All Wounds - 13 (pt.1) (Life is Strange)

Life is Strange
All Wounds

Chapter 13 – What If
(Part 1)

–

“'This must be what a parallel universe is like', I thought. Everything looked the same, but I suddenly felt like it wasn't. Like everything had been taken apart, brick by brick, flower bed by flower bed, and put back together in the wrong order.
Just like me.”
~ Jordanna Fraiberg

–

-Tick-

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-Tick-

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-Tick-

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-Tick-

.

The sound of the wall clock above her was enveloping her senses.

She opened her eyes, looking down at her desk. What she saw was strange. Bizarre.

Maybe a little crazy.

Spirals.

So many spirals.

Her notebook's page was...just covered in scribbles of spirals. Big ones, little ones, with dots and X’s planted on their lines…It was almost like…a graph of sorts, plotted out in spiral shapes.

They all ran counter clockwise.

And if you squinted at the whole page, the general shape almost looked like a pair of butterfly’s wings.

Looked at as a bigger picture, it all seemed like the scrawling of a crazy person, either way.

“Alfred Hitchcock famously called film 'little pieces of time'—”

A voice. There was a voice speaking, she suddenly realized. Her ears hadn’t been awake enough, but the fog was lifting. It sounded like a lecture.

“—but he could be talking about photography, as he likely was.”

And then it hit her: she realized that she'd drawn this foreign image, this…this chart? If it could be called that. She had just finished drawing a spiral at that very moment of…waking? In this place?

Pausing her drawing, she wiggled her writing utensil a bit, balancing it back and forth precariously along her fingers like a metronome, in (time) with the wall clock. A common (tic) of hers.

-Tick-

-Tick-

-Tick-

-Tick-

Wait, where was she, anyway?

“These 'pieces of time' can frame us in our glory and our sorrow--”

In that moment of alarm, she dropped her silver pencil to the floor.

Dazed and confused, she bent over to pick it up. Somehow, it felt like...the hundredth time she'd had to pick it up.

“--from light to shadow--”

This felt...too familiar.

So familiar, she knew what would happen next.

“--from color to chiaroscuro.”

She looked up, and sure enough, the classroom hummed with the same events she anticipated.

Behind the teacher's back, Taylor threw a wad of paper across the room at Kate's face.

Victoria's phone vibrated on her desk, which went ignored.

Professor Jefferson asked the class a question.

“Now, can you give me an example of a photographer who perfectly captured the human condition in black and white?”

The silence that followed as he awaited an answer was...so unsettling to her.

“Anyone?”

(Bueller?)

What am I doing here again?

“...Bueller?”

(Diane Arbus.)

Why do I know this dumb lecture inside and out?

“Diane Arbus,” came Victoria's snooty, teacher's pet answer.

“There you go, Victoria! Why Arbus?”

She could feel her (face) getting pale and (hopeless), sweat forming at her brow, her fingers trembling.

“Because of her images of hopeless faces.”

She looked at the girl sitting in the back of the room, fidgeting with her old Polaroid camera...

That girl, she looked really gloomy about her camera...So (sad). Like she was being (haunted) by some ghost in the machine.

“You feel, like, totally haunted by the eyes of those sad mothers and children.”

Something...about that girl staring at her camera, it just...pulled at her. Tugged at her from the inside. Like some invisible thread. She hated seeing that girl look so (tortured).

Jefferson added, “She saw humanity as tortured, right? And frankly, it's bullshit.”

Hushed whispers of amusement.

But she didn't find it so entertaining for some reason.

“Shh-shh-shh, keep that to yourself...”

He would want to (keep them) silent, wouldn't he?

But why did she think that? Where was this (dark) cynicism coming from? Why did being in this classroom fill her with dread and (desperation)?

“Seriously, though,” Jefferson went on, “I could frame any one of you in a dark corner, and capture you in a moment of desperation.”

Victoria leaned forward in her seat, (captured) by his words.

“And any one of you could do that to me.”

The girl fidgeting with her camera was (shooting) Jefferson quite the stink eye.

“But isn't that too easy? Too obvious?”

Something that about that girl at the back of the class was...so familiar...

What was her name, again?

“What if Arbus chose to capture people at the height of their beauty and innocence?”

Jefferson took a few steps toward (innocent) Kate, who seemed to shrink at his figure looming over her.

“She had a brilliant eye, so she could have taken another approach...”

