Cora, Meredith, Aurelio, and the boys left Metal three days after its restoration.
Cora and Meredith wanted to explore Paradise, since they couldn't remember it from before they left. Emerson wanted to search for his mother and sister, whose deaths he still felt responsible for. Jacob just wanted to tag along with the others.
Aurelio also wanted to leave. He'd been alone in his hotel for so long, not being able to leave in fear of never being able to return to its relative safety in Metal. Now that he had the chance to leave it, he wanted to take it. So he found a woman who'd always wanted to own a hotel and handed it over to her. Then, he and the teens left.
Metal had transformed from a hellish, drab city into a quirky oceanside city. Murals decorated the sides of buildings, and aromas of food from food carts and newly-opened restaurants wafted through the air. Flowers grew from almost every windowsill and balcony, and people wandered the streets, talking and laughing with one another.
The quirkiness of the breezy city reminded Jacob and Emerson a lot of San Fransisco, which they had visited with their lacrosse team in middle school. The fond memories of that trip made them smile.
Thirty minutes later, the group passed through the Perimeter. It now appeared to be a quirky little mountain town that reminded Cora, Meredith, and Aurelio of a hipster version of Mount Lake. Lonnie greeted them with a smile and a wave. Cora giggled when they passed the motel she and the boys stayed at, remembering the humorous scene that went down there.
Thirty minutes after that, they arrived in Paradise. It hadn't changed at all, except that there seemed to be more people there. Many people were emotional, with some crying and others embracing. When these people saw Cora, Jacob, and Emerson, they applauded and cheered. The three smiled and waved back. It felt good to know that they had changed so many people's lives for the better.
Aurelio remembered the apartment, not too far from downtown Paradise City, that he and Meredith lived in before they left, so he and Meredith moved back in. The apartment hadn't changed since Aurelio got exiled, except for its lack of occupants.
The apartment was cozy; not too big, not too small. The windows in the living room looked out onto multicolored rooftops and buildings, and majestic mountains marked the horizon. Meredith squealed when she opened the door to her bedroom. She had an actual bed now, with actual sheets and an actual comforter. She also had curtains and a working light. The pressed flowers and unusual rocks that Meredith collected to decorate her "room" back in Mount Lake were displayed on her dresser in the same way she organized them in the land of the living.
After admiring her room, she ran into the living room and gave Aurelio a big hug, thanking him for the bedroom. Aurelio squeezed her back and accepted her gratitude, despite knowing that the Persephonites set up the apartment and not him. He didn't dare tell her the truth.
Plus, he liked hugging Meredith. After thirteen years of not being able to contact her at all and then however long they were in the Perimeter and Metal, Aurelio wanted to show as much love as he could towards his daughter, to make up for all that lost time.
A couple of apartment buildings down, Cora, Jacob, and Emerson decided to split an apartment. During their week-long journey to the Perimeter and Paradise together, they had developed a strong bond with one another. The trio couldn't imagine splitting up.
Jacob and Emerson had wanted to live with one another since who knows how long, because of their strong friendship and possible blooming romance. They had also come to see Cora as a sister, and Cora came to see them as her brothers. Growing up as only children, Jacob and Cora had never experienced having someone like a sibling to them, and they loved the new experience.
Their apartment was similar to Meredith and Aurelio's: somewhat small, but cozy. The trio shared their bedroom, which had a set of bunk beds for the boys, the bottom bunk being a full bed, and a separate twin bed for Cora. The apartment had a closet filled with lacrosse and snowboarding equipment, and a balcony with a telescope for Cora. To the teens' delight, a lot of their personal things were in their apartment, like Cora's computer, Emerson's personal journals, and Jacob's signed poster of his favorite lacrosse team.
That evening, someone knocked on their door. Emerson opened it, expecting to see Aurelio or Meredith. Instead, a Japanese family, consisting of a middle-aged couple and a young girl about ten years old, greeted him.
"Is Cora Abbey here?" The woman of the family asked. Emerson nodded and called over his shoulder.
"Cora! Some people are here to see you!"
Cora hurried into the room. "Who is it?"
As soon as she saw the family standing in the doorway, she froze. "Um, I'm guessing you're relatives of mine?"
The man nodded. "I'm your grandfather, Cora. And this here is your grandmother and aunt."
