don't forget about me..." Chloe spoke as clearly as she could, however her voice became more and more weak.

"Never. You and Clark will always be in my hearts."

"I love you, Max. See you 'round..."

Followed by one last exhale and Chloe had finally found rest.

Instant guilt overwhelmed Max for her decision to put her best friend to rest. But the job was done, and she died peacefully.

Max found the strength to get out of her seat and commit Chloe's face to memory one last time before making her way out of the room. A book caught her attention, stopping her from walking out. Observing it more closely, Max distinguished that it was a photo album of her and the twins as little kids throughout their youth together.

She proceeded to scroll through the pages of photos until she found one on the day William died.

Knowing that by going back to that exact moment and allowing William to pick up Joyce from the shops, they were consequences she had to live with if the twins were going to live out their lives not stuck in a wheelchair or a bed hooked up to expensive equipment.

Max withdrew the photograph and concentrated on it until she heard a very faint high-pitched ringing, followed by echoed voices of her younger self.

By travelling through space and time, Max brought herself back as closely to the moment William Price left home. Once again, she was back in Chloe's room, helping her sort out things to stow in the trash box. Max became emotionally overwhelmed and smiled weepily at her best friend and entered a conversation to pass the time until Max was eventually restored to present time.

By a stroke of luck, Max awoke to find herself still bound to the chair Mark Jefferson fastened her to, but her journal was still in front of her, and there was a photograph she could exploit from to interfere with her current predicament. Max channelled her focus once again on that photo of her self-portrait the day she first discovered her rewind powers and entered bac into that time period with hopes of removing Jefferson from Blackwell anonymously.

The brunette jumped slightly when a white flash startled her. Her mind quickly raced around the fact that she was now back at the start of everything and she had her window of opportunity.

"... and capture you in a moment of desperation," said the past version of Mark Jefferson.

Max looked up from her camera and observed her surroundings when Jefferson - while he strongly maintained his twisted façade - brought the class' attention onto Max as soon as he caught her taking a photo of her face.

"I believe Max has taken what you kids call a 'selfie.' "

"I'm back... right where I started this insane two weeks. And nobody is going to get hurt ever again..." Max spoke in her mind.

She blocked out Jefferson's voice and focused on her intentions to rid of him for good. His lips moved but even while he spoke, barely anybody seemed to care what he had to say to lecture Max for something she did innocently.

Her features expressed calculation and deep thoughts intrusive to the lesson Max was participating in for the third time. Out of the corner of her eye, Max looked over at a frightened Kate Marsh hugging herself for self-comfort knowing the type of hell she was going through. It then occurred to Max that she could even avoid another disastrous catastrophe involving Kate's attempted suicide by expressing her love and affection for the Christian girl in a non-platonic matter.