The girl with the retro camera had shifted the old device into her lap. She stuck her middle finger down at her lens and stuck out her tongue.

“I have to admit-” Victoria began.

-Click!-
-Vrrrrr....-

The girl at the back of the room had (shot) a photo of (herself).

“-I'm not a big fan of her work, I prefer-”
“Shh-shh,” Mr. Jefferson shushed Victoria, much to her dismay. “I believe Chloe has just taken what you kids call a ‘selfie.’”

Chloe awkwardly set her camera back on her table, placing her fresh photograph beside it before stubbornly crossing her arms.

“A dumb word for a wonderful photographic tradition. Although, I'd say Chloe's talents are put to better use on environmental pieces rather than head shots...”

Chloe's lips tightened as a scowl crept across her face at the professor's remark. Victoria was glaring at Chloe, too, clearly offended by getting interrupted.

Wait. Chloe. That name...-

She knew that name, she (knew) that girl…

“Of course, as you all know, the photo portrait has been popular since the early 1800's. Your generation was not the first to use images for...'selfie-expression.'”

Not even crickets.

Sitting at her desk in a quiet daze, she (couldn't resist) staring back down at her notebook of spirals, looping and looping.

“Sorry – I couldn't resist.”

The drawings, looping and looping and looping… It felt (vital) somehow, despite appearing insane.

(For as long) as she'd been here, she still couldn't figure out why she was here. Being (around) this man, though, it was…creeping her out. Which was weird, since she’d always had a thing for Professor Jefferson…It was why she could never say ‘no’ to the oddjobs he’d ask her to do for the school.

“The point remains that portraiture has always been a vital aspect of art – and photography – for as long as it's been around.”

Chloe was in some kind of text (conversation) on her phone in the back of the room.

“Now, Chloe-” The Professor made Chloe freeze up like a (doe) in headlights. “-since you've captured our interest and clearly was to join in on the conversation-” Chloe's jaw went agape as she rolled her eyes. “-can you please tell us the name of the process that gave birth to the first...self...portraits?”

Chloe shook her head dismissively and looked back down in her lap, to her phone.

From her own desk, though, across the room, there was a...a vibration in her lap. She pried her eyes away from Chloe and pulled her phone out of her hoodie discreetly.

     (Chloe) – (deal still going down?)

She was...confused. Deal?

Deal...deal, deal...

What deal?

In the bathroom.

“Chloe,” Jefferson said sharply.

“Dude,” Chloe sighed at the teacher, shoving her phone – and her fist -- into her vest pocket. “Why are you asking me...?”

“You either know this--” Jefferson slammed his palm against the table in a brief but intense burst. “--or not, Chloe. Is there anybody here who knows their stuff?”

I know!

I know this one!

Why did she know this one...?

And why did she know a 'deal' was going down with Chloe in the bathroom...?

But she raised her hand anyway.

“Yes?” acknowledged the teacher.

“Dah-...Daguerreotypes?”

“Aha,” said Jefferson, tilting his head to glance her way. “So you are still with us today, Stella.”

Stella's stomach felt like a toilet bowl, swirling so much shit around in a (vortex). Almost like there was some…Other her, watching her. Like looking through a (mirror).

“Th-the Daguerrian Process,” Stella asserted, “brought out...detail in people's faces with...-” Stella couldn’t help but glance over to Victoria for some reason. “-…a mirror-like, uhm…r-reflective...style...”

“Very good, Stella. Yes!”

Mr. Jefferson was pleased. Victoria was not.

Jefferson concluded, “Those traits made the Daguerrian Process extremely popular from the 1800's onward. The first American Daguerreotype self-portrait was done by Robert Cornelius.”

Stella rubbed her hoodie sleeve against her sweaty forehead. She felt...so gross. Like she was ill.

She knew (all about) Jefferson...but she couldn't remember it.

“You can find out all about him...in your textbook.”

In the bathroom.

Why the fuck was Stella feeling so compelled to go to the damned bathroom?

She realized Chloe was giving her this expectant, wide-eyed stare from across the class. Stella shrugged back, then eked out a nod in reply to Chloe's text.

“Or even...online.”

Thank gawwwdd, that was their cue.

-brrRRRRRRINNNGGGG!-

Class was freaking dismissed. Finally.

Again.

Stella was so ready to (fly out) of this...haunted-ass classroom of forever.

