{Warning: this chapter contains references to suicide. Do not read if you find this particularly triggering}

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"They know. They know what I did!" cried the woman, in her saturated voice.

From behind, she was an unidentifiable shadow. She was almost completely static, even her scarf encased her neck in creased concrete circles, like a brace for broken bones.

Her indigo scarf- it was the same as in Tom's visions before, with only it's frayed edges fighting immobility and escaping out into the wind. Only now had Tom finally realised the connection between Project Synthesis and the visions. They weren't side-effects at all. The government had meant to turn him into this freak of nature.

Tom stepped onto the board that extended into the in-between dimension between water and sky- towards the woman.

"Oi! Get back here. Don't disobey the code. The Ninth Law!" shouted the Captain.

Law Nine- District goers must not intervene with Mother Nature's plans of fate.

Tom flinched, but didn't turn around. Since Tom had left the facility he'd promised himself that he'd follow the rules. To blend in. He hated that he hadn't done so. 

Though Kate had been the one to start her own rebellion, now it was Tom's turn. He wouldn't try to follow the rules this time. He couldn't.

"Don't do it Tom," whispered Kate as he dared to take another step.

Flynn watched on in private worry- he didn't know whether to admire Tom's rash display of bravery or pity him because of it.

Kate furiously cupped her hands on either side of her face. Why can't he just leave the woman? she thought. She's none of our business. Tom's going to get us killed. 

Ahead of Kate and Flynn, Tom cursed his own ignorance. How could he have not realised about his side-efffects before? When he'd been almost sure that Kate was going to punch him at the oxygen kiosk?

He could've kicked himself if he'd had time to. But the blue scarf dripped back into his consciousness as it flapped beside the woman on the plank, in languid movements. A ghost in mid- haunt.

Next step. The air was left empty with the lack of sound. All to be heard was the groaning of the plank and the intermittent whimpering of a hopeless victim.

Tom glanced behind him to find the rest of the passengers stuck to the ship's deck, in a fear that was viscous and sticky, like polluted honey. Worker bees perhaps? Tom noted dryly. 

No. Tom chastised himself for becoming distracted. This was his final chance to help the woman. There would be no 3rd try. No restart button on her death.  

Concentrate.

The wind blew the salty water onto his skin- stinging him the same way devil's tears would.

Come on.

The radioactive water left raw patches on his arms as they sizzled with corrosion- poisoning his thoughts with pain.

He made another step towards the woman. This time he barely managed to drag his shaking foot forwards.

The pain had sliced a cut through his concentration. The further away from the boat he wobbled, the more the sea seemed to spit it's blue lava against his struggling body. 

After the initial shock of Tom's disobedience, the muttering of the people had gotten louder. Not that Tom could hear this though. The pain had dulled his hearing.

Now Tom had moved further along the plank, he saw that the woman in the indigo scarf seemed to lean forwards- looking into her watery fate.

"Stay where you are," Tom spoke in a voice just worthy of loudness.

She didn't respond. 

"Talk to me if you can," Tom tried again. "Please!" He swayed towards the edge of the plank as another sporadic water droplet hit his skin.

"Don't. Come. Near. Me." she said- her body now becoming unfrozen as she turned around. It was clear from the pain tattooed onto her face that she was in a state of desperation.

Tom attempted think of a way to calm her. But he glanced into the water below and felt a wave of terror overcome him.

The once muttering people had now silenced again, as though they were anticipating an end. An end that Tom's logic brain couldn't save him from.

Ignoring the woman's warning, Tom walked on. The oxygen tank, though it was light, still effected his balance and made each step feel even heavier. 

Now that the woman faced Tom, the wind blew her coal black hair behind her to unveil a defined face which was shaped like a warped moon- youthful in years but not in soul. The oxygen masks did that to you. They drained you of life. They restrained you like a muzzled bull terrier. Muzzle or mask, whatever name you'd chose to call it, one thing is clear- without it you'd foam at the mouth and all sorts of terror would ensue.

