It only makes sense that Chloe goes in. She has a metal bat, and she's not afraid to use it. "Ok, I'll stay here and wait. Good luck." She turns around and makes a 'rock on' sign with her hand and sticks her tongue out too. She starts quietly walking towards the darkroom. Classic Chloe, not afraid of anything. But we don't know who's there, so we should be cautious. We don't have any bullets for the gun, but if Chloe wanted to she could seriously hurt someone with that bat. I stand by the big metal door and watch Chloe disappear into the darkroom, which is literally dark. The power must have went out. She probably can't see anything.
"Unghh damnent!" A voice from the darkroom says. It's a male voice, but that's all I can really tell. I can hear Chloe walking faster. A lot faster. Almost at the speed of running.
"Take this, asshole!" She swings and, from the sound of it, hits the person. "Max, it's ok to come in now." She says panting a little. I jog into the darkroom. I can see Chloe's blue hair amidst the darkness, so I go to it.
"Chloe! Who was that?" I ask.
"I think it was Mark. See if you can turn on the lights." I rush over to the wall by the entrance and feel for a switch. Nothing. I move my hands along the wall some more. There you are. I flip the switch upwards and light quickly fills the room. "Jesus!" I hear Chloe say. I jog back over.
"Oh my god Chloe! What did you do?!" There in front of us lays Nathan. His head bleeding out from a direct hit from the baseball bat.
"Max, I swear to god I thought it was Mark! I thought he would try to hurt us." Oh no. Nathan wasn't actually bad. He was just being used by Mark. I have to rewind. I can't let this happen. Nathan doesn't deserve to die.
(Rewind)
Go back to chapter 6
Or, continue if you don't want to rewind.
(Continuation)
"Max, aren't you going to rewind?!" She practically yells at me. I stand there still phased by what Chloe just did. She just killed someone. "Max I-I didn't really want to hurt anyone. I thought that whoever was in here might hurt us and-I don't know." She says really fast. I think Chloe's panicking. I don't blame her though, she just fucking killed someone.
"Chloe, what are we going to do?"
"I-I-I don't know Max." She sounds like she's about to cry. "I need a cigarette." She pulls her pack of cigarettes out and takes one. "I'll be outside." She says solemnly. She walks out of the darkroom with the cigarette in her mouth. Now I'm standing in the darkroom by myself, with a dead person laying on the floor, which is covered in spats of blood. Should I rewind? Chloe did just kill Nathan, but knowing Nathan, he's unpredictable. He could have killed us if he were alive, because he always carried that gun around. The gun. Maybe he still has it. I slowly bend down to Nathan's body.
"Poor Nathan." I say quietly. Even though he tried to shoot Chloe and Warren, he was still a good person deep down. He did apologize to me. I search around in his pockets. No gun, but what's this? I feel a cylinder shaped object in his right jacket pocket. I pull it out and, it looks like a pill bottle. It reads Haldol 5mg. Wonder what Nathan took this for? I flip the bottle over. Under the part titled "Notes" it says: Prescott, Nathan - psychosis & bipolar disorder. I could have guessed he had some sort of mental disorder. If you pull a gun out on someone as soon as you get a little pissed off then I think there's something wrong with you. He was so quick to violence and had drastic mood swings. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who could have guessed that he had something going on. After seeing his dark and creepy room and his deranged photography style, I can't believe Victoria didn't even have the slightest thought about Nathan being a little crazy. I'm sure Victoria was in his room, knowing her. I put the pills back in his pocket.
I stand back up. I wonder where David and Mark went, or what even happened to them. They must have left a while ago, I would assume after the storm. But I hope Mark didn't hurt David. I look down at Nathan again. I wonder why Nathan was in here to begin with. Mark must have tried to kill him, because that's what he told me in that message. It would be the only thing that makes sense, unless David did that to him. I don't know. All I know is he's dead, and if he were alive, he may have hurt us. I walk out of the darkroom and up the stairs to the barn. I creep up the stairs quietly and look at Chloe, who hasn't heard me yet. She's standing in the doorway of the barn puffing her cigarette, staring off into the bay some ways away. I walk over and stand next to her.
"I didn't want to hurt him." She says after taking a deep breath in from her cigarette.
"I know. You just did it to protect us." I try to say reassuringly.
"I know, but he seemed like he was already wounded and who knows if he would have even hurt us."
