A big warm welcome to all of you from both myself and tylerbamafan34 (my cowriter who came up with this awesome idea). This story may cover topics such as PTSD, depression and suicidal thoughts. We shall deal with these topics as respectfully as we can. If anyone is affected by any topics brought up, feel free to comment or contact me via Tumblr (nothing-you-can-prove). The rating may change as we progress. Enjoy.

Chapter Summary: Deep in the forest of Arcadia Bay sits an abandoned tree house. One that holds so many memories for the person now hiding out there, Max Caulfield. Now, she has a mission. To fix everything, starting right at the beginning.

"The flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil, can cause a typhoon in China."

Prologue: Chaos Theory

Arcadia Bay Forest – Time Unknown

Arcadia Bay had always been heralded as one of the most picturesque towns in the Pacific Northwest, with its cozy small town Americana nestled up against the widespread forests of Oregon and the surrounding beaches. There were so few places left that seemed to intermingle so well with nature, especially on cloudless nights such as this one, with a large full moon hanging low over the Olympian forests.

Deep in the forests, a section of trees had been cleared away some time ago. The trees circled the clearing with a single mighty Oak that had survived whatever cut down others of its species. Entwined in its ancient branches was an old, decrepit tree house. Its angles were clumsy and sloping, indicating whoever built it hadn't been very experienced at the time. It looked like it had been sitting abandoned for some time as cobwebs, moss and lichen, such as vines, encroached the borders and cracked the floorboards. The wooden slats that had been nailed in to serve as a ladder in times past had all but rotted away.

A small tawny doe darted out from the undergrowth a little way from this pitiful old wooden tree house, its huge eyes filled with fear. It dashed frantically over twisted roots sticking from the ground, almost tripping over them in its panic and narrowly avoiding the gnarled tree trunks that sped past as it desperately tried to escape its pursuer. The fallen leaves rustled under its hooves as it ran, the sound piercing the air and echoing around the desolate area. It didn't look back even once… it didn't have the time to. Ragged panting and snarling could be heard, only serving to intensify the doe's hysteria.

Unfortunately for this dismal creature, its time was already up. It was only delaying the inevitable.

Max watched the doe with faint curiosity from her vantage point in the tree house. She could tell what was about to happen. It is what always happened to weaker creatures. They get hunted down, caught and then torn apart by anything that can sink its claws into them. Still, she couldn't deny that she wasn't a little curious as to how it would end this time. There was always a chance. A miniscule chance that the prey could escape. Sometimes, that's all you need…

She was living proof of that.

Deep down, Max always hoped that the prey would find a way to outsmart its attacker. Maybe she shouldn't get her hopes up too much, but she never could stifle that tiny sliver of optimism she felt each and every time she witnessed something like this. The funny thing about optimism… the more it failed you, the less inclined you were to believe in it. Nevertheless, it still persisted in the depths of her mind.

Max propped her chin on the rotted ledge of the tree house's glassless window, looking out over the eerily silent woodland clearing and waiting patiently to see if another defenseless animal was about to get ripped to shreds by the cruelty of nature. The jagged splintered pieces of wood stuck into her chin, but she was too focused on the doe to care. This pain was nothing compared to the one she experienced during the rewind. Nothing could ever be as excruciating as that.

Her tired blue eyes wandered over to the wolves lurking in the overgrown bushes. They snapped and growled menacingly as they advanced towards the helpless doe. Truth was, there had been a time where she could've identified with the doe. To an extent, she still did. But now… she felt more like the wolves at the hunt.

It was then that Max saw the bloody trail on the forest floor. From the looks of it, the doe had already run a fair distance before arriving at this point. On closer inspection, she could see blood oozing from a deep gash on the doe's side, its fur matted and stained red. She then came to the realization that there was no chance of survival for this doe. She sighed and shook her head slightly.

The thing was, Max never felt sad when the hopelessness of a situation dawned on her. It was more like… disappointment. Optimism had fucked her over again. It was getting harder by the second to place her trust in anything nowadays.

The doe bleated pathetically, desperately searching for someone… anyone to come to its rescue. As the high-pitched cries echoed around the otherwise unnervingly still forest Max grimaced. She watched with an almost clinical gaze as the doe stumbled further into the clearing. Maybe at one time she would've tried to help, but not anymore. No matter how many times she helped, there would always be another. Besides, even if she did want to help, she didn't have the energy right now. Unfortunately, you can't rely on anyone but yourself. That was something she had learned the hard way.

