Blue Rose
Chapter One: Past and present
Light. A bright glow in the distance and darkness surrounding me. I don't know where I am, nor what I should do. I hear laughter. I turn in the direction from which it comes and then I see her. She runs happily towards the light, her dark curls dancing behind her with her every movement. On her beautiful face I can see only the expression of complete happiness. She's so beautiful ... but she doesn't notice me – she's only looking at this strange glow looming in the distance. Why won't she even glance at me? I grab her hand as she passes by. She turns her head and finally looks straight at my face. The blissful expression of joy immediately disappears from her face, replaced by a grimace of terror. She pushes my hand away and runs from me, heading towards the light. I want to follow her, but I can't move. I want to call her, but I can't utter a single word. She's getting farther and farther away from me ... I can only watch, left alone in the darkness. In the light I see a male figure.
- - - X - - -
I wake up with a scream, which resounds around me, echoing off the stone walls.
But there is no one here who could hear it.
''Christine...'' I sob, hiding my face in my hands. ''Why?''
Why did you leave? Why did you turn out to be like everyone else and abandon me? Why can't I forget about you? Why do you still have to haunt me? Why won't you just leave me alone? Why... why am I alone again? Why do I have to lose all that is dear to me? Why can't I have at least a tiny bit of happiness?!
Two years ... Two years have passed, and I still remember her face, her voice, even her scent. Every day, every passing second is a never-ending torture. I want to scream, I want to cry, I want to pull my hair out, I want to dig nails deep into my own flesh and tear it till it starts to bleed – anything that would let me even for a moment forget about the pain. But none of these things help.
I've tried.
Slowly, I get up on trembling legs and begin to take tentative steps among the remains of what once used to be the furniture and objects which I had so carefully chosen for my home. I trample upon my own compositions, drawings, plans, but I can not bring myself to care about this or feel regret because of it.
Because I regret too many other things.
I hit something with my foot. I look down. The violin. Once I would have immediately picked it up and made sure that it isn't broken. But now I don't care, it's pointless anyway – for two years I have not touched any instrument. I can't.
My music left with her.
Next step. The sound of breaking glass under my feet. These shards were formerly a mirror... But maybe it is better this way? I know perfectly well how all these months devastated my body. I practically don't leave the underground, I eat just enough to survive – and even about this I increasingly forget to do – and my dreams are full of nightmares and memories that don't let me rest... I've neglected almost all the needs of the body, which a human being is able to neglect. I am a wreck of a man and I look like one.
I don't need anything to remind me about that.
Finally I reach one of the few furniture items that have survived my attacks of fury of which have haunted me for the first few months – to my desk. Here, on its countertop, there is a wooden box, and inside of it there lies what I am looking for. Morphine. Part of me wonders how I could have fallen so low and became so pathetic, but these thoughts quickly disappear under the pressure of others, those about the peace and bliss offered by the contents of the syringe, the sweet moment of illusion that I crave so much. A small voice inside my head is trying to scream that it's wrong, that I should stop... but I have long since learned to ignore it. I open the casket, knowing that in a moment all will be better, I can almost feel the sweet poison flowing through my veins...
Empty.
I do not have morphine anymore – yesterday I took the last dose. No no no no no! Overcome by panic, I search chaotically all around, hoping that by a miracle I will find a hidden reserve which I'd forgotten about. Of course, I find nothing. A long moan escapes my mouth. I need more.
And that means that I have to go to the surface.
I desperately try to estimate the passage of time in hopes of determining the time of the day. However, in my drug stupor, my mind hasn't been able to distinguish between the consecutive passing hours, and I soon realize that I am not even able to reason whether it's night or day now on the surface... Funny thing... and not so long ago I could have confirmed it with such precision. ..
Determinating finally that is sufficiently late, I decide to leave the underground.
- - - X - - -
I was wrong – the sun is only starting to set. I shield my eyes from the still relatively bright rays. It hurts. When was the last time I saw the sun? I don't remember...
