(note added 12/30/14- I wanted to put this here so it was seen when this story was first clicked! I am in dire need, and would love, a beta, so if you are interested, please pm me!
Also: The entire first five or so chapters will be revised when I find the time, now that I have learned so much more about writing. But, if you have read from the beginning, do not fear... I will not change any aspect of the story, just how the ideas are executed.)
Our Parisian songbird is now alone - Raoul being the hero and grabbing a carriage to take his damsel away from the theater - and is trying to gather her thoughts in her dressing room before she leaves the Populaire.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of PotO, though one can only wish...
Christine
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Looking down, even in the dark I could see my hands shaking. How could they still be shaking?
I stared hesitantly at my face in the small, bronze mirror on my dressing room table and was met with the sad gaze of a stranger. Her eyes were ringed red and her skin a ghostly pallor. My battered reflection looked small and frightened, as much as it did when I first came to live at this haunting opera house as an orphan. My cheeks were stained with tears, the glistening paths serving as an embellished reminder as to why I was in here and every moment that had preceded.
Raoul was waiting for me on the streets behind the building with a carriage, a coachman prepared to aid us on our flight. A hungry mob had already formed to seek out the phantom while we were in the lair, clad with torches and rifles to end his reign.
There'd be too many questions if I were to be seen making this escape. Most of Paris had already seen him whisk me down to the cellars during the finale of his opera, Don Juan Triumphant.
Those questions… I was not sure I'd ever be able to answer them, for I did not know the answers myself.
Focus, Christine.
I had to pack up the bare minimum of my necessities and then sneak out through the back corridors that sprouted from the hall of my dressing room; Raoul had found us a room at an inn to take refuge in until we could go to the country to be wed, starting our lives together away from the drama inlaid here in Paris.
Somewhere very far away…
Take the boat, swear to me, never to tell.
Another tear slipped without permission and I cursed myself silently for being so weak. How had any of this happened? How could it have? It had all been a dream blurred to incomprehensibility with vicious ink, everyone pulled on by the strings of Fate and nightmares. Must have been.
As the air in the room grew colder with night's chill, I wrapped a warm, velvet cloak around my hunched shoulders and grabbed my bags. Meg would surely send the rest of my things to me after we had settled— unless, of course, Raoul deemed it unsafe to share our whereabouts.
The secret you know, of the angel in hell.
With an uneasiness at the thought, I blew out the candles and watched light drain out of the room, but not before I snuck a glimpse at the floor-length mirror I had been so desperately averting my eyes from.
Go now -
Even in the dark, the stripe of light from the door's outline threw a slash of reflecting white on the smooth surface, gluing my eyes to the spot. Unhealthily, I had been swallowing down every thought that came into my head from tonight's events, banishing them to the deepest part of my mind. The thoughts could be drowned, but his words remained ringing in my ears.
Ignorance was temporary, only pushing the thoughts down to boil in my stomach. Nothing got rid of them. Nothing could.
Go now, and leave me!
An ache spread through my chest as I stood in the dark; I closed my eyes and took a shaky intake of breath, bunching the fabric of my cloak in my clenched fingers. My soul was being tugged at like a string, every ounce of me longing to step through that glass door and pretend as if the past months had not even happened. I snapped out of the daze at the sound of howling hysteria and pounding footsteps up and down the halls, urging myself to stop my madness and leave the room with no glance back.
Looking back would be dangerous.
I grabbed the edge of a chair upon my exit, my touch meeting the smooth, satin surface of my discarded wedding dress. I dropped the fabric, gave a strangled cry, and rushed to the brass doorknob, feeling on the brink of hysterics. Once I crossed the threshold into the lighted hall full of frenzy and color, I pretended to forget all that had happened more and more with each step I took— to forget that he would be right down those halls, only a short way away. I wanted to forget how his pleading cries for me to leave and forget him had pierced my heart, while his eyes had begged me to stay, to show him that love existed. The memories would not leave!
It seemed as if the Opera Populaire itself was alive and breathing with fear and havoc. Girls ran by me, hopelessly distraught as they picked up the skirts to the costumes of a forgotten opera; men stalked by, leaning towards each other in a sense of shared blood-lust over hushed strategies for their attack.
No one would notice me slip by with my hood up, though my heart raced along with every echo and scuff of my hurried steps. For all they knew, I was meeting a tragic end in the 'monster's' chamber.
"I think I saw an entrance to his labyrinth, near the stage props!"
"Is it true he captured Christine Daae?!"
"Why aren't we storming the cellars!"
"My dear Piangi, oh my love. You can move faster, you lowly fools!"
