Life is Strange: Forces of Nature

Episode One: Tachypsychia (1)

(A/N: Life is Strange is by far one of my favorite- if not the most favorite- game I've ever had the pleasure of playing. I recently replayed it, given the hype of Before the Storm coming out, and I fell even deeper in love with it than I already was. So, I was all like, 'Why not fall deeper down the fandom hole?' and decided to create this beauty. With a face only a mother could love. It's AmberPriceField so that should give y'all some inkling of what's going to happen. I tried to make it original but I really don't know if I did since their aren't that many LiS Fanfics around. Review in the comments or give me a star if you like it. It'd be nice to know that I do this for someone else too, not just me.)

Part One: Rachel Amber

Blood rushed down Max's lip from her nose as she stared and stared at the picture. Even though the Polaroid was ripped, she could still hear the voices and the sounds of that day in her head. Reverberating around in her skull like the slow bass of a band. The blue butterfly was mostly whole but the picture was torn down the middle.

The funeral had been painful for her. As if she was being stabbed over and over again in the heart. She had loved Chloe. More than a best friend. And she knew that Chloe loved her in the end. They had kissed before Max had sacrificed her for Arcadia. They had actually kissed...

She had torn the picture the moment she entered the bathroom, making sure that she could never go back to that moment. No matter how much she wanted to. Like now. Even taped, the Polaroid was beyond able to be focused. There was no way Max could go back and she was just torturing herself trying to. Both physically and mentally.

Her head was throbbing for trying for the last fifteen minutes and her soul and heart ached when she kept hearing the gun shot, her own sobbing, and Chloe's strangled last breaths as the blood in her body pooled out of her stomach and onto the floor.

It was hell to wake up in the middle of Chloe's funeral with all those different sets of memories. With the different memories of different time streams, including the one she was just in. She broke down the moment she was alone. She cried into her pillow, remembering everything that she went through and with the knowledge that everything she did to keep Chloe alive was for nothing.

Max didn't want it to end up that way. She didn't want the girl she loved dead while the town that was slowly decaying survived to die another day. It wasn't fair. And after a few beers alone in her room as a toast to Chloe, that's exactly what brought Max to stare at the torn picture while wishing she could go back.

The thing was, in her drunken haze, Max blamed Rachel Amber for everything that happened. If she hadn't disappeared, Chloe, for one reason or another, would have never been in that bathroom. Max would have never awakened her Rewind, and everything would be as it should be. Even if Jefferson and Prescott would still be alive and roaming around. At least then, Chloe would be safe.

Another beer bottle later and Max found herself staring at a picture of Chloe and Rachel. The one Chloe had used for Rachel's Missing Person posters. They looked so happy... So free. It was a photo Jefferson would have despised and that made Max smile. Then she flipped the picture, showing the date written on the back.

April 20th, 2013 was clearly written on the back in cursive. It was obviously Chloe's writing. But what got Max was that it was dated two days before Rachel's disappearance. It wasn't a Polaroid, so it could have been a day or two earlier than what was written but it didn't matter. Max knew in her heart what she had to do.

The photo was hard to focus on. Max had never traveled back through a photo she wasn't there to take, be in, or wasn't a Polaroid. The Dark Room, Chloe's Butterfly, William's Last Day, Warren's Drunken Haze; they all had Max in them in some way, whether she was the subject or the person taking the photo or Max's special brand of non-digital mark. This... This would be something new and potentially devastating. And Max couldn't find it in herself to care.