As Tom staggered further down the plank she went to take a step back but then hesitated. Instead she opened her mouth:

"I need to be punished," she said. The woman's previously hysterical voice had become colourless. It was like she was already engulfed in the starless oblivion that she thought she had to enter.

Punished. Tom turned the word over in his mind. Punished- like he himself had been. He thought of his life since discovering the natural forest. Of the disgust on his Brother Jack's face. Looking back on it, he would've done the same if he could. He would've ended his life. So that he didn't have to experience this suffering- the visions, the self- loathing.

You could still do it. That thought rattled around in his head as he looked at the woman's shaking frame. Her image was like a fractured mirror that Tom gazed resentfully into. The wind picked up, howling against him.

"Watch out!" Flynn yelled, but the burly captain grabbed hold of him before he ran onto the plank as well.

"Don't be stupid, boy," she growled. "He's as good as lost to us now." Flynn looked to Kate in hope for advice but she appeared as afraid as he- her usual facade having shattered.

The sound of the familiar coaxed Tom into turning back around and there they were, Kate and Flynn, with horror etched onto their once innocent faces. He felt so far away from them suddenly, and they in turn seemed so far apart from each other- pre-occupied by the danger. Not together like your parents would tell you when the hard times came. Together through thick and thing- they'd say as a promise.

Yet there was a gap between Kate and Flynn- like the chunk time had taken from their lives. This gap though, was meant for a person. Someone who used to stand slightly slumped but who Tom imagined could now succeed Kate's height and match Flynn's.

That gap was where Jasmine would've stood. Tom recalled Jasmine's sun dappled face. He remembered the last time he'd seen her. When he and Kate were about to climb that large tree in the forest.

Be careful guys, Jasmine had said to them her sweet way, before the forest had dissolved into fire. But for some reason, Tom knew Jasmine was alive.

Jasmine might still be alive. 

This thought surprised him. For he hadn't believed in it at all before. But now, a fingers-length away from death, he found it hopeful.

He re-focused onto the woman in danger and took another step forward.

She needs help, more than me echoed a pure voice. Tom stepped closer again as though he'd been pushed. For the voice wasn't his own, it was a girl's voice. Jasmine's. It had crackled comfortably inside of his mind like a bonfires' flame.

Finding strength in this, the water didn't hurt Tom quite as much as it did before. Only a few more steps, the voice of Jasmine told Tom.

In truth, there was six- Tom had counted as he moved forwards, though he tried not to, until there was a small space in which the woman's ocean scarf floated between she and Tom.

In intimidation, the woman did shuffle backwards this time- situating her an inch from falling, into the green liquid below.

"Who are you dying for?" Tom blurted out.

"What?" said she, taken aback.

"You heard what I said!" The water joined in chorus with the whispering wind.

Not wanting to answer and verbalize the reality, the woman took another step back.

Creak.

The plank bent under the un-even distribution of weight. Tom shot out a hand to grab the woman. But she flinched away and was knocked off balance.

"NO!"

Tom reached out for the woman again, this time pulling her towards him with both arms.

SNAP.

Tom looked into the inked abyss and saw nothing. 

I'm dead. I'm dead. I must be dead. 

SPLASH. 

Tom wrenched his eyes open just in time to watch as the end of the weakened plank was consumed by the lake water that belched like a greedy stomach. 

Tom felt the woman sigh from under his arms. He held tightly onto her for fear that she would jump again. She embodied a fragile life like his own. She felt like a skeleton coated in paper mache skin. Yet they were still alive! Both of them.

"What's your name?" Tom said shakily, trying to distract her.

"Ray," she croaked, from under her oxygen mask. She was too disturbed to notice the lack of rise and fall in Tom's disused chest.

"Ray, I'm Tom. Let's get back on deck," he said. Tom gently led her back along the plank, he himself feeling infected with numbness and adrenaline. It was a good thing too, for the burns on his skin were still waiting to hurt again.

Tom used the last shred of strength he had left to heave himself back onto the boat, helped by Kate and Flynn.

"Are you alright boy?" asked the Captain, before Kate or Flynn could say a word.