The crowds rushed by me in mobs, frantically speaking. I, on the other hand, was so lost in my own worried thoughts that I would've made wrong turns if I hadn't known the opera house like the back of my hand. The sound of revolvers clicking into place, a sword ripping out of its sheath, the roar of blue flames… No, I thought. Don't think about him. Don't worry about him. He's a murderer.
My concurrent thoughts, polar opposite, drowned out my weak loathing. No one deserves to die, nor do you want him to. You still feel his lips on yours, you know what you felt as Raoul steered the boat away. I wanted to scream.
This can't happen now; these are supposed to stay buried.
You know what you felt.
I was in the deeper part of the corridors now, the crowd's noise only a distant and garbled sound, as if coming from underwater. I had calmed slightly, pretending as if I, myself, by leaving the heart of the panic, had escaped from my own harrowing tale… as if all of this had happened to some other unfortunate soul. How else was I supposed to continue on? I took the silent moment to think. He let me go. I knew I did not want Erik dead, just as I had not wanted that fate for Raoul. Erik, even cloaked by lies as my Angel, had helped me cope through much of my despair growing up. He had been my sole confidant in life and had taught me of the world. His fantastical stories would transport me far away from the monotonous routines of my everyday life at the theater. They surely wouldn't kill that Erik if they knew him.
Do I truly know him?
The cold, wet stone of the back halls were all I saw as I made my trek, moonlight bleeding through cracks in the stone.
My steps clicked, methodic and constant, for a while, turning in all the places where I had scratched the stone wall a bit to mark the way and I walked on numbly, blissfully ignorant to my emotions.
Christine, I love you...
The charade ended as quickly as it came as a familiar sensation overtook me. Goosebumps ran down my back, slowing me to a halt as I heard the most haunting melody from somewhere far below me, the sob in my throat cracking into the air.
How could I hear it so clearly?
I closed my eyes instantly and breathed heavily, the air that filled my lungs melodic and smooth and familiar.
The music penetrated the floors - five floors! - and encompassed me in its beauty like an embrace.
Never had I heard more emotion in a song than this… more life in an instrument. It felt as if I had been stabbed with ice, yet made my heart ache with pleasure in its unnerving effect. Erik... Erik composed stories and emotions unlike the known musicians of the time who created predictable melodies for their elite entertainment. I heard his reaction to me pulling off his mask, his conflicting emotions as he took me down through the tunnels to his home, those conflicting emotions when I kissed him, and finally his anguishing thoughts as I eventually left with Raoul… the notes spoke the words of his mind. He did not want to let me go. He did not, and I heard it produced through the agonized crescendos that turned into gravely soft, floating notes as high as he used to make me sing.
I dropped my bags and slid to the ground, ignoring the ripping of my cloak as stone scraped my back, falling into tears. My sobs seemed to dance with the rise and fall of the notes.
What have I done?
It felt like my soul was trying to escape me, break from my skin as if it were its own person; the music beckoned me as an ocean's current pulls you in.
After what felt like hours his music slowed and calmed, and so did I.
The back of my shaking hand wiped my tear-stricken face and then braced the floor, pushing against it with all of my might while focusing on the smallest modicum of composure.
Raoul.
How long had I been sitting here? A minute? ...An hour?
I stood up and brushed the damp gravel off of my hands, thinking of every trick possible to get his music and despair out of my head; crazy little rhymes and even the haunting stories my father used to tell me as a child.
If I didn't block it out, I knew I would never leave.
Slipping through a broken storm gate at the end of the hall, an entrance Meg and I had discovered as children, I was met with a cold blast of Paris air and a questioning look from Raoul as he tensely leaned against the carriage.
With a confused look and wary smile at my disheveled state he offered me his warm hand and helped me up the wooden steps of the carriage car, the driver practically pulling my bags from my unmoving grasp. The rough stone of the corridors had been more comfortable than these plush velvet seats, my every thought defiant towards leaving my home.
But, I knew it was our only option. I was no longer welcomed here.
Raoul's green-eyed stare was palpable. Was he angry? I wouldn't know, for my eyes were watching the opera house slip away as heavy snow cut the scene into shattering pieces.
Erik
.
.
My fingers grazed over the ivory of the piano and the worn parchment of my music.
Meaningless.
It was nothing but scales and empty melodies produced in a madman's agony.
With a growl, I pushed the papers off of the golden music stand in disgust, now enraptured by the flames of the candles nearest to me.
I needed a new distraction.
Though fleeting, they numbed my mind while I waited for death to take me.
Those men were audible, growing louder and closer; not all would fall to my traps.