As Cora's grandfather spoke their names, her grandmother and aunt smiled in greeting.
"You can call me Akiko. Or Aunt Akiko, if you want. I still feel too young to be an aunt," The young girl, Akiko, said.
Cora smiled at her, despite being lost in thought. She had seen Akiko and her grandparents in old photos, but her mother never talked about them much. They died when she was a teenager, but Cora never knew how they died. Her mother refused to discuss it.
They talked for a while, with Akiko and Cora's grandparents asking most of the questions. Jacob and Emerson chipped in a bit to the conversation, asking them where they were from and what Japan was like.
Cora noticed that some of her aunt and grandparents' answers seemed a bit clipped and rehearsed, like they had prepared for the meeting.
Finally, Cora decided to ask the burning question she'd wanted to ask them all evening: "How did you die?"
Her grandparents' faces grew stiff. Akiko flipped one of her braids behind her back.
"Oh, you know, we were-"
Cora's grandmother put her hand over Akiko's mouth, silencing her. "Akiko, no! We promised we wouldn't discuss this with her. Not until later."
"But-"
"No buts." She grabbed Akiko's wrist and stood up from the couch they were seated on, dragging Akiko towards the door. Cora's grandfather stood up as well, giving Cora an apologetic bow.
"I apologize for this, Cora. There's a lot you don't know about us, and we promised we'd tell you at a later date, after you've settled in. I hope you have a pleasant night, and we shall see you later."
He walked out the door behind his wife and daughter. The door shut behind them, leaving Cora, Jacob, and Emerson alone in their apartment.
"Well, that was a pleasant visit," Emerson said, breaking the silence. Cora leaned her head back onto the couch and sighed.
"First, I have the mystery of my father, and now I have them to deal with. If everyone could be honest with me, that'd be great."
Later that night, they got another visitor.
The three awoke to a scratching noise at the front door.
"What now?!" Jacob shouted, bolting upright in his bed. Cora sat up, blinking, and Emerson put his pillow over his head.
The scratching stopped. A meowing noise replaced it. Jacob got up and walked out of the bedroom, frowning.
"It can't be...."
Cora and Emerson followed him to the front door, the origin of the odd noises. Jacob slowly pulled open the door to reveal a calico cat. His face cracked into a smile.
"Patsy? Is that you?"
The cat, Patsy, meowed and rubbed her face onto Jacob's leg. Jacob bent down and scratched the cat on her ears. She began to purr, and Jacob scooped her up into his arms and kissed her.
"So that's the infamous Patsy," Emerson said. "Always wanted to meet her."
"I didn't know you had a cat," Cora said, smiling at Patsy. "I always wanted a cat or dog. My mom is allergic to both, though, so I never got one."
"Patsy died when I was ten," Jacob said, his face buried in Patsy's fur. "I was practically obsessed with her during my childhood, and I was devastated when she died. She was the first and only pet I've had."
He lifted his face from the cat's fur and set her down. "I've always been a cat person, though I had to hide it when I was alive because cool kids don't care about animals. In fact, some of the douches Emerson and I hung out with hunted animals for sport. They wouldn't hunt just deer and birds and things. They'd hunt just about anything."
"I've always been more of a cat person, too." Emerson remarked. Patsy came over to him, and rubbed her forehead against his legs. He bent down and stroked her. "I mean, dogs are pretty cool, but...cats."
Cora chuckled. "True." Patsy made her way to Cora, and she petted her as well.
"That wasn't always here, wasn't it?" Emerson asked, pointing to a cat condo sitting in the corner of the living room. Cora shook her head.
"No."
Jacob's face broke out into a smile. "You guys don't mind having a feline roommate, do you?"
And just like that, Patsy joined the trio's newfound family.
They went back to bed, with Patsy curling up at the foot of Jacob's bunk. Nobody disturbed them for the rest of the night, and nobody would disturb them until the morning.
Cora, Jacob, and Emerson had just finished their breakfast of omelets and bacon when someone knocked on the door. Patsy's ears flicked in her sleep.
"It better be Aurelio and Meredith," Emerson said, putting his fork down and heading to the door.
