The Elegant Menteur
Note from the author: This is my first Phantom Phanfiction. Please enjoy and comment. I need some random ideas to keep it going.
-grissomsblueorbs
Paris 1872 - Fall
Inspector Alexandrus
Inspector Alexandrus of the French Police wiped his brow and adjusted his collar. The crumpled paper in his palm felt as if it was burning. Someone asked if he was okay, but he couldn't hear anything. He was switching into Police Mode, where his mind went deaf from the rest of the world and his brain succumbed the mystery he craved.
In the midst of the beautiful Paris night, the inspector sighed heavily and stared up at the enormous Académie Nationale de Musique. He wondered silently as he pushed his hands into his pocket and sighed deeply, if it would ever be as beautiful as it once was. The building which was created in the Rococo time period, apparently held more secrets than he had previously known. The Inspector had come to Paris a couple years ago from England to join the rest of his family. It was certain that everyone in his family knew something about the mysterious theatre. Apparently it was being "haunted" by someone or something and had even killed people!
Inspector Alexandrus took out the paper his pocket and read it once more. He even allowed a shiver to crawl down his spine. He let his dark eyes consume the words for the hundredth time and sighed once more...
Death whispered in my ear last night and gave me the secret I have craved for so long. What? Are you in question of my motives?
Did you not deny me in the first place? I can no longer question my reason for doing this. I just know what must be done, must be done. There are no more questions. I will silence thee at last and rob thy breath of each one that surrenders to me, their soul.
Find me
…
Christine
There is something strange and wonderful about the night. There are mysterious things that cannot even bear to come out during the day. And the beauty of the night will forever be a mystery of the day. Perhaps it is the way we must light the darkness in order to find our way. The way a candle kisses and reddens its surroundings in order to glow the magic of the dark.
It is this mystery that has forever drawn me toward the night. The mystery and the arabesque nature of twirling and smoky thoughts that can only be birthed from the night… I cannot even fathom the imagination that awakens in the night.
The imagination is a beast for which roars throughout me and urges my curiosity.
How can I hide this from my sweet Raoul any longer?
Will it a nuisance to know that a woman of inferior birth has the imagination of an…artist? I will be shunned from society and plunged into darkness for the rest of my days. Does this not sound like someone else I know?
Oh, what a mistake I fear I have made.
Raoul cannot know what has become of me. He must not question why I cannot sleep at night, why my hand has awoken with the sudden urge to write. To write the poetry my mind yearns for. What gift is this? But a curse I must trust.
The curse that he has scarred me with.
I remember the night that the Opera Populaire burned. It was a slow and agonizing burn that I witnessed mostly from the innards of the theatre. This metaphoric concoction invokes an accumulation of many years. I watched what was my life and meaning, burn and shrivel to ash in a matter of hours.
In the depths of the theatre I saw the love of my years tied to a grate and facing into the eyes of Death. Yet, I found myself strangely drawn these eyes. And I cannot get them out of my mind. I am forever entranced. I kissed the lips of the man that gave me the gift of my voice and taught me that life is not a closed box. This man taught me that there are holes, holes that a person must cut through the dense part of life in order to see the entire picture that is a soul.
But I left this man. I left him and showed him nothing but what he had warned me of my entire life. The reality he showed me that was cruel and without justice, was slammed and splattered onto his face by me. I was a coward.
I never knew what became of the Phantom as I clutched Raoul closer to me. There were shouts all round me, and from far away…the sound of glass breaking. I remember closing my eyes tight, knowing that this breaking was his soul after all. I had broken this man's soul, and the shattering left me chilled.
God forgive me.
Much of escaping the burning building is a blur to me. I haven't much of the faintest idea of how we escaped. Only that there were hands, many hands that pulled me from the wreckage of my burning life. These hands I remember, thrust me into the open air and I was birthed again. I coughed, cried, and somewhere along the way I lost my soul. I haven't seen it since.
On the cobble-stoned steps of Paris I clutched Raoul closer and cried in the wake of the smoking theatre. The sky was clear except the sparkling jewels of starlight. And when I stood and turned, I began walking into the mist that Paris expectantly created at night. The Breathe of France, Erik had named it.
End (Christine)
The second day after The Burning, news had gotten around like fire and then fluttered out just ask quickly has it had been ignited. Rumors were still amuck about a crazed man setting fire on the Opera Populaire. But soon there were other news to be looked upon, and so the Phantom of the Opera was cast aside.
In a restaurant just outside Notre Dame, Christine Daae sat next to a stained window, her eyes set upon a dark carriage and the inhabitant that had neglected for…now fifty-four seconds… to step out of his or her carriage. The inhabitant was nothing but a dark shadow, shrouded by the carriage's curtains. Christine tried to remove from her mind, the details of the past three days with entertaining her mind of who might be inside. Surely someone rich and handsomely endowed with the finest of treasures. Perhaps a prince from Nigeria or some place in faraway Africa?
"Christine, I will not say it again," Raoul DeChagney's voice was firm and cold.
His hands were knotted and his lips were pressed firmly together. His once kind blue eyes were hard and unforgiving.
"Please don't daydream in front of my mother."
Christine let her eyes flick down to her hands, which were placed firmly in her lap. How dainty she appeared when not dressed as an actress might.
However, her heart yearned for the stage ever so dearly.
"I am sorry my dear, I apologize." Christine smiled softly, but it did not reach her eyes.
What was it to his mother if she daydreamed? She believed daydreaming was a gift to a human. It allowed the mind to flow freely and without guilt. Sometimes daydreaming allowed new truths to develop and grow.
When Christine turned back toward the window, slightly nervous to meet her new in-laws, the mysterious passenger had disappeared carriage and all, onto the business of mystery. And for a flickering second, Christine wished she were as lucky as he.