Life is Stranger

Somewhere and Nowhere

Chloe was hunched forwards in the chair with one elbow resting upon her knee, the hand placed sideways across her mouth, staring vacantly at nothing as she affectionately cradled Vanessa's hand. Chloe could feel the warmth of the older woman gradually draining out of her body. All was total and utter silence.

'I'm only nineteen and I've just had to stand and watch as the mother of my soulmate died right here in front of me. Max's mom. Ryan's wife. My mother-in-law. Gone. And neither Max nor her dad was here with her as she slipped away. There was only me. This isn't right. They should have been here to say goodbye to her. Not me.'

Her gaze wandered aimlessly around the room before settling upon the lone window. The venetian blinds were partly closed, preventing Chloe from seeing outside. Chloe wondered why no daylight was seeping in through the long, thin slices of space created by the downward angle of the slats.

'How come there's no light coming through? What is out there? If I went and opened the blind right now, and looked out of the window, what would I see?'

Chloe realised that she didn't want to know the answer to that question. She was afraid to see what lay beyond the walls of the room. Chloe sensed something at that moment, a feeling which was very familiar to her, a feeling she had experienced once before...and recently, too. This room felt exactly like the clearing did when Chloe had shared her first kiss with Max. This room was all there was. This moment was all there was. The rest of the world didn't exist. There was only her...and Vanessa. The room was timeless.

'I'm no longer in the real world, am I? Hah! The real world? What is the real world? What's real? What's not? Is this real? Am I actually here? Is this genuinely happening, or is it all just a dreadful delusion created by my fucked-up brain? Is Vanessa really dead? Or is it me? Am I the one that's dead? Am I just a ghost who merely thinks that she's still alive? Am I actually dead and buried, my lifeless body lying in a casket next to my dad's? Is Max at my funeral right now, standing over my grave, alone and crying her tiny little heart ou...for fuck's sake Chloe! Stop it! Right now! Stop torturing yourself! Look at the total fucking mess your self-destruction got you into before. You are not putting yourself through that again, Chloe. What are you, some sort of goddamn masochist? Quit it with this crap. Max needs you to be strong now. She is depending on you. What the hell is wrong with you? Sort yourself the fuck out, girl!'

The chill of Vanessa's hand in hers seemed as if it were seeping through into Chloe's palm, and was beginning to feel unpleasant. Chloe gently slid her hand out and laid the dead woman's arm onto the coverlet.

'I just don't know any more. Kate, or whatever-the-fuck she is, has taken me outside of time...outside of time and space. I can feel it. No wonder she told me that I couldn't open the door - there's nothing on the other side of it. Nothing at all. I know there isn't. I can sense the infinite emptiness on the other side of it. It goes on forever. Nothing but a lifeless, timeless, bone-chilling void. No time. No space. No anything. Is the world carrying on somewhere without me? What about Max? Did I just vanish from right in front of her very eyes? Is she in some other, alternate version of this room, wondering what the hell has happened to me as she watches her mom die? Please no. Not that. Not without me there with her. Or is she frozen in time? Did someone hit the pause button on the whole goddamn world? Is the whole fucking world on hold, waiting just for me? Waiting for me to come back? Oh man. That is seriously hardcore.'

Chloe turned her head to look at the woman's corpse lying in the bed beside her.

'So what do I do? Do I leave things alone? Go back to fuck-knows-when, change nothing, and just let her die? After all the torment and suffering she's endured? Look what she's had to give up and live through. She deserves better than this. She deserves so much more than to be killed in a car crash at her age. She said herself that she wished she could be at our wedding...but she also said that she wanted to die. How the fuck am I supposed to make this sort of decision? Why me? Why is this being left up to me? I'm so not the person to make this sort of judgement. Nothing qualifies me for this. Nothing. I'm not wise, sensible, mature, or anything like that. I'm just a hot mess, a confused and fucked-up teenage girl from a small coastal fishing town in the ass end of nowhere. Mediocre Bay, Oblivion, U.S.A. I shouldn't have this sort of power. I didn't ask for it, and I don't want it. I just want to live the rest of my life in peace. I merely want to live a fairy tale, happily ever after life with Max and our family...or what's fucking left of it. One by one we're being snuffed out. None of us deserved this. We're not evil. We're not bad people. Where is the justice in all this? Why doesn't the bad stuff just happen to all the evil people in the world? Why does it happen to people like us? If there is a fucking God somewhere, he's got a whole shitheap of explaining to do.'

Chloe's gaze now lingered upon the door as she contemplated her situation. Minutes passed as the blue-haired girl sat motionless in the plastic chair, not taking her eyes off the doorway for even a second. She tilted her head to one side and upwards, as if straining to hear a faint and distant sound. Then, without any preamble, she abruptly jerked herself to her feet and kissed Vanessa on the head one last time.

"I've got to do this, Vanessa. I have to at least try. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't. I have to believe that I can beat this thing. I have to. I hope you understand. See you around."

Chloe strode over to the door, placed her left hand upon the surface, paused for a moment to listen once more, then decisively pushed the door open and disappeared through it, leaving a trail of ripples in her wake.