He opened the door, revealing a woman and a teenage girl. The woman looked to be in her forties, with thick brown hair that hung just past her shoulders and bright blue eyes. She looked familiar to Cora, but she couldn't place her face. The girl was about two years older than the trio, and she had long hair the same shade as the woman's, but hers was straight and thin. Mascara framed her chestnut-colored eyes.
The woman smiled, dimples forming in her cheeks. "Emerson! Oh, I've missed you!"
She lunged forward and engulfed Emerson in a giant hug. The teenage girl nodded in Cora and Jacob's direction.
"Hey, Jacob."
"Hey, Madison."
Realization struck Cora, and her eyes widened. "Oh my God! You're Emerson's sister! And that's your all's mom!"
No wonder the woman seemed so familiar. She had Emerson's face, albeit more feminine and aged.
Emerson sobbed into his mother's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Mom! I lied to you about staying after school to meet with a teacher, I was kissing a girl! I'm sorry for killing you and Madison, if it weren't for me and my stupidity you'd still be alive, and-and I'm sorry for everything I've ever done over the fifteen years I was alive-"
"Shhhh," Emerson's mother, Mrs. Dare said, holding her son in her arms. "It's alright now. It is what it is. You can't undo the past."
"And I'm sorry for killing myself, I must have left Dad a mess."
"He's fine, he'll get over it eventually-"
"Honestly, I think the dog misses you more than Dad misses you," Madison interrupted. "No offense, but you were a family disappointment."
"It's true, you weren't the best person when you were alive. I had tried to subtly tell you that, but you never picked up on it." Mrs. Dare said. She kissed Emerson's forehead. "I'm proud of your improvement, though. Owning up to your mistakes and working to fix them is a hard thing to do, and I'm glad you found the strength to do so. I always knew you were a good person deep down inside."
"Better late than never, I guess," Emerson replied, his voice wobbly. "I wish I could go back and undo all my mistakes, though."
"Like I said before, you can't undo the past," Mrs. Dare said, giving Emerson another hug. "But you can learn from your mistakes and never do them again."
"I've had enough of this," Madison said, pushing her mother to the side. "It's my turn to hug Emerson."
While Madison and Emerson embraced, Mrs. Dare came over to Jacob and Cora, who had been watching the scene unfold awkwardly.
"I'm proud of you, too, Jacob," Mrs. Dare said, patting him on the back. His face looked stoic, but Cora could see the joy in his eyes.
She turned to Cora. "You must be Cora. I've heard a lot about you, from people talking around town and from the Persephonites."
Cora gave an awkward smile. "Yeah. That's me."
To her surprise, Mrs. Dare pulled Cora into a hug. Cora stood there for a moment, startled, before putting her arms around Mrs. Dare.
"Thank you so much," Mrs. Dare whispered in her ear. "For bringing my boy to me."
She pulled away. Tears shone in her cerulean eyes, threatening to spill over. Despite this, she smiled, and Cora once again understood why Paradise was called Paradise.
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After the emotional first day in Paradise, everything went smoother afterwards. Cora, Emerson, Jacob, Meredith, and Aurelio all got to explore Paradise and finally kick back and relax after a stressful life and beginning of the afterlife.
To Cora's delight, Paradise had dozens of ski and snowboard slopes. Before her death, she was a snowboarder, one of the best her age in Colorado. Her mother always joked that Cora would end up in the Olympics one day.
Cora hadn't snowboarded since the weekend before her death, and she craved the feeling of the wind blowing through her hair as she flew downhill. She craved the snow and the feeling of freedom she always felt whenever she snowboarded. So one morning, Cora grabbed her snow gear and snowboard, and headed up towards Paradise's ski slopes.
Like just about everything in Paradise, the ski slopes were a dream come true. Fresh snow powdered the mountainsides, and the sun shone, without a cloud in sight. The wind chill was perfectly crisp, though Cora could always turn off her perception of temperature if it bothered her. That was the nice thing about Paradise, you could change just about everything to suit your needs.
She headed up the slopes, up to the top of the mountain, and zoomed back down again, doing tricks when she could. Cora did everything with a sense of security, as she could no longer feel pain if she hit the ground at all. She no longer had to worry about getting hurt or dying anymore.
It felt pretty good, being dead.
