The Metropolis Series #2: Quinn Beyond Bounds
27. Asphodel

I WAS ON AN ENDLESS, expansive field. The wind blew softly against the grass blades, and if I closed my eyes, I swear that I could hear the faint hums of an angelic voice coming from miles and miles away. Dawn began to creep through the horizon, shining over the landscape like a halo.

It was peaceful, too peaceful that it made me feel uncomfortable.

I recognized that place from a vision I once had. I’d met Julio there back when he was on that manhunt for Cassandra—back when he thought Cassandra was me. That alone made everything around me look like a facade. The grass beneath my feet felt nice, kind of like a massage, but they began to feel like pins and needles against my ankles.

Then, I heard Cassandra’s voice.

“You’re here,” she regarded. “That must be a yes, then.”

It baffled me how normal—yes, normal—Cassandra looked. It was like gazing at my reflection in the mirror, the only difference being that she wasn’t a mere projection on glass. She was real. The only things that set us apart were the clothes she was wearing; they were all black from her collar to her stockings. Flowers that looked like lilies appeared to have sprung up from the grass, and they were as gentle as the smile that had formed on her face.

“Welcome to my humble domain,” she then said.

I narrowed my eyes. Cassandra’s sudden change in demeanor was anything but welcoming. I remained suspicious.

“What is this place?” I asked her.

She then looked at me like I had just asked a stupid question. “Better than anything the Metropolis could ever be…”

My eyes widened as something heavy found its place in my chest. The wind blew strongly against the grass, and the blades created rustling noises comparable to the sound of crushing bones. Another image of Cassandra then flashed in my mind; she was in our dorm room, beckoning Harumi to join her in initiating the Metropolis’ destruction. I froze, trying to hide my fear. It was wise to pretend that I didn’t know anything. If I confronted her, it might backfire.

I felt the peacefulness of this landscape vanish.

“What are you talking about?” I began. It was hard to keep a straight face.

Cassandra shook her head. “Do you know how the Metropolis was built, Quinn? Or rather—how it came to be?”

“I know how stories are created, Cassandra,” I snarled. “The Author had a vision, an idea, and he had such a way with words that he brought that idea to life.”

“Yes, but not all ideas are enlightening.” Cassandra paced around me, her footsteps enclosing me in a circle. “You see, the Author was a bright kid growing up. She was at the top of her class. The teachers loved her, and she made her parents proud.”

“Wait… she?”

“Yes, Quinn. The Author’s a girl. A woman. How sexist is it to believe that only men are meant to write stories?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I have been meaning to tell you,” Cassandra said, ignoring me entirely. “I couldn’t replace the right time, but now that we’re alone together, I believe there’s something else you should know.

“The Author was everything an adult could ever want in a child, and for a while, she liked the attention and appreciation she received. But as she grew up, she began to realize how unhappy she actually was. Inside, she was alone. Her parents expected too much from her, and when she could no longer be that perfect child they had always wanted, her entire world shattered. It brings me to wonder that if the Author hadn’t carried so much pain, would she even have picked up that pen at all?”

I couldn’t believe it. Cassandra was talking about the Author’s personal life, something I had never heard from Harumi and Julio. She even knew that the Author was actually a woman; all the others referred to her as male. I wanted to believe that she was bluffing, that she was just getting into my head, but what if she were telling the truth?

What if she knew who the Author was?

“How do you know all these things?” I questioned.

“Simple,” she said, her tone silvery. “Us characters, we were all created to bear the Author’s pain. This world, this Metropolis, was built on all kinds of sufferings: remorse, jealousy, loneliness… Such unstable foundations, aren’t they? And a city needs all the support to keep standing. Those shining edifices are nothing but temples of bitterness, and they’re much better off destroyed…”

Upon saying that, the sheer insanity that Cassandra had kept within her began to slowly show itself. It escaped through bursts of laughter as a broken smile began to form on her lips. The taste of revenge and destruction was just too sweet to ignore.

Then, her expression turned smug. “Why do you look so scared, Quinn?” she taunted. “Don’t you have pains of your own? You have these powers you cannot control. You’ve deceived people to keep them safe.”

I clenched my fists as the patch of grass beneath my feet began to die. “No,” I declared. “I didn’t—”

Cassandra chuckled. “Even more so, the boy you love won’t love you back…”

The sky above us began to grow dark.

“You keep telling yourself that you’ve accepted it,” she went on, “that it’s for the best. But you know deep down that you’re hurting.”

“Curtis has nothing do with this,” I blurted out. “Leave him alone.”

“Oh, how bold of you for dropping names…” Cassandra’s eyes glistened with pride. “Just admit it. You can run, but you can’t hide the truth forever. You want him, you want him so badly, but that’s something a good girl couldn’t and shouldn’t admit…”

The wind then blew hard against my face, and it stung every time a strand of my hair would graze my flushed cheeks. I was shaking with anger; everything Cassandra was saying was right. I hated how much she knew about me, even deep down to my darkest and most intimate feelings, but I was trying my best to keep them at bay. Cassandra was trying to get the best of me, and I couldn’t let her win.

But it wasn’t over.

“Also, I’m sorry for what Harumi had to go through…” she purred. “But she left me no choice.”

Something in me snapped. As the lilies around me began to wilt, I saw glimpses of Cassandra pushing Harumi into the Lethe, and they streaked through my mind like an old distorted movie. It had been tainted by the grief that had eventually numbed me down, and the despair just got worse thinking about how Harumi might have been the only person who believed that Cassandra could be saved.

But Cassandra didn’t care about that. And now, Harumi was gone.

“Wh—what did you do to her?” I demanded.

“Oh, I believe that you know well, Quinn,” she replied. “We are the same person, aren’t we?”

I was getting tired of this game, but I knew that I would have to keep playing to see the end of it. There were no shortcuts. I tried charging toward her, but even a single step forward had summoned a patch of weeds to spring out of the grass. They wrapped around my ankles and stopped me from going any further. That probably wasn’t biologically possible, but this was Cassandra’s world. Everything worked to her advantage.

“Fine,” I spat. “Why’d you do it, then? What do you want?”

Cassandra tilted her head as she stroked her chin. “Harumi—Yukine, as you now know—didn’t believe in my vision. She clung on to the idea that the Author would come back, but her blind optimism had done nothing but put her in danger. I had done nothing but end her misery, really. She didn’t believe that the Metropolis was long-gone and corrupted, but I did. It has been built on hollow miseries, and I shall make ends meet by erasing it. The Author has grown disappointed with herself, so she stopped believing in her writing, leaving us all here to rot. But what if there was a world, a world without all this pain?”

Suddenly, the dark clouds receded, and I was once again welcomed to a clear blue sky up above. The wind cooled my face, and the lilies that had died had been replenished. For a minute, I wanted to close my eyes and fall asleep on the turf, but I couldn’t. No. I couldn’t let Cassandra win.

I just… couldn’t…

“Rest, Quinn,” I heard Cassandra say, but she sounded so far away now, almost like an echo. “You have suffered so much. You can stop running away. What if I told you—”

That you could be free?