Chapter 3 – Blossoms and Shadows
976 Words
**[Night – Elysium Employee Dorm]**
The ceiling paint peeled like old memories.
Aileen lay on the stiff cot in the employee quarters behind Elysium, hands folded on her chest. Someone laughed in the hallway—too loud, too drunk. A base-heavy beat from the club below pulsed up through the floorboards, but it wasn't the music that kept her awake.
It was the dream.
It always started the same.
---
**[Flashback – Five Years Ago – Spring Art Fair]**
Cherry blossoms drifted like paper wishes across the square.
Aileen sat behind a fold-out table stacked with sketchbooks and folded caricatures. Her pencil moved lightly, dancing over the paper as she worked on the last lines of a boy's oversized cartoon nose.
“Hey," came a voice, warm and amused. “You always make people look this ridiculous?"
She looked up.
Nathan.
He was smiling. Casual in a white shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows. His eyes crinkled when he grinned.
“Only the handsome ones," she replied, blushing the second it left her lips.
He laughed. “Then make me the most ridiculous."
She did. She drew his face with exaggerated eyebrows and lionlike hair. When she handed it over, he studied it seriously.
“It's awful," he said.
She froze.
He broke into a grin. “But I'm keeping it."
He held out a crisp twenty. She hesitated.
“I—It's free for friends."
“Then let me be more than that."
Before she could answer, another voice sliced through the moment.
“Nathan!"
A radiant woman in heels and red lipstick looped her arm through his. Jolene.
Aileen's stomach dropped.
“Oh, you got your drawing?" Jolene said sweetly, glancing at Aileen like she was a weed in a rose garden. “She's good at capturing... flaws."
Nathan shifted awkwardly. “We should go. The rooftop party starts soon."
He looked back at Aileen. “You coming?"
She shook her head. “I have cleanup."
He hesitated, then nodded.
“Thanks again."
As they walked off, Jolene leaned in and whispered something to Nathan. He laughed, not cruelly, but intimately.
Aileen looked down at her sketchpad and drew a single flower. A lily.
It wilted under her pencil.
---
**[Flashback – Later That Night – Rooftop Party]**
The rooftop smelled of cologne, alcohol, and danger.
Aileen hugged her sketchbook close, unsure why she'd come. Maybe curiosity. Maybe stupidity.
The party blurred in lights and laughter. Jolene glided from person to person like a goddess in silk. Nathan stood near the edge, drink in hand, scanning the crowd.
Their eyes met.
He looked surprised, then pleased. He started walking toward her—
Jolene intercepted, grabbed his wrist. “Come dance with me."
Nathan hesitated.
Then followed her.
Aileen turned away. Her fingers trembled as she flipped open her sketchbook.
She didn't notice Jolene's sharp glance from across the floor.
Didn't see her whisper to the two men in leather jackets lurking by the stairs.
Didn't see Jolene's smile vanish as Nathan turned to watch Aileen again.
And then—
Glass shattered.
A scream tore through the rooftop.
Cameras flashed.
People yelled.
Aileen turned—and froze.
Jolene was on the ground, blood blooming beneath her skull like a black flower.
Nathan stood over her, wide-eyed, shaking.
Aileen's sketchbook slipped from her fingers, pages scattering like petals.
Someone screamed her name. She ran.
---
**[Present – Dorm Room, Elysium]**
Aileen jolted awake.
Sweat slicked her hairline. Her chest heaved, heart racing. The pencil in her hand had snapped—she'd been drawing in her sleep again, lines scraped into the napkin beside her cot.
A pair of eyes stared back.
Nathan's.
Not the man who condemned her, but the boy who once smiled at a caricature.
She touched the paper gently.
Then tore it in half.
---
**[Morning – Elysium Break Room]**
Aileen poured black coffee into a chipped mug.
Another server—Vanessa—gave her a curious look. “You always look like you've seen ghosts."
“Maybe I have."
Vanessa snorted. “You know who owns this place, right? We all have ghosts here."
Before Aileen could answer, the manager burst in.
“Keller," he barked. “Mr. Hart wants to see you. Now."
Vanessa's mouth opened. “Wait—Nathan Hart?"
Aileen's mug clinked against the sink.
She wiped her hands, throat dry.
---
**[Upstairs – Owner's Lounge]**
The elevator doors opened silently.
Nathan sat at a bar beside floor-to-ceiling windows, nursing a glass of something amber. The skyline shimmered behind him.
He didn't turn.
“You work fast," he said. “Back under my roof within a week."
“I didn't have a choice."
“Everyone has choices," he said.
“Not when you buy them all."
He finally looked at her. “Don't get clever. I didn't ask you up here for another confession."
Aileen stiffened. “Then why?"
He stood slowly and walked toward her.
“To remind you: this place has rules. You don't speak unless spoken to. You don't act unless instructed. And you never—never—look me in the eye unless you want to go back to that cage."
She held his gaze anyway. “I never left it."
Something flickered across his face.
He stepped closer. “Tell me again. Did you kill her?"
She whispered, “No."
“Louder."
“No."
“Then why did you run?"
“Because I knew you wouldn't believe me."
His jaw twitched.
Silence stretched between them.
Then Nathan leaned in, voice low. “You've already ruined one life. You don't get to ruin mine again."
“I never tried to."
He didn't answer.
Just turned away.
“Back to work," he said coldly. “You're not special here."
As she turned to leave, he added, almost too quietly to hear:
“You used to be."
- Writer