"It was dark and you didn't know it was even him. It could have been Mark." She stands there staring off into the distance still.
"...Max, was he even armed?"
Tell the truth/Lie
"...No. I looked for the gun, but it wasn't there." I answer. She puffs on her cigarette.
"So I just murdered someone in cold blood, and they weren't even armed!?" She says angrily.
"You couldn't afford to take any chances. It could have been Mark, or someone else just as dangerous. You didn't know."
"But it wasn't Mark." She inhales on her cigarette again, but this time it's a deep, long one. Chloe was already stressed enough with everything that's happened this week, plus what happened to Joyce. Now she's just killed someone. If she isn't more depressed, then she is now. "Max, this whole week has been crazy. Like, hella fucking crazy. It's been like a story or something. I mean, I almost died on the train tracks, you can time travel, and Rachel..." she looks down. "...We found Rachel."
"This week has been insane, but we just have to keep going." I say. "We've done so much this week that we can't just turn back. We have a destiny together." She looks at me.
"After all that's happened, I can believe that." She sucks into her cigarette and blows the smoke out through her mouth.
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"Yeah, he had a gun in his pocket. He may have used it against us if he were still alive."
"Well, at least I helped. But I still killed someone, Max! Do you know what that feels like?" I don't. Not like Chloe does. I may have killed almost everyone in Arcadia Bay, but I didn't kill anyone physically like Chloe did.
"I'm sorry Chloe. I don't want you to have to go through that." I respond.
"Then why didn't you rewind? Or, maybe you did, I don't know. But I do know that this is happening right now, which means you didn't rewind." Why didn't I rewind? I really don't want Nathan dead, do I? He couldn't have shot us because he didn't have his gun. Maybe he would have tried to hurt us anyways.
"I don't know Chloe! I'm as stressed as you are, ok?" I snap.
"You're right Max. I'm sorry. You must have a good reason to let this happen, right? Like, maybe I died in the other timeline or something." She jokes. It's really not that funny, because even though she doesn't know it, she ends up dying a lot. She sucks into her cigarette and lets the smoke drift out of her mouth.
Go to next part
(Next part)
It's silent after that. We look out into the distance. All we can see are the trees, but we both know that the destroyed city sits there some ways down the road.
"We need to burn it Max." Chloe says after the long silence. I look over at her.
"The barn? And the darkroom?" I ask. I knew what she was talking about, but I don't know if it's a good idea.
"It shouldn't stay here, after all that's happened in it." She says while taking a puff of her cigarette. It's getting small, so I think she can really start to taste the tobacco in it.
"That's arson Chloe, and that's illegal." I say trying to persuade her into doing the right thing. She's already killed someone, so committing another crime isn't a good idea.
"Max, this place, all of the terrible things that went on in here, it needs to be destroyed!" She turns to face me. "We should do this, for Rachel." She spits out that last part. I hate this place too, and I can understand Chloe's hatred towards it. It killed Rachel. "If we're leaving Arcadia Bay, then we should take this place down, so nothing else can happen here."
"Ok." That's all I can say. I never condone criminal activity, but Chloe does make good points.
"There's probably gasoline around here somewhere. Go look for it." She says. It's not fair that she doesn't look for it too, but there's no use arguing with Chloe. Plus, I like to think that I'm pretty observant, so I should be able to find this pretty easily. Ok, gasoline, where are you? There are a few places that come to mind: the tractor, the engine, and the car outside. Of course, it could be anywhere, or nowhere. I walk over to the tractor. Hmm, this thing looks pretty old, like it hasn't been used in a while. I look around behind the tractor. No gasoline here, just some hay. There's no gasoline in front or around it either, so not here. I guess I can check the old engine, but it doesn't look like it was being used up at the top of the barn. I walk over the the upper level area that I went up before. Chloe helped me up before, so I need her again.
"Chloe! I need your help." I shout. Nothing, no noise. I turn around. She's gone. Where did she go this time? I walk over to the door. "Chloe?" I shout. Nothing again. I walk out the door and to the truck.
"Don't come any closer!" A mysterious voice yells. Oh my god! I see a man holding Chloe by gunpoint. He's an older looking man, with an expensive looking pistol. Chloe has tears running down her face. He looks like he's crying too. "I know what you bitches did to my son!"
Go to chapter 18