The flames danced a duet with the wind, flickering their brilliant colors of blue and orange and gold, mesmerizing in a way that begged you to reach for them, to join the flame in its waltz of beauty.
Beauty.
Oh, the cleverness of that flame, for it only plans to burn you with an incessant laugh.
What's another scar?
Upon contact, I immediately flinched back and ran down to plunge my screaming hand into the lake that bordered my home.
Home.
Hell is the only home for my damned soul.
I walked to a Persian armchair facing out onto the lake and stared with scrutiny at my right hand. It was only pink from the heat; I didn't hold it long enough to do permanent damage.
My thoughts were numb as I mindlessly twirled her ring through my fingers, the lake's lapping even somehow quieter.
My grieving had ceased for the night, for this feeling of wretched loneliness had become so habitual it was almost as if it calmed me. Almost.
Music had consoled me the most, as it always has. I gave my soul to the instrument, not even sure where my fingers would go next, producing a melody that was as new to me as it was to the stale, cold air encompassing my body.
A bitter laugh wretched itself from my throat.
I must behold a vindictive curse, for everything I touch turns to ash, disintegrating through my fingers while I stand motionless.
The flame was like Christine and I was her willing victim. She diverted me from my depressing life, her voice giving me life; she drew me in with her painful beauty like a siren lures its pitiful prey; but, when she burned me, there was no water to extinguish that pain, that betrayal.
I idly touched my lips with the tips of my fingers, gently so as to not rub off the memory.
There was nothing to extinguish that pleasure. Her eyes...
The kiss was rather light and forced, for she knew she had to spend her life with me or watch her lover come to a painful end. …But, then she kissed me again.
I curled my lip and drew my brows together, playing with the cuff links on my jacket.
That time it was passionately deep. I had finally found the ability to touch her and reciprocate a response led completely by desire's command. And then, when she pulled away, it was as if we were the only two people there... the only two people to exist in the world.
Her drowsy eyes had searched my face— my deformed face, and for a moment, just one sweet and transient moment, I had felt whole. My bitter soul had unclenched its jealous grasp on my heart, allowing me to revel in the pure sweetness of her martyring deed.
I had felt loved… something I had never felt before. Not even my own mother could stand my presence.
Christine's slow walk towards me was perceived a mere trick of the eye, for only minutes before she had spit her hatred at me, the words still ringing in my ears. The genuineness was far from likely, the thought only toying with my willing mind, and I thought it no more than a show - the last performance I'd see of her.
I could never make her stay, no matter what small hope she had given me in her love.
What kind of life would she have living with me? She was meant to soar above the world, her ethereal talent promising a wonderful life for her and I had no right to claim her as I so painstakingly tried. She was a child of the light while I recoiled from it, loving her from the shadows.
Oh, Christine. I had to let her go.
Ten lives full of moral living wouldn't merit me her love, she who chose the monster to spare the beauty.
Tilting my head, I thought in strange awe; the thought of her choosing me at all had never even brushed my mind. The boy had been pleading for her not to the entire time he lay prey in my noose. That noose— it may have been his neck it encompassed, but I was dying, suffocating in the bleakness and futility of my own self-constructed ruins.
Why had she not listened to him?
In my sick mind, twisted from madness, I was prepared to kill Raoul the minute I heard words leave her lips.
What have I made of myself? I've never harmed anyone at the opera - I merely became the phantom for my own amusement of the mystery it beheld, allowing me to use my cunning talents at whim. What better façade to have when you were already forced to hide in shadows, masked by shame? The decision was made, long ago, that I would rather have all fear me, not daring to cross me, than to let my heart lay vulnerable to all who walk by the disfigured man, shouting their jests with no panic of counteract.
Everything I had worked for crumbled away when the de Chagny boy became the abundantly generous patron of my opera house and fell in love with Christine.
He only noticed her when she became a star onstage with her debut of Hannibal, for only then was she worthy to be recognized by the first class vicomte.
I was the one that was always there for her. He filled her head with empty promises and hasty confessions of love and she bought into all of it.
But, he was her childhood friend; he would always protect her and love her, he would proclaim with his trusting green-eyed gaze. It snapped my sanity watching her become brainwashed by that slave of prestige, the prized son who had the world handed to him on a gold platter.
Raoul became my target, a death-wish painted on his head in my mind with dripping red ink as he stood in the lake, demanding Christine's freedom and rattling the portcullis.
For at that moment, it had all clicked into place. I deemed him my outlet to take out each and every one of my problems on, ones not even he had control over. I was trapped and desperate, already accepting defeat.
Either way you choose, you cannot win.
