Well, here it is! I had gotten a lot of requests to write a closet-spoof during my last fic, and this is what I came up with.

For those of you who have never read my fics before, allow be to introduce myself… I am AngelofMusic8578, better known to everyone as Angel, or the Authoress. And I keep Erik in my closet… That's right! He's the Phantom of my Closet! In my previous fics, I used Erik to buy reviews from my readers, telling them that any girl who reviewed got to spend the night with Erik in his closet. We got some real parties going some nights, with the girls bringing anything from popcorn, to s'mores, to clodhoppers. Erik would also help me answer reviews too, allowing everyone a deeper look at his sarcastic, grumpy side. The A/N's turned out to be pretty funny, to the point where readers liked reading them as much as the actual story!

Finally, people started requesting a closet-spoof about me, Erik, and the rapid closet-phans. I thought the idea was cute, but I had no clue what it would be about! But this idea occurred to me the other day, and I hope it works out alright. This is my first attempt at a humour fic, so constructive criticism is always welcome, but no flaming please… My philosophy is: Don't like it, don't read it.

And instead of answering reviews this time around, anyone who reviews gets to be in the fic! Awesome, eh? I think the end result should be pretty amusing. So with no further ado, here's the closet-spoof!

XxXxX

Trapped in the Closet

You know what makes an authoress' day? Logging onto her e-mail and finding her inbox crammed full of review alerts. As an authoress, I love reading reviews… even bad ones! So you can imagine how excited I was when I woke up on Saturday morning… I had gotten eighteen reviews on Thursday morning… twenty-one on Friday morning… and of course, I knew full-well what any reader of fanfiction does on a Friday night… After a long week of school and homework, they get online and review some more! I was expecting my inbox to be overflowing with review alerts.

So after I got dressed and fed my cats, I went into my closet…

Now why, you ask, would I enter my closet? Well, here's why: I pushed a few shirts aside and pushed a secret button that only I and one other person know about… I'll tell you about that other person in a minute…

When I pushed the secret button, a secret doorway opened and I passed through a secret tunnel into a secret room…

OK, maybe it's not that secretive, considering hoards of hormonal girls come here almost every night… No, not to see me! Rather, it's my partner that they seem to have an interest in…

"Angel, have you ever thought of getting a real life?" a voice called out grumpily as I entered the room.

"No, not really," I replied nonchalantly.

That would be my partner. Erik is his name. No last name, though. And if you are one of the millions of phans out there, then you know exactly who I'm talking about… Erik, the Phantom of the Opera… You know, with the theme music and the mask and the swishy cloak? I bought him on E-Bay, and he's been living in this secret room of my closet ever since. Really, I thought he would be quite the gentleman, but he's actually rather sarcastic.

Erik was lying stretched across the beat-up leather couch at one end of the small room, remote in hand, channel-surfing on the eighteen-inch screen TV. Typical male. The room was lit by a single bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. In the opposite corner of the room was my desk with my PC. I went over to it and turned it on. While I waited for it to warm up, I went over to the couch where Erik was still channel-surfing.

"What's on?" I asked.

"Nothing that would interest you," he said without looking up from the TV.

"Would it kill you to be pleasant for once?" I grumbled as I pushed his legs off the couch and sat down. "Ooh!" I said, as I got a glimpse of the news channel. "Gas prices are going down!"

"Huzzah, huzzah…" Erik muttered.

I shot him a look. "I'm just trying to make conversation!"

"Why do women always have to make conversation?" he growled. "I'm trying to watch TV!"

"You always watch TV! Why don't you get a hobby?"

"I have one!" he snapped. "I write operas during commercial breaks!"

I sighed and shook my head. Erik could be quite impossible sometimes.

After a long, awkward silence, Erik finally perked up. "Hey! The Grudge is on SCREAM TV!" With a maniacal laugh, he flipped to the channel.

"Ugh! I hate this movie!" I protested. "I had a nightmare about it last night! I dreamed I was locked in some motel-sort of building and the creepy Asian lady's ghost was chasing me! Then Frankenstein tried to decapitate me in an elevator!"

"Sounds like something out of my fantasies," Erik smirked.