The wolves finally caught up with the doe, snarling and circling it. They were large for the typical Timber wolf that normally inhabited these forests and she idly wondered if they were a subspecies. The largest of them lunged, fangs bared and saliva dripping from its jaw as it landed on the doe's back, its razor like teeth sinking into sinewy flesh. Max took no pleasure in seeing this, but felt as if she had to watch… even if it was just to remind her of the brutality of life. The strong always devoured the weak.

When she thought back to how she used to be, she had to laugh. The naïve teenager with little more to worry about than fighting the daily procrastination that came with student life. If only that was all she had to worry about now…

The wolves mercilessly began to tear into the doe, its high-pitched screeches reverberated off of the trees. It sent shivers up Max's spine, but it didn't deter her from witnessing the horrific display. She had always been a passive participant in life, always watching and observing just like now. As she looked down on the scene, she morbidly thought that this would actually make a good shot… that is, if she still had her camera. While the camera had been a nice addition to her life, it had been unnecessary and just took up valuable space. Still, old habits die hard. Every now and again she came across something that would make a good photo and had to fight the urge to look for her old Polaroid camera.

Her interest in the spectacle below was lost soon enough as the doe's feeble cries ceased and she instead began to focus on more pressing matters. She went back to examining the scraps of paper with messy scrawls, water damaged photos and a crumpled poster, all of which were pinned to the slightly rotted wooden wall of the tree house. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of one particular photo. She stared at it for much longer than she had intended to, getting lost in the memories it brought back. This was the only remnant of the old Max.

In the photo were two young girls, both dressed up as pirates. One had brown hair, gentle blue eyes and a soft freckled face. She had a smile on her face… a smile that hadn't been seen for a long time. It was the other girl who really caught Max's attention. She was strawberry blonde with an impish grin and a mischievous glint in her bright blue eyes. Max lightly brushed her fingers over the photo, her eyes lingering over the face of the blonde girl.

Chloe…

Her old friend was the only thing keeping her going at this point, the sheer determination to keep her alive and happy. Max chuckled lightly, thinking back to that fateful week in Arcadia Bay, and how Chloe had blasted back into her life with all the subtlety of a mac truck. She just didn't have it in her to dispose of this photo, unlike everything else. After everything she'd been through, she figured she was allowed to have one small pleasure. One last ray of light in this bleak life she had come to lead. As she gazed at the photo, she felt the corner of her lips quirk upwards into a rare and fleeting smile.

She recollected all the adventures they'd been through together up until this point. Meeting again in the parking lot of Blackwell Academy and fending off Nathan Prescott. Then regrouping at Chloe's house, almost drowning in nostalgia -not to mention guilt- and afterwards going to the Lighthouse, simply enjoying being friends again. Then… things got strange. She'd met Frank Bowers under unfortunate circumstances in American Rust, aka Arcadia Bay's local junkyard, saved Kate Marsh from committing suicide, broken into Blackwell for information and enjoyed a midnight swim with Chloe. Found Rachel's corpse buried in the Junkyard and then…

Max's fists clenched, fury erupting in her chest.

Jefferson… Prescott… the Dark Room… and the Storm.

Max shook her head. No, that stuff hadn't happened, not in this timeline. At least she didn't think it had. It was hard to tell nowadays. She had lived through so many timelines that she was starting to lose track of what had and hadn't happened. Technically it had all happened… in a way. She had no clue what day it was. Let alone what time. Her sleep cycle had been brutalized by nightmares, and a good night's sleep was often hard to come by these days.

Now wasn't the time to reminisce though, now was the time for action...

She glanced over at the yellowing poster pinned up near the window, wet from the rain drops that seeped through into the tree house. After taking it off the wall and carefully shaking off the worst of the rain, she stared down intently at the pretty girl looking back at her. The photo was in black and white, but Max knew the girl had long blonde hair and hazel eyes. She had no idea how much time she had spent staring at this one girl. Only that it had been too much.

Max knew almost everything about her. She was 5'5, 110 pounds, born July 22nd 1994 and had two tattoos, a star on the inside of her left wrist and a dragon on her calf. Her eyes roamed over the information she had read a million times before. At this point, she was pretty sure that she could quote every single word and describe the layout in immense detail with her eyes closed. This one girl had to be the key to everything. This whole damn place revolved around her. She was the final piece of the puzzle… or so Max hoped. She was tired, tired of everything and couldn't keep running anymore.