"Alive," Tom replied- though he felt so spaced out that he questioned whether or not his spirit had evaporated from his body. The Captain then took this as a cue to move on to the woman. 

"And what about you?" Ray nodded in reply, refusing to say a word. "Come with me." The Captain pulled her onto the boat.

"Dramas over!" the Captain shouted. "Get back to whatever it is you Purifiers do." Tom stared after Ray, pondering what an earth she could have done to supposedly warrant her suicide. What horrors she must have seen.

Kate eyed Tom- his hair dripping with salt moisture and his skin covered in bleached patches.

"You could've died!" Kate exploded with rage. "You could've fallen into that water and died. I can't believe how you could be this thoughtless-" she chastised, having forgotten her own reckless revenge scheme.

Tom was too exhausted to reply or begin their usual snarky conversations. Even if he had replied he would've been interrupted. For Kate wrapped her arms around him, almost violently. She was too grateful he was alive. Though at the same time, she wanted to dig her nails into his back and draw blood. He'd almost thrown his life away for some unknown woman. He'd almost thrown away the chance of revenge on the government. They were lucky that there were no guards on the boat. They would have been thrown overboard just for good measure.

Tom held onto Kate, trying to prevent the tears that threatened to pour from his eyes. Flynn joined in- pressing his warm face against Tom's freezing one.

"This is why you should become a tight-rope artist! You almost had me there but your balance is epic. Imagine you in the lycra!" Flynn said, laughing through his tears. 

"Flynn?" Tom croaked.

"Yes?"

"Shut up."

"Right. Yeah. Sorry. My humor has zero boundaries," Flynn said regretfully.

"I need to see if Ray is alright," Tom explained even thought he didn't want to let go of the sense of simple familiarity between the three of them.

"But you don't even know her! She's not our problem." Kate protested.

"Correct. She's a person. Not a problem." Tom said, walking off into the crowd.

"He is infuriating! We're his friends- not her!" Kate said to Flynn who laughed in reply and ruffled her hair, before she could attempt to pull it out in frustration. If anger was a tangible substance then it surely would've set Kate on fire- sending the blood in her veins beyond boiling point.

Flynn opened his mouth to speak but Kate interrupted him "And before you say it- Tom isn't right to do what he did."

"Kate," Flynn said calmly and pointed to the Lake's waters. "Look out there." Kate turned away from Flynn stubbornly- still vibrating with anger. Though Flynn was spindly in figure, he was still gifted with a certain amount of strength. So he got hold of Kate and moved her cautiously to face the lake's water, as one would move the wires of a bomb.

Though the water was deathly dangerous, there was also something calming about it's green and gold glazed surface. As the waves in the distance collided with the afternoon sun they looked like eyes- millions of them. She felt as though she was looking into the eyes of death.

Flynn crossed his arms and grinned at Kate, pleased with himself because he had managed to calm Kate.

Though death was present, he was too far away to drown them, for now. Through the exposure to perspective Kate felt her shoulders settle down back into place as her mind relaxed. Until it felt like her anger previously had barely existed at all. 

Flynn held out a hand against the wind so that it cooled his skin. 

"No one is going anywhere yet," he smiled. "Besides, you still haven't seen the Purifier Rig! Where we're headed to."

Kate smirked, looking away from Flynn. Something shifted in her at the mention of the Purifiers. And if Flynn had know what was locked up in Kate's brain, he wouldn't have liked it one bit. 

Author's note

 Hello! It's me again. It's taken a while to upload this chapter because it really was a swine to write. Plus I had to do a portfolio for one of my uni applications which basically took up all my usual writing time.

Just wanted to make sure that you know I am in no way endorsing suicide in this chapter. It really is such an awful thing and I hope that comes across. It was really hard to write this chapter because of how dark it is and my experiences with this kind of emotional struggle. 

What d'you think about Chapter Nineteen? Who is this Ray? And why did she want to fall? You'll find out in the next chapter;)

Also are there any Life is Strange fans out there? Because the song below is from the amazing sound track!

Thanks for the support. Stay cool. - hippywitch