I made a motion to punch him, but then the creepy Asian ghost appeared on the screen. I screamed and buried my face into Erik's chest.

"Get off of me, you wuss!" he snapped, shoving me away. "It's just a movie, for goodness' sake! It won't hurt you!"

"I don't care!" I cried, snatching the remote away. "Let's watch something that normal human beings watch!" I flipped the channel. "Here! This is a nice movie!"

Erik shot me a look. "This is A Walk to Remember!"

"It's sweet," I smiled.

"It's so cliché! Bad boy falls in love with nice girl? It's so stupid!"

"Are you sure you aren't just a little bitter that the nice girl actually loves the bad boy back instead of leaving him for some foppish rich guy?"

Erik crossed his arms. "For the final time, I broke up with Christine!"

"Mm-hm… Sure you did…" I flipped the channel again. "Oh, it's the Red Green Show!"

Erik rolled his eyes. "Who on earth could be entertained by a stupid Canadian guy named Red Green? It's absurd!"

"Look!" I exclaimed. "Red's going to make a wood-chipper out of a K-car!"

"Change the channel!" Erik ordered. "I can feel myself getting dumber just watching him!"

I flipped to the next channel. "Hey! Royal Canadian Air Farce! They're at the 'Talking to Americans' portion!" I giggled. "Rick's got them all thinking that Canada just legalized staplers!"

Erik rolled his eyes again. "That's the stupidest prank I've ever heard of!"

Sighing, I gave Erik the remote back, resigning myself to the fact that we wouldn't be able to agree on anything. I went over to my PC. After waiting for the crummy dial-up to finally connect to the Internet, I immediately went to hotmail. Tapping my fingers on the desk, I waited while hotmail signed me in.

Then the absolute worst thing happened… A screen popped up informing me that the sign-in failed. There was too much traffic in hotmail right now.

"Merde!" I cursed. "I hate dial-up!"

"Tsk, tsk," Erik shook his head. "You kiss your mother with that mouth?"

Sulkily, I went back over to the couch and plopped down. "It probably won't be free for another hour," I mumbled. "Man, as soon as I get the money, I'm buying high-speed!"

"Considering the salary you are paid at that little café washing dishes," Erik said, "you won't have enough money for another two years, seven months, and five days… By that time, no doubt, high-speed will be obsolete."

I looked at him. "How'd you figure that out?"

Erik shrugged. "I'm a genius."

I sighed. "Erik, what would you do if your boss was giving you a salary that would starve a field mouse while at the same time cutting your hours because business sucked?"

Erik thought for a minute. "I'd write him a vaguely threatening note demanding an increased salary… And if he failed to comply, I'd kill him…"

I rolled my eyes. "There's only two things wrong with that plan, Erik… One, it won't work, and two, I'll go to jail!"

Erik smirked. "In that case, can I have your room?"

I opened my mouth to respond when suddenly there was a distant, ominous clunk. Erik and I stared at each other wide-eyed.

"Angel?" he said tentatively. "Please tell me that wasn't the secret door shutting!"

In a flash, we ran through the tunnel. In my heart I hoped against hope that it wasn't what I thought it was. We reached the edge of the tunnel, and my heart sank like a stone.

The secret door was closed! But how? Who could have done this?

Erik pawed at the door. "Surely there is some mechanism that we can open this by?" he asked.

"Are you nuts?" I shrieked. "I didn't get one installed on this side of the door because I wanted to keep you in! If there was a way to get out from here, you could go running off with rabid phan-girls every time I turned my back!"

"You mean we're stuck in here?"

I could feel a panic attack coming on. "It'll be OK," I said, trying more to assure myself than Erik. "Someone will notice I'm missing and come looking. We'll be out of here in no time!"

Erik rolled his eyes. "Angel, you're the only one who knows about that secret door!"

I paused as the realization sunk in. "I've gotta get outta here!" I screamed.

"Angel, calm down!" Erik said, though I could tell that he was just as freaked out as I was. "We must not panic… We must remain calm…"

After a brief moment, we were both pounding on the door. "Help! Help us! We're trapped in the closet!"