A Trail of Memories

It's a Long Story.

"It's future rust, and then it's future dust,

I'm the fury, in your head,

I'm the fury, in your bed,,

I'm the ghost,

In the back of your head."

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A/N: When it comes to me writing, as long as I have inspiration, just a couple of people encouraging me to write more is really plenty for me. This specific writing I'm starting first is an epilogue to my alternative ending ('Everyday Hero') I wrote previously this week. That is to say, it is not related to the canon ending of Life is Strange Episode 5. However, I can say that I do intend on writing a continuation of the canon ending in the future. I just felt like I had a bit more story in me for my own alternative ending, and I saw one or two requests for it. So, if you're waiting for the fan fiction continuation of the canon ending, be patient! This one comes first, and hopefully you'll enjoy it too. Not sure how long it's going to be, yet, as part of me sort of goes wherever my subconscious guides me as I write, and otherwise it depends on how much people like how the story is going, so it could go on for a while if all goes well.

All that aside, the story must go on!

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Always Right Here.

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Thunder ripped through the air, like the roar of some wild beast. Lightning struck a tree beside her. The great tornado glided across the water of the bay.

How?! This can't be happening! No!

A great gust of wind swept across them. She lost her grip on Chloe's hand. The blue-haired woman was pushed from her grip, water and mud slipping beneath her feet, and Chloe went tumbling over the edge of the cliff with a scream. Max tried to rewind, and found that she couldn't.

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She woke with a jump in her bed, a cold sweat across her body. Thunder rumbled quietly outside. Maxine's blankets were half off the bed, she noticed, as she took quick, deep breaths. One pillow was halfway across the room on the floor.

Just a nightmare. Another nightmare.

It was just a dream—at least, she hoped. It did not feel nearly as real as the visions of the tornado she used to have. This was the third night in a row she had the same dream. Chloe always ended up dying in it, somehow. The night before she had been struck by lightning, and before that she had been crushed by a piece of the falling lighthouse. Her rewind powers always failed her in the dream, too.

Another headache ached through her skull, too, and she guessed she was once more running a low fever. Max had not been brought to a hospital after the storm, as even Warren had taken a guess that the doctors would have no idea what to do, considering nobody knew about her power.

She slowly stood up, holding her own arms for a moment, forcing the shivering to stop. Rain gently pitter-pattered against the window and the ground outside. It wasn't severe like the storm the previous Friday, the one she had nearly killed herself to stop, but it made her nervous and brought back bad feelings all the same. She reached for her cellphone, to call Warren or Chloe, but thought better of it. According to the clock, it was 6:02 AM, and they were probably still asleep. The light was very dim outside, the clouds darkening what light there was, too.

Maxine was in her dorm. After spending two nights at Chloe's, she had decided not to mooch off of Joyce when times were already a bit crazy (though Joyce had insisted otherwise), and she wanted to check on her dorm, too. She had been especially curious to see if her photo mural had changed at all, but unlike her worries, it seemed to be completely the same.

From what she had gathered from her friends, most of her timeline had remained the same, other than Rachel never being killed. Chloe still ended up confronting Nathan, which lead to Max telling the principal. However, Nathan's gun had not been loaded, and afterwards, Chloe did not press Max to look for Rachel, as she had not mysteriously vanished. Instead, the two of them had apparently gone on investigations to, rather than finding Rachel, figure out what had happened to Kate, and what devious plans Nathan and the rest of the Prescotts were up to.

Chloe, however, seemed to not be destined to die. Rachel never dying, as Max had hoped, prevented that. Chloe was not quite so careless as before, though otherwise much the same.

Max had a feeling she knew who would be awake already, probably woken by the storm, and because she was an early bird. She dialled the number of the hospital.

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A nice, smiling nurse tapped lightly on Kate's door, wondering if she was still asleep. "Come in." Her voice rang out.

The nurse pushed open the door gently and walked in with a cordless phone, her smile widening a little. "Good to see you up, Kate. I hope you had a nice night." Kate nodded in response with a smile of her own, and then looked down towards the phone. "We have a friend of yours on the line. I told her that you'd probably be asleep, but…She insisted that she knew you well enough. Her name is Max-?"

Kate immediately stood up at the name, her smile widening further, and walked over to take the phone from her carefully. "Thank you." She said quietly, before bringing the phone up to her ear and walking to sit back on the bed. The nurse quietly walked out, shutting the door softly behind her.

"Hello? Max?"

"Hey, Kate!" Max said over the phone cheerily. "How are you?"

Kate slunk back a bit into her pillows, relaxing. "I'm good, Max. I was worried about you, after that freak storm on Friday. It's so good to hear from you."

"Oh, yeah, I'm good, don't worry. We made sure everyone was safe during the storm, I'm fine."

Kate nodded her head while listening. "How is everything out there?" Kate asked after a second of pause.

"Good, Kate. Really good. Everyone's pitching in to help clean up the town, I don't think it'll take long. Oh, and I think classes are starting up…Next Monday? A week from now."

