Coming Home

Limbo

Max smelled ocean water. Which was surprising, given the last thing she remembered was looking at her boyfriend and her best friend in the girl's bathroom. Now, with her eyes still closed, she could smell ocean water and…

Was that sand?

She felt around slowly with her hands and felt hot grains in her fingers. Slowly, she opened her eyes. Unless someone had blew up the toilets and filtered sand in, Max would guess she was at the beach.

Max unintentionally let out a squeak and sat up. She surveyed her surroundings and started to panic when she saw there was no one in sight.

Am I at the beach? Where are Chloe and Warren?

She looked out to the west and saw the lighthouse. Which gave her momentary relief.

At least I'm still in Arcadia Bay.

She walked around a bit, confused. She just realized her feet were bare on the sand. Miraculously, the sand had cooled to a pleasant degree. As she noticed her bare feet, she noticed she was dressed in a plain white t-shirt, a white bra and white shorts. A light, pleasant breeze riffed through her hair.

She looked once more around herself. All she saw was sand, ocean and lighthouse, until her eye caught a brown pier. At the end of said pier, sat a dirty blonde woman clad in a red and black shirt. The woman lifted her hand and brushed hair behind her ears. Blue earrings gleamed back at herself.

Max felt an urge to talk to this woman. It couldn't be who she thought it was. Could it? After all, stranger things have happened.

She approached the woman and awkwardly shuffled her feet. But suddenly the woman turned around. At least her head.

"Hey. You must be Max. I'm Rachel."

"Rachel Amber?"

"The one and only," she smiled pleasantly.

"Where are we? What are we doing here? Are you alive? W-"

"Whoa," she held her hands up, laughing. "Hold the fire. Sit down and chill. You probably haven't done that in forever."

Max huffed. She was dying for answers, but sadly Rachel was right. She hadn't had time to wind down. Ironically, the only winding she's done has been rewinding.

Max sat on the pier on the right side of Rachel. The water was just high enough to put her feet in. The warm water felt pleasing to Max's skin. She sighed in contentment.

"Good?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Now ask your questions. I have a feeling you have a lot of them."

"Uh, sure. Where are we?"

Rachel eyed Max carefully before taking a deep breath. "Limbo," she said carefully.

"Limbo?"

"Limbo. The place between life and death."

"Are you saying that I... died?"

"Yes and no. What I mean is, and, keep in mind, I don't know everything, but whenever you crushed that butterfly, you killed a part of yourself. You lost your powers and a small piece of yourself. I'm going to be honest, I think the shock of suddenly losing your abilities might have exhausted you or nearly killed you, but I know you're still alive."