The Only

Split

Darkness.

Silence.

Nothingness.

...

...

...

She could feel the cool, slick floor beneath her back and on the palms of her hands as awareness fizzed in like frothy suds from waves breaking in the ocean during a storm. She marginally turned her head to the side and slowly wiggled it back and forth noticing the hard marble-like structure beneath her. Max pushed up on her elbows then to a sitting position and finally opened her eyes.

"Shit," she grimaced, which echoed down the hallway and deep into the narrow distance, then placed one hand on the top of her throbbing head and the other underneath her nose. In the past, when it felt like a chainsaw had torn through her skull, her nostrils would flow with sticky, scarlet liquid. Part of her expected to have a similar reaction as before, but when she pulled her hand away, she looked down and saw no traces of blood.

The brunette shifted so her arms wrapped around her knees with fingers from both hands entwined in the front, while her thoughts became less abstract, coalescing into sensible and logical understanding. "Something... happened," she whispered to no one, half-believing an audible response would be returned yet was unable to decipher her own recollection. She wasn't particularly cold, but she shivered and wished for a warmth that somehow had escaped her.

"Chloe...?" she recalled, almost as if asking a question.

"Chloe..."

"My... Chloe."

"Chloe! Fuuuuck!"

Suddenly, the disoriented girl remembered who and where she was before arriving at this place. She jumped up from the floor, spinning around frantically searching for any sign of her soulmate. Her chest thudded from a thunderous drumming which was rapidly increasing with each passing second. Bile inched up her throat, burning the lining of her esophagus, so she swallowed hard to push it back down. Max took a deeply forced breath to try and calm her nerves, but it did little to soothe her worries. All she saw was an unending hallway in both directions, and she realized she was standing in a room with endless equidistant funhouse-like mirrors.

"Fuck. Des!" Her voice reverberated throughout the confined corridor eventually dulling to a minuscule tone that was no longer within earshot.

Up and down the hallway, and on each of her sides, various reflections of herself stared back in her direction, moving as she moved. Each mirror showed a Max that looked almost identical to the one glancing in at them except for tiny, barely discernible differences. She stepped to the closest mirror and peered inside, immediately noticing her reflection had slight highlights in her hair. Max never really cared much about her appearance, wearing minimal makeup and whatever clothing felt comfortable. Unless she had a meeting for M3 or went out with her wife, she put forth little effort to look nice beyond the minimum. Chloe constantly told her she was naturally beautiful and was sexiest when she didn't try too hard, so she took that as her cue to be herself and not worry much about how she looked. She wondered what circumstances must have happened for the girl in the mirror to get highlights.

Max shuffled sideways a couple of steps and found herself in front of the mirror beside the first, staring into the eyes of another almost identical image. She squinted and the reflection simultaneously did the same. She raised her arm and the image copied her exact motion, as expected. While the reflection had her arm raised, Max noticed an eerie tattoo on the backside of her triceps. She tilted her head to get a better view of the ink, and what she saw caused her to step backward with a gasp. It was a picture of a dead blue butterfly surrounded by black flies, black hearts, and the words "CHLOE PRICE FOREVER" with "1994-2013" inked underneath. Without warning, tears cascaded down the brunette's face as she stumbled backwards pressing her back against the opposite wall between two of the mirrors. She slowly slinked to a seating position, tipping over with her head between her knees.