As soon as she got to the bottom, a Persephonite delivered a message from Jacob and Emerson, asking where she was. She told them, and within fifteen minutes, Jacob and Emerson arrived, their own snowboards in tow. Cora spent the rest of the day on the beginners' slope, teaching Jacob and Emerson how to snowboard. Despite not being able to feel pain, the boys still emitted child-like screams whenever they fell. Cora couldn't contain her giggles.
A couple of days later, the boys got their revenge when they asked Cora to play lacrosse with them in the local park, along with Meredith and some other Paradise teenagers. As expected, Cora and Meredith were awful at the sport. Both girls had hand-eye coordination problems to start with, not to mention lack of sports experience. The boys laughed at them, but Cora didn't care. She had eternity to learn lacrosse - literally.
Not that Cora wanted to. She'd stick to snowboarding for now.
Meredith was having a good time in Paradise as well. She'd never get sick of having an actual parent who cared about her. Every day, she and Aurelio did something fun together, like eat at a fancy exotic restaurant that served food from another solar system, or go spend a day at the beach. Aurelio told her stories about his childhood and adolescence growing up in Spain. Meredith talked to him about whatever she wanted, whether it was about a special interest of hers or about a cool butterfly she saw.
Despite being in Paradise, Meredith still got sad sometimes. Her conversations with Aurelio often reminded her of the conversations she had with her older brother back in Mount Lake. And every time she'd do something fun, like eat ice cream or even fly, her ward-mates would come to mind. Meredith felt guilty for enjoying Paradise while her ward-mates would never be able to return. Somewhere out in Paradise, they had families to which they'd never return. Families they were wrongly stolen from, to fulfill the selfish desires of some Perimeter people.
The fates of the hope-suckers were unknown, but Meredith would never forgive them for the murders of her friends, no matter if they got rehabilitated somehow or not.
Aradhya hadn't been seen since the week before Cora and the boys returned to Metal. This worried Meredith, as he had said that he'd return soon. Meredith wondered if he could be in danger, but she had no way of knowing.
Wherever he was, Meredith hoped he was okay.
Like Meredith, Cora was also not completely satisfied. She still didn't know what her grandparents and aunt were hiding, even though they had promised to tell her later. They lived near the ski slopes in the mountains, so Cora visited them often. They seemed nice enough, but they still never told her anything. Some things about them did seem odd though, like them sometimes struggling to answer basic questions, and Cora not being allowed into certain rooms in the house, even though she was family.
Speaking of family, Cora still had no leads on her father. She had visited what seemed like every library in Paradise, looked through every book on powerful beings, and questioned every Persephonite she encountered, but her search came up empty. Nothing but the same regurgitated information: her father was a powerful being, it was dangerous for her to know his identity, he loved her, and she had inherited his eyes and some of his mannerisms. Cora wondered if her father's identity had anything to do with her family's secretive demeanor, but she couldn't find out for sure.
There was also the matter of her mother. Meg Abbey was still depressed, and her life seemed monotonous and dull, like she lived in her own version of Metal. It hurt Cora to see her like that, but she tried not to dwell on it too hard, because dwelling on the past and the land of the living got her sent to Metal in the first place. Cora knew old Metal didn't exist any more, but she didn't want to take any chances.
Both Cora and Meredith knew that Paradise was far from perfect, despite being the closest thing to perfect they've ever encountered. They both had infinite questions about the world that couldn't be answered by Persephonites. They both knew that there was something off about Paradise, but they just couldn't put their finger on it.
But despite all that, they had finally found Paradise. And Cora and Meredith knew better than to pry.
After all, they were in Paradise.
The End
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AFTER TWO OR THREE YEARS THIS IS FINALLY FINISHED WHOOOOO
Anyways, to anybody who has read to here, who has been on me on my journey writing this, thank you! You're the reasons I write, and I love you all!
Yes, this chapter was setting up for a possible sequel, but I have wayyyy too many writing projects to complete and start, so it will be quite a while before it even starts. But in the meantime, you still got this and The Final Performance to read! And I may be editing this story in the future, as well as adding bonus content, like art, playlists, fun facts about the characters, etc.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this epilogue, and this story in general. Thanks for reading, and if you enjoyed this story, feel free to vote, share, add to your reading list, and comment your thoughts on this story!
Have a great day/afternoon/evening/night!