There is no point in returning to the opera house, better wait here for the arrival of dusk. I move forward, but I don't really know where to. It doesn't matter. I'm just walking ahead. I go down the subsequent streets, I walk past the buildings, I pass a few passers-by, but none of these things can really reach me – I feel like there is a glass wall between me and the rest of the world, an invisible barrier separating me from others.
Gradually, I slow down my pace. I am on a bridge, and I approach a brick railing and look at the river.
Looking at the dark, choppy water, I begin to wonder why I should continue this... I will wait until dusk, and then what? I will again fall into the arms of addiction in a desperate attempt to escape from reality? What for? The following days merge into one, and each of them is the same as the other, completely devoid of any meaning. I can't smile, I can't create, I can't even feel anger anymore... I'm dead. I move, I breathe, I speak, but actually, inside, I'm dead. What was me, has died a long time ago – there's probably nothing left in me anymore. This body is just an empty shell. So what am I waiting for? Why forcefully prolong this meaningless existence?!
...I... I have nothing left to live for anymore...
It would be so simple... to just leave. To not think. To not feel. Let the dark depths swallow me and simply leave it all behind... Put an end to empty days, the accusing echoes of the past filling the silence and the fearful gaze of brown eyes which haunts me even in my dreams.
I climb onto a narrow piece of the wall which separates me from the water abyss. I look at the dark depths. I can't see the bottom. Tears flow down my cheeks- strange, I didn't think I still had any left. But after a while like this, I find that nothing reaches me any longer. I don't hear the hum of water or the sounds of the city, I don't feel the breath of wind on my exposed cheek – there is only the river and a sweet promise of no feelings, of the darkness that is calling to me, summoning me... Just a moment ...
I extend my foot beyond the edge to take a step into nothingness...
And suddenly someone's hand pulls my sleeve.
I turn to look at the intruder and immediately freeze as I look into the eyes of the person in front of me. I know those eyes. Eyes of unusual colour, which I've seen only once...
The eyes in the colour of violets.
''The little girl with flowers...'' I whisper.
But she is not a girl anymore – for it is not a child that stands in front of me, but a woman. Regardless, I have no doubts. It's not just her eyes that tell me this. Her long, delicate curls falling on her shoulders that have a familiar, light shade of brown. In the features of a milky white face, I can still see the childish, and in some strange way, sweet, innocence. The longer I look, the more details appear to my eyes – the small lips, the arch of eyebrows, the shape of the nose... Small, seemingly imperceptible details... But I see them. The past and the present merge into one. From a young woman slowly emerges the same little florist from nearly... how many years? Twelve years? This is no illusion I have imagined in my despairing mind.
It really is her.
And she also recognizes me. Her eyes widen in surprise, and she... she smiles as if not even a single moment had passed since that day. She pulls my sleeve again, urging me to join her in a safe place, away from the edge. I can't protest. Slowly, awkwardly, I step down from the railing, and I stand beside her, towering over a much shorter woman. I can't control the tremor that has taken over my body, nor can I take my eyes off her. This is too unreal.
Everything comes back. Memories from so many years ago flood my mind. The embroidered handkerchief. The warmth of a small hand closing my fingers around a small object. The sweet scent of a crimson flower. A sudden gust of wind, carring away a black piece of fabric...
Unconsciously, I reach into my pocket, and my fingers encounter something soft. I don't know what guided me to do this, nor in what purpose I did it- but I had kept it. The rose had wilted, but I've never gotten rid of the ribbon, I just... I couldn't do it. I pull it out of my pocket, presenting it to the rightful owner.
The shock is all too visible on the girl's face, but soon her smile widens and she turns her back to me so that I could tie her hair. Something so simple... and yet unknown to me. I can't remember a time when anyone asked for my touch... And just in that moment, when I tie the ribbon around the soft curls with my trembling fingers, I realize something else.