Kate smiled softly at this. "That's great, Max." She paused. "Hey, do you think you could come visit sometime? I know things must be a bit crazy out there, but…"

Max responded immediately. "Oh, of course, Kate—no, don't even worry about the stuff out here. I'll make time, for sure. I'll visit sometime soon."

Kate felt relieved. She hadn't seen her good friend in a while now. With another nod, she replied into the phone, "Okay…I'm looking forward to it."

"Okay, Kate. I have to let you go for now, just wanted to see how you were. I'll see you sometime soon, okay?"

"Sure, Max. Stay safe, talk to you soon." She smiled. Max replied with a quick, "Bye!" From the other end of the line, and they hung up.

Kate Marsh stood up from the bed, shaking her head and smiling for a moment, before walking over to her room window, looking out towards the clouds. Setting the phone aside on a table for now, she watched the clouds and rain.

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Max slid her cellphone back into her bag, and then laid back onto her bed, raising her hands up and covering her face, groaning. After a moment, she pulled her blanket back up towards her, fixing it on the bed somewhat before hiding her head underneath it to block out the light.

She stayed like this for a short while, before deciding that laying in bed wouldn't solve anything, and she doubted she could fall back to sleep right now. Forcing herself up out of bed with a yawn, she looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was a mess, pushed to one side, her shirt messy and wrinkled.

Jeeze, and I thought I knew what zombie face looked like before…

Max walked over to the closet in her room, grabbed her soap and shampoo, and pushed the door open to walk out into the hall. Almost all of the other students hadn't come back to their dorms yet, though they were allowed to, as some of them had no other home in town. Brooke, she knew, was back, and she thought that she heard someone else come in last night too, maybe Juliet.

The hall seemed eerie with this little activity, with the quiet thunder outside. Max walked down the hall, turned the corner to her left and walked into the shower room.

She looked at the relatively clean mirror, where Victoria had once wrote the link to Kate's video, that she had erased, and then turned to walk to the shower stall.

Maybe a hot shower will do the trick for this headache…

She pulled the curtain closed behind her, slipped off her clothes, and turned on the shower—the hottest she could make it without it completely burning her flesh.

Let us not get third degree burns ontop of everything else, thanks.

She tilted her head back under the stream of water, closed her eyes, and let her muscles relax under the flow, steam filling the air.

After five minutes or so, she did find that her headache had begun to recede, and she no longer felt feverish. These 'episodes' seemed to happen once in a while, so to speak, but so far she always recovered from them well, and they were never too severe.

There was, however, one other complication.

She still had her powers, fortunately or not, but she found it was much harder to use them.

Thinking back to the previous day, she remembered an analogy that Warren had made about it.

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They had finished helping push a piece of metal onto the opposite side of the road from the diner, which was looking in decent condition, other than some obviously broken windows.

Warren brushed his hands off on his pants. "There we go, good as new." He announced, looking over towards the still rather dirty diner.

"Mhmm. What would we do without you, Warren?" Max asked with a smirk.

He shrugged, and jokingly raised his arms up, flexing. "Why, I'm not sure! These muscles of mine are the saviour here, of course." Max laughed, then, rolling her eyes. Warrens black eye was pretty much gone, by then, only the faintest hint of purple down by the top of his cheekbone.

Chloe snickered. "I have more muscle than you, tough guy."

"Pffft, I just hide my true powers, that's all." Warren rebuked, lowering his hands to his sides. "Speaking of which, Max, how's your rewind doing?"

Max shrugged. When she had tried it the day before, she had been barely able to do anything at all.

"Well, let's find out." He said quietly, looking around at his feet. He picked up a rock no bigger than his finger, held it up, and said, "See if you can rewind me dropping this, lemme know what happens." He then dropped it down from stomach-height to the ground.

Max raised her right hand, and the other two watched, intrigued, though they knew that if it worked they'd never remember her doing this. She tried to rewind.

The rock, slowly but surely, rose up…but only made it halfway back to his hand, before she felt a strain on her brain and too much effort. She stopped trying and let it drop, lowering her hand back to her side.

"Gah. No good. My brain's fried like an egg or something." She said with a sad smile.

Warren shook his head. "What happened? Details."

Maxine shrugged. "I got it halfway back up to your hand, and then…Felt too weak, I guess?"

He considered this for a few seconds, looking thoughtful. "Hmm…You know what I think? Since you still have the power, I don't think your brain is..'fried like an egg'. Maybe just…half-fried." He smirked. Max punched him lightly on the shoulder, rolling her eyes. "Hahah, okay, but really, I think it's more like…A pulled muscle? When you pull a muscle, you can still do things with it, but it hurts, and you've got no force behind it. My thought is that you just have to, you know, let it heal up right."

Chloe laughed shortly. "Hah. She has a pulled brain. Now that requires effort."

Max couldn't help but laugh with her, shaking her head. "You try having your brain pulled and see how it feels to have people making fun of you." She said this jokingly, of course. "So I guess I should, uh…Rest it? I can't exactly put a heating pad on it, since it's, you know, my brain."