Jefferson was raising his voice to squeeze his one last word to the class as everyone scattered.

“And guys, don't forget the deadline to submit a photo for the 'Everyday Heroes' contest. I'll fly out with the winner to San Francisco where you'll be feted by the art world.”

(San Francisco...!)

“It's great exposure, and it can kick start a career in photography.”

San Francisco, that's...-!

I'm supposed to be there...-!

“So Stella, and Alyssa, get it...together.”

Stella felt a chill run down her spine when Mark called her name. She was frozen in her seat.

“Taylor – don't hide, I'm still waiting for your entry, too.”

Stella closed her notebook, hiding away the deluge of spiral scribbles.

“And yes, Chloe, I see you pretending not to see me.”

The shuffling of chairs and books and bags felt almost alien. Wrong.

Left to stare at the cover of her notebook, Stella realized that this notebook wasn’t…hers?

What the hell? It had random stickers, eclectic hipster stuff, all over the cover.

A deer wearing a fucking monocle, what…-?

{Property of}
{ __M._C.__ }

Who was M.C.? And why did Stella have their book?

Stella was tempted to look through its pages, but not here. Not with (him) looming around.

The sound of Mark Jefferson’s voice somehow…made Stella feel uncomfortable. But she couldn’t place her finger on why. She loved his work, she was inherently drawn to him, she was proud of him being a professor at this school. Screw the east coast elite!

But even reiterating these concepts to herself, and Stella still could not shake this uncomfortable feeling about the man.

This was all too familiar. Stella didn’t like it.

San Francisco, I'm supposed to be there, not here, what...-?

Stella had never even been to San Francisco before, right? So why did she feel so insistent in her gut that it was where she was supposed to be?

Her peers were all leaving without her. Best to get her ass in gear and get going to…-

Where…was she supposed to go to, again?

In the bathroom.

Deal with Chloe.

Goosebumps running across her neck, Stella shakily shoved materials into her backpack, still feeling uneasy about that notebook. It was right then that she realized there were...things...in baggies...in her backpack. Tucked in the back bottom. Some weed? Maybe some...-

Wait, didn't I...-?

Stella couldn't remember putting those there. But...she also could. At the same time...?

Her brain hurt, like…physically…for a split second as she tried recollecting two conflicting memories.

She tried to zip up her backpack in a hurry, but not, like, in too much...a hurry, she didn't want to...-

A hand slapped itself down on the table in front of her, jesus! Her heart skipped a beat.

She looked up, and there was Chloe. Off across the room, behind Chloe, Kate Marsh was sulking over her notes. Aside from the three of them, Victoria was the only other student in the room, trying to...fucking schmooze up Mark Jefferson.

“Yo,” Chloe whispered down at Stella.

In this instant, Stella tried to study Chloe's appearance: pixie cut, spiky-gelled hair dyed purple and red…A low cut Muse shirt, some torn denim shorts and knee-high converse sneakers…

Chloe Price.

Stella knew Chloe Price…didn’t she?

Yea, yea…That punky nerd who was always chilling with the skater group, but was occasionally ‘uncool’ enough to hang with Stella, Warren, Brooke, and their crew. Now and again, anyway. Like she was a closet nerd in punk's clothing.

Chloe was popping up her eyebrows with expectation, jerking her head with impatience.

“Well?” Chloe hissed quietly. “We doin' this thing, or not?”

Stella felt that invisible thread tugging her toward this girl again. She couldn't say 'no.'

“Uh,” Stella stammered out under her breath, “Y-yea, sure. Bathroom, right?” She felt her glasses slipping along her own sweat, so she re-positioned them.

Nodding, Chloe gave Stella a quizzical glare. It was like they were both trying to read some unspoken expression from each other.

“You're acting so fuckin' weird, man,” Chloe grunted as she pushed herself off the desk, heading for the hallway door with a slight shaking of her head. “Be chill.”

Stella then observed Victoria across the room, still trying to make some moves on the professor…Stella felt another tingle of déjà vu creep across her neck.

Stella Hill had been here before. She knew she had. Why was that? What about this seemingly innocuous day at Blackwell Academy made her feel sick and…strange? Like she’d experienced it so many times before…

She knew deep in her gut that she was supposed to be in San Francisco. Not here.

Was she dreaming, maybe? Yea…could be that.

Had to be that. Right? At least that made sense.

