Disclaimer: None of the characters belong to me. The title and inspiration comes from the song "24" by Jem.

A/N: This is absolute drabble, come about from listening to the above mentioned song over and over again. The lyrics just remind me of something that might be going through Christine's mind as she waits for her decision to be spoken. Oh well, it just begged to be written. It's so very short, one of the shortest stories I've even written. Once again, I just needed to get it off my mind. Please review and enjoy. Again: complete, absolute, total drabble. Ye be warned.

Only once before in her life had Christine Daaé felt the same sense of finality that filled her body at that moment. It had been when she was but a child, after her father had died and she had placed a bouquet of crimson roses upon his grave, staring down at the red petals against the soft snow. It had been then that she had realized that she was never going to see the man again, never going to feel his warmth and his love and she had been filled with the heavy sense of finality, a solid realization that she had lost a part of herself. A door that could never again be opened had slammed shut on a part of her life and she had been forced to accept that fact.

But as she sat in her prison, Christine felt her body grow heavy with the same burden of finality. It wasn't something she was pleased to experience, something that she had ever wanted to feel again; it was when one realized that there was no where to go but the direction they were being forced in that they began to loose hope. And, God, Christine could not stand to lose her hope. That was all she had left and now it was gone, as quickly as she could have blinked.

Her shoulders fell and a sigh came heavy in her throat. Christine leaned against the stone wall of the Louis-Philippe room, her cage, and closed her eyes. The voice of her captor, of her Angel, rang in her ears, reminding her again that she had less than twenty-four hours to make her decision. She must love him or so many would die. She had but twenty-four hours to truly live, though she realized quickly that another part of her life had come to an end. No matter what the outcome, no matter what happened, she was not going to be able to live in the way she had only days before; she was not the same Christine Daaé and she never would be again. It was time to begin laying flowers, though this time upon her own grave, however metaphorical.

In the silence of the room, Christine found no escape from her thoughts, the thoughts that forced their way into her mind. Thoughts that reminded her of the life she had once lived in the house by the sea, happy and carefree, wasting away the days with Raoul and the nights with her father. She would have given anything, then, to be a girl again, wishing if the fairy tale monsters of her father's stories would come visit in the night. Now she was waiting for the real life monsters to come to her once again.

Christine tried to not think of such things but it really was impossible. Perhaps it was just her way of gazing at the life she had once led before the door would be slammed shut once again. The silence around her was deafening and she wanted to do everything in her power to do away with the oppressive stillness. Her relatively happy years were over now, it would be over tonight.

Briefly, Christine wondered of the life that would go on without her, of the sunrises she would never see, the sunsets that would come and go. She tried to push away thoughts of golden sunrises, thoughts of growing old with a man she truly loved, thoughts of raising children with that man, thoughts of the life that should be hers but no longer was. Shaking her head, the thoughts seemed to vanish. It would do no good to think of them anyway. And yet, Christine couldn't bare to think of turning her back of much more pleasant times as the door was swinging shut.

Every part of Christine wanted to cry, to hang her head and beg for the thoughts to return, beg for something to keep the door was shutting. But she knew it was no use and she bit back the urge. Closing off a part of herself, of her life, shouldn't be anything new. She had done it before, but that didn't seem to make it any easier.

That cold sense of finality was closing in again. Christine knew it was time to start choosing a new bouquet of blood red roses. It was time to begin laying flowers again.