Warren nodded, grinning at the joking between her and Chloe. "Yeah, something like that. Maybe slowly start to train it, too, you know, get it back to the strength it was without pushing yourself. Edge it in the right direction."

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So she had. Every so often, she would put something on a table or whatever surface, knock it off, and see if she could rewind it back up. She thought she was getting a little stronger again, but if she was, it was slow progress.

Maybe continuing to use it is what's causing these headaches. Ugh. Stupid pulled brain.

She finished her shower, turned off the water, and grabbed a towel. A few minutes of drying herself off later, she slipped her clothes back on, damp hair hanging down on the top of her shirt.

Max headed back to her dorm room, yawning a second time and rubbing at her eyes. The headache was gone other than a very faint, dull ache, which she decided she could ignore well enough.

She got properly dressed once in her dorm, pulling on the clothes she had worn at the start of the week, the gray shirts and jeans. With that, she slung her bag up over her shoulder and neck, slipped her hand inside to ensure that her trusty camera was indeed there, and then turned. To go where?

At that moment, her phone buzzed. She grabbed it out of the bag and looked at the text she had gotten. It was from Chloe.

'Max. Diner. Breakfast. Waffles. Lots of waffles. Power was out for a while so stuff in fridge was bad. Warren & Me treating you to breakfast. Well, Warren. It's on Warren.

Get your time butt over here.'

Max smiled and laughed softly for a moment replying with 'Okay, be there soon ^_^' before receiving a second text about twenty seconds later, while walking down the hall, this time from Warren.

'I hear that a certain blue-haired girl has informed the madame that I am treating her to breakfast. Blue-haired sidekick did not consult Sir first. Breakfast is on blue-haired madame. Chloe. It's on Chloe.'

She laughed again, and another thirty seconds later, another text.

'IT'S ON WARREN DAMMIT. Whatever, just get down here.

NO EMOJI!'

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As it turned out, it was on none of them, as Joyce served them all waffles with no charge. The electricity was back and all the appliances were running again, though all the cold meats and eggs were indeed spoiled, so that would take another few days.

Max sat beside Warren, Chloe sitting directly across from them.

"You should totally use your time powers like you did to make me believe you in here for Warren. Er, if your powers were tip-top again."

"But I already believe her." Warren replied simply.

"Well, sure, but…It'd still be fun." Chloe replied with a defeated shrug, before muttering something about frying Warren's brain.

A few other people sat about in the diner, as well—namely a few of the local fishermen, and they didn't seem to be complaining about the lack of food, rather polite, for once. There was still coffee, though, which was great, and by the look on everyone's face, they all needed a cup. Or a pot. Or a few litres of it.

"Hey, Max? Did you sleep okay last night?" Chloe asked, a more mildly concerned tone taking over her sarcastic joking one. Max gave a small shrug in response.

"About the same as the last few. Maybe a bit better. I dreamt again, but I don't think the headache was as bad. What about you? Things over at your place good?"

Warren casually raised his left hand to Max's forehead, as if to check for a fever. Awh, she thought briefly, as Chloe replied. "Yeah, things're fine. My step…" She took a small breath. Old habits die hard. "Dad, is still shaken and as stuck up as per usual, but we've been…" She shrugged. Chloe never went into too many details, didn't really like to. Max got the message, though. They'd been talking, or a bit more comfortable, probably. And she knew that Chloe had thanked him for saving her best friend.

"How's Blackwell, Max? Things a mess up there?" Warren asked after a few moments, changing the topic.

She shook her head. "Naw. Storm threw a few boards around, couple of broken windows, but everything's intact. Including my dorm, hooray." A light smirk.

"Oh, cool. I'll totally have to go up and check the boys' dorms sometime." He paused. "Though, you know, those were never exactly clean to begin with." From what Max remembered, they weren't too bad, at least not the hallway when she had snuck in to try to snoop around Nathan's dorm, what felt like years ago.

"What's gonna happen with 's class now?" Chloe asked. That brought a brief silence, as it was a bit of a touchy subject, but Max replied shortly.

"I think they're looking for a new teacher right now, if they don't find one the class will have to be cancelled from our schedules this semester." She didn't know whether she felt good or bad about that fact. Being back in that class could bring back bad memories, but at the same time she enjoyed the course. Max turned her head, looking out the window towards the clouds. The rain had stopped, and the clouds were drifting gently away out over the bay.

"Well, let's not dilly-dally too long, faithful companions. Lots of cleaning to be done, mom'll be on my ass if I don't help out somewhere, the usual. Chop chop." Chloe said. Chloe, saying they should get to work for once? That was new. She did seem determined to help out her mom ever since she nearly got eaten by a giant tornado.

Max gave a small nod, taking the last bite of her waffles and eating it gratefully. The three of them stood up, and headed back towards the door.

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A/N: I work fast, apparently. Expected this to take way longer than it did—this IS only the first chapter, by the way, I plan on writing more, so don't worry, that wasn't the end at all. As usual, leaving a review would be greatly appreciated, with criticism or appreciation, whatevs'. Thoroughly enjoying writing this so far. Hope you like it!