Yea. Sure. Totally.

She was just...dreaming about being back in high school.

Wait – back in high school? As in, previously?

RIGHT!

She wasn't in high school anymore! She knew she wasn't! She was-…She’d gotten a Bachelor’s Degree already! Whew. So, yea, then...for sure this was a dream, right?

It was strange, then, this whole...this. It seemed like it was a dream, but didn't really feel like one. She felt too...coherent. Awake. There were too many fine details to things. Like some kind of…hyper dream, pff. Something bizarre as hell.

“Chloe Price,” came Mark’s voice from the head of the room. Stella saw the Chloe freeze up just before exiting the room. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about that little outburst, ma’am. I believe you owe someone an apology…?”

Stella’s legs felt oddly shaky as she strapped her backpack on. It felt…lighter than she expected it to, and yet her body felt heavy. She was momentarily dazed, caught up in a lucid moment where time itself seemed to slow.

The way the light trickled in from the windows to her right, washing against Jefferson’s back, casting his face in shadow; lighting up half of Victoria’s porcelain face.

The way Chloe hid on the left, shrouded in the shade of the doorway, her fist clenched around the doorknob, caught midstep, unable to leave.
Unable to escape.

“Price,” snipped Jefferson tiredly.

“Ugh, whatever,” grunted Chloe Price from the doorway, making a bit of a fuss as she spun around. She begrudgingly stomped over to where Victoria and Jeff were standing.

But while Chloe had been yanked over toward Jefferson and Victoria, that invisible thread, it...was still pulling at Stella.

In the bathroom.

Stella let herself get tugged by it.

She overheard a bit of conversation behind her as she awkwardly exited the room.

“All right, you two,” said Jefferson with a sigh. “This is the third time in a row that you've caused a disruption during my class. Now, I don't know what it is that's going on between you – and frankly, I don't want to – but if this continues to-”
“Dude, this is bullshit! I didn't-”
“Mr. Jefferson? I'm not the one-”

The bickering voices washed away as the door closed behind Stella.

From one river of noise into another.

Stella's legs still felt weak, and her head felt light. She steadied herself against a wall for a moment and tried to catch her breath. Her head felt...hot, her stomach queasy, and her chest hollow. She worried she was coming down with...a fever. Or, like...it was whiplash? Like this awful motion sickness...

In the bathroom.

Stella remembered she still had to go there. Quickly.

But she couldn't for the life of her remember why, what this deal with Chloe was, even though she knew she'd experienced this before.

That perverse feeling tugged at the back of her mind, the thread pulling and pulling.

I'm not supposed to be here.

San Francisco...?

NO.

In the bathroom.

Maybe whatever was in the bathroom would answer her questions.

Or maybe it would just confuse her (all) the more.

Stella stumbled her way through the hall as quickly as she could without tripping on her own shoelaces. A haze of chattering and familiar faces from fuzzy memories brushed by. The faces were clear as day – but the names, the situations…she knew them, but it was all weirdly clouded.

The sea of tiles and lockers and squeaking sneakers surrounded her.

A slam, a shudder, a whimper, a grunt…and those gross chuckles.

Poor Daniel was being rammed against the lockers to Stella’s left. His eyes reached out to hers in desperation as she timidly passed by. She felt emboldened for the briefest of moments to do something for once, to stand up and change-
NO.

In the bathroom.

But she had to keep going if she was going to make it on time.

As she reached a pair of metal double doors at the end of the locker hall, a missing person's poster caused Stella to stop dead in her tracks.

{MISSING:}
{MAXINE CAULFIELD}

That poor girl...Stella had this weirdly distinct idea of who she was.

Maxine Caulfield had been missing for months. There'd been so many rumors swirling around Arcadia Bay about that girl that Stella didn't know what to believe anymore. Maxine had been a classmate of Stella's in Photography, and she'd...-

That old camera. The one Chloe had.

This missing girl, she'd...she'd always been taking pictures with that old...camera...

Chloe Price. Chloe and her had been damned inseparable, Stella remembered.

Chloe was the one who'd been putting up all of these missing person posters. Right?

Why did Stella know that?

And why did she feel like there was so much more to Maxine Caulfield than everyone thought there was?