She placed the poster back up in its position on the wall. Once this had been done, she reached over and grabbed her bag from the floor. The creaky floorboards groaned as she stood up and walked across them towards the makeshift ladder. Stopping just before the exit into the forest, she threw on her hoodie, pulling up the hood in an attempt to shield herself from the ice cold rain and bitter wind. She took a deep breath to calm her shaking nerves.

Now was the time to finally do what she had set out to do from the beginning... to save Rachel Amber.

Rachel's POV - Vortex Club Party April 22nd - 8:30 P.M.

The baseline of the music pulsated through my body. Disorienting, colorful strobe lighting flashed, briefly exposing faces in the crowd before they were plunged into darkness once more. My body moved to the violent beat, my mind whirring and my vision hazy. Suddenly, I felt a hand on my arm, tugging me towards the side. Assuming it was some pervy Jock trying to cop a feel, I wriggled out of the hold and went back to enjoying myself. No way was I going to let anyone ruin my night. I came here to cut loose and let my hair down. Not to be ogled by some asshole. Soon enough, I was once again lost in the warm mass of writhing figures.

Just as I was getting back into the beat, I was pulled violently out of the large crowd of sweating bodies by my arm. Everyone around me was too wasted to even acknowledge me bumping into them as I was dragged out. Although, a few people did grunt as I bashed into them. I looked around in confusion to see who had plucked me so unceremoniously off of the dance floor. Thanks to the dim lighting, I could barely make out a figure in front of me. Not only that, but I was too high and drunk to really register what was going on. The figure continued to pull me, nearly causing me to trip up over a passed out party goer. I was starting to feel annoyed now, my words coming out slurred.

"Leave me alone."

I tried to pull out of the hold again, but the grip tightened and dragged me along more violently. The more I struggled, the harder the hand on my arm became. Suddenly, the music became more distant and muffled. The grip on my arm loosened, the hand was removed and I was thrown down onto one of the couches on the side-lines. Just as I was about to get up and leave, there was a sharp pain in my neck. I instinctively reached up to brush whatever it was away, half expecting it to be some guy biting down on my neck. To my surprise I felt nothing. No gross Jock panting over me. I only had a moment to feel relieved.

I tried to speak, ready to tear into whoever had caused this pain, but the words got caught in my throat. No matter how many times I opened my mouth, there was only silence. As I tried to find my voice, it became even harder to focus on my surroundings. My limbs felt like dead weights and my body began to slump. I attempted to steady myself by reaching out for a wall, but my hand refused to obey my command and I felt my body fall. Before I collapsed to the floor, I was propped up against something, my arm thrown around someone's shoulder. I managed to raise my head, squinting in an attempt to identify the person dragging me. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't distinguish their features. As time passed, my vision began to darken around the edges.

In a vain attempt to stay away, I shook my head. From what I could make out, everybody seemed too busy partying to really gauge what was happening. There may have been a few concerned onlookers, but their worries were dismissed by the person taking me, saying something like I was drunk… which to be fair I was. It was no secret that I partied hard and this wasn't the first time I had been carried away in a state. Now it was getting hard to make out what was being said. The words sounded distant. As if everything around me had been submerged underwater. I saw their lips move, but couldn't decipher what they were actually saying.

After a few moments of being jostled around, I vaguely registered the bitter wind on my skin, presumably from finally exiting to the outside world. I tried once again to call out, to move, to do anything… but my body failed me. The sudden severity of my situation hit me. I had been drugged. Someone was kidnapping me and I was most likely going to end up buried in a shallow grave. I was too out of it to feel properly panicked about my situation, however my heart raced erratically as this thought crossed my mind. All I could do was hope that someone would come to my rescue. I heard the distant beep of a car being unlocked and made one last feeble attempt to escape, but I was slowly losing consciousness.

Just as I started to resign myself to my miserable fate, I heard a faint click. This noise roused me enough to glance over. I squinted, trying to make out what was happening when I saw a bleary figure. Someone I recognized but couldn't quite place. I tried hard to remember, but my attempts were futile.

"Step the fuck away from her, Prescott." A voice hissed into the darkness, low and threatening.

That was the last thing I heard before the darkness enveloped me...

We hope you enjoyed the prologue. Have an awesome day guys and see you next time,

Olivia and Tyler