Her kindness from twelve years ago was amazing, yes, but not impossible to explain. At that time I was simply a strange man in a mask to her, so it wasn't so farfetched for her to be kind to me... But now?
I move away from her, and she once again turns to me. She looks calm...
I don't understand this.
For months, almost all of France had talked only about the events of that night and the masked madman who had caused the fire of the opera house and killed so many people. There is hardly a person who has not heard of the Phantom. And that means that she also must know. She has to.
And this is what doesn't make any sense. How can she allow me to even get close to her, let alone touch her? What person turns their back on a murderer? My awareness of the ease with which I could take her life at this moment is sickening. Why is she so... trusting? I am a monster... and no one shows kindness to beasts... So what is her reason to do so?
It is only when these words have finished leaving my lips that I realize that I am saying them out loud.
She just looks at me for a moment with those extraordinary eyes, and then approaches me, raising her hand. I want to take a step back, but her fingers touch my cheek only to wipe remnants of tears from my face. That's all. This small gesture is the only answer I receive.
''What do you mean? If I cry, then I can't be so evil? Do, in your opinion, monsters not cry? No.'' I start shaking my head, thinking about my blood-stained hands which no tears will ever clean. ''You're wrong. Tears do not prove anyone's nobility, they do not make one a good person, it... it doesn't matter! And ... why aren't you saying anything ?!"
Because of that last frustrated sentence, for the first time on her face I see something akin to... sadness? The girl touches her throat in silence. The gesture doesn't make sense... until I realize that she has never said a single word. Neither then twelve years ago nor today.
''Are you mute?'' I ask quietly, even though I already know the answer perfectly well.
The girl nods. I don't know what to say. Thousands of possible answers pass through my head, but none of them seems right to me, so we just both stand there in silence.
''I would like to know your name...'' I blurt out at last.
Immediately I feel like fool. Of all the possibilities I had, I had to of course choose one of the worst. How is she supposed to answer this question?
But she finds a way. She reaches into her basket of flowers – funny, only now I've noticed that she has it with her... as if all of this wasn't familiar enough...
The flower that she pulls out also isn't something new – it's a rose. Only the colour is different ... the petals are not scarlet like the last time, but they have a deep, dark blue colour. The girl points at a flower and then at herself.
Of course.
''Rose... Your name is Rose,'' I say.
Because how wouldn't it be? Could there ever be a more suitable name for her than that?
The girl – Rose – is now pointing at me in a questioning gesture.
''Erik. I'm Erik.''
I feel strange saying it out loud. Have I actually ever done that before? No one has ever really cared to know my name. Christine was no exception. During all these years she has never asked – even when she knew the truth, when she knew that I was only a human and not an angel like she had believed for so long... even then it hadn't even crossed her mind...
My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of church bells announcing the hour. I count the strikes, and I know that it is already late. She looks frantically at me and then to the city. She has to go. She will leave and I will never see her again. At this thought, a wave of panic that I can't explain in any way washes over me. I grab her hand. She doesn't push it away.
''Tomorrow. The same place. The same time. Will you come?'' I blurt out in one breath, through a tight throat.
I look at the flower which I'm holding. She gently squeezes my hand, then unravels my fingers, just to tighten them around the stem of a rose a moment later. She looks at me for a minute, and then turns around and walks away.
I'm left alone.
I look at the flower which I'm holding. A blue rose. I've heard about them – this colour does not occur naturally, it is obtained by dyeing. They are treated as a symbol of hope, but also permanence, loyalty... Is this a promise?
I don't know...
- - - X - - -
However, despite my ignorance, I still desperatly hang on to it. Even while intoxicated by the drug, I still forcefully clench my fingers around the flower, not letting go of it. I can't sleep tonight – I can only think about tomorrow.
Will she be there?
Will she come?
I'm afraid to know the answer...
Because I know that if I'm wrong, if I won't find her on that bridge tomorrow, this will be the end of me...