Even despite all of the rumors...-

Maxine Caulfield had been one of Stella's drug mule partners for a while, working under Frank Bowers, but they'd never gotten along as well as Stella would’ve liked. Maybe because Maxine was too busy sleeping around – Stella knew for a fact that Maxine had slept with Mark Jefferson (she had a very...reliable source) – but with how close Maxine seemed to be with Chloe, Stella wondered if...-

IN THE FUCKING BATHROOM.

Whatever was compelling her about this...mysterious (missing) girl, Stella wasn't supposed to be (captured) by it, standing around.

Stella Hill was supposed to be in the bathroom.

“Hey,” called out a voice, jarring Stella. It was Brooke. “You heard from Warren?”

“Huh...-?” Stella was out of the loop.

Brooke Scott. Stella felt-…Damnit, it was just like Chloe Price. Just like Maxine Caulfield.

This tugging, guttural familiarity, but no…concrete memory to back it up.

“About...tonight?” Brooke checked. “SAW movie binge...? You, me, Warren?”

“Um...Wh-...?”

Brooke looked concerned at Stella's confusion.

“Stella, it was your idea, wasn't it? I thought Warren was just the one setting everything up.”

“I-I'm not...sure...-” Stella panted out, her head hot and sweaty.

Brooke gave Stella a quick rub on the arm.

“Jeez, Stella. Listen,” Brooke sighed. She scratched her nose, then explained, “I didn't know you liked him when he asked me out. I would've checked with you first, OK?” Stella's heart was pounding. She felt like she could fall over at any moment. But Brooke kept talking. “You've gotta stop...being so salty about it. We're all friends, here, I mean, what if...-”

IN THE BATHROOM.

GET YOUR ASS IN FUCKING GEAR RIGHT NOW.

Augh, ow...-!

Goddamnit, did her head hurt all of sudden!

“-...we just talked it out and...-” Brooke slowed to a worried stop.

“...No...!” Stella gasped out through clenched teeth. “Please, not...right now...”

Gripping her head as it was swept with pain, Stella bumped into some football jock as she scrambled to escape.

“Stella...-?!” Brooke's cry quickly faded away.

Stella's head was going to explode if she didn't...get...to where she was supposed to be...

Stella's body, pumping adrenaline like mad, managed to force its way into that fucking bathroom at last.

Stella was relieved to find the place empty. She looked up at herself in the mirror through some goofy graffiti of a mustache and glasses. She could feel it: the universe was, like...taunting her, or something. Nothing made sense.

She was not supposed to be here.
She was supposed to be here.

Her backpack suddenly felt...so heavy. So damned heavy, just like that. Slumping her way as far back as she could, Stella dropped her backpack beneath the furthest sink and leaned against the porcelain, ready to puke at any second.

Her blood felt cold as ice when she noticed a small, fluttering set of tiny blue wings drift into the room from a window tucked in the corner.

Stella realized it was a butterfly. A blue one. Morpho breed. Its gentle, soft dance of flickering blue ended with a graceful pose as it perched itself upon the edge of a metal pail in the back corner of the room.

Stella felt…this insane compulsion to…draw it.

She cautiously clawed at her backpack on the floor, whipping out the stranger’s notebook.

Wait.

{Property of}
{ __M._C.__ }

{MISSING:}
{MAXINE CAULFIELD}

What the fuck? Why…-?

Why did Stella have Max Caulfield’s notebook?

Maxine. Maxine Caulfield’s notebook.

Why did she have it? Why was she drawing in it?

BUTTERFLY.

IN THE BATHROOM.

That invisible thread, it was…pulling at her, like some kind of marionette, almost.

She was supposed to draw a doodle of this butterfly on this pail.

So that’s what Stella did.

Her hands almost took a life of their own, like some freakish muscle memory. She didn’t even need to look at the butterfly. She just…knew…what to draw.

The butterfly's blue wings were practically glowing. Stella could almost feel the air moving around her. The butterfly felt...almost like a spirit.

And before she knew it, there it was. A quick doodle of a butterfly, resting on a pail.

As Stella’s hand drew the final line of her drawing – the butterfly’s antennae – her fingers couldn’t help but…swirl the graphite around into a spiral.

She drew an {X} at the end of it. But…she didn’t know why she was compelled to do so.

Was she...going crazy?

The cold aura Stella felt herself encased in dried, cracked, and molted away as the butterfly got antsy and took off. But as Stella went to watch its ascent, the bathroom door opened.

And Chloe Price walked in.