Lies, lies. Every word I had spoken tonight had bled with my own irony and self-hatred. Christine and Raoul could have not even been there for my words to still have a target.
Never had I planned to give her the impossible decision.
I was simply playing my own game - one with no victors.
How could I be so daft with my methods? I wanted her to see the man beneath the mask and instead I showed her that I was even more horrid on the inside.
It's in your soul that the true distortion lies.
Her words will haunt me, though I'm sure my hours are numbered by now. The mobs were going to approach.
Death, my final punishment, was going to approach.
Breaking off my dismal thoughts, my bitter eulogy, I stood up and let out a ragged breath. Rage boiled in me as hot as the fires of hell - rage towards myself and at the cruel world who rejected me.
I grabbed a candlestick off of the ground, ignoring the pain in my hand from the burn, and pulled down the curtains that hid my torturous mirrors, smashing and smashing, laughing in triumph at the sound of the shards cracking.
It took away the sight of my bare face and I didn't feel the glass cutting me.
I felt nothing at all.
Christine
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The little room at the inn was quaint and warm, untouched by tonight's events.
I, on the other hand, felt like I was suffocating.
The sheets of the bed were drowning me as Raoul's anchored arm held me down. His arms... they were so strong and familiar, yet something felt off. I was not sure whether his tight hold was for protection… or perhaps his own paranoia of me leaving in the night.
It was not adoring.
During the entire carriage ride he had acted strange, tapping his knees anxiously and staring at me accusingly. A worry line had troubled his brow, though now in his sleep, his relaxed face looked as young and handsome as it did when we were just young friends.
Little Lotte thought of everything and nothing.
Did he think I regretted my choice to leave Erik behind?
Erik…
The thoughts I had been suppressing with sheer will came crashing down like a roaring wave and I squeezed my eyes tight, but the images wouldn't stop.
First, a flash of his blue grey eyes darted across my vision, as piercing as knives— the eyes whose stare I could feel as his gaze traveled my body. Those eyes… they held all of the sorrow of the world in their infinite wells.
No one should ever feel that little worth.
No. He killed Buquet and Piangi, I must get him out of my head.
My silent pleas were futile for the pictures in my mind continued on their relentless path. His black leather gloves were what came next, the skintight boundary I had wanted gone as he grasped my hand the first time he revealed himself to me; the boundary that I wanted gone as his skilled and deft hands would graze my shoulders, then my arms, and then my waist… no, no, no!
These thoughts are not appropriate for a young woman, especially for a vitcomtess to be! …Especially not about him.
He controlled my mind, I wasn't myself when I thought of him in those strange states of bliss.
I'm never myself.
I don't know who I am!
Maybe I'm the mad one.
My breaths grew rapid and a cold sweat broke on my neck, pasting my brown curls in place.
Everyone else decides how I must live my life and never have I questioned their judgments for I trusted them fully: my father, Madame Giry, Erik, and now Raoul.
It was frightening, for I had ceased to possess the ability to decide my own life and fate; I'm quite surprised I even came across a decision to the phantom's request just a few hours ago.
My body shuddered under the weight of the memory.
Where was the relief? Where was it?
I will never forget a single detail from this night.
Opened eyes did not keep the image away, the scene lain out before me like characters on a miniature stage. The lake was luminescent and cold and the golden candles threw shadows on every wall. His whole home was a grey, gold, and deep blood red— the same red as the velvet seats circling the theater. Every rich element lay intact except that now, the euphoric curtain that had once shrouded the depths of this place was ripped open in traitorous tatters to reveal the loneliness, almost tangible. And, now my mysterious angel was unmasked and vengeful and I was not here by my own choice. There was no time for a choice to be given!
Certainty leaves me in why I exposed him for the whole audience to see during the finale Don Juan.
It was not to intentionally harm him. It couldn't have been.
I was mere bait on that stage, instructed to use his love for me as an irresistible ploy. Though it was not my idea, I was no less guilty of that raw betrayal.
But, I was a horrible ploy, for I played Aminta and I played her all too well. The minute I had heard Don Juan's voice, I knew it was not Piangi. It was unmistakable who the voice belonged to.
His rich timbre made me cease acting for he had his own effect on me, one that displaced any thought of trickery. I had forgotten all about my role in the plan, escaping to the place his voice brought me to, the tremendous sound of it freezing me in his arms.
After the number ended, he continued the song into a proposal to me as he held me in his gentle grasp - lulling and passionate, sounding as if he was willing every possible emotion into the soft, pure sound. I was so afraid of what I might respond with, the prickling sensation of an open stage invading on the moment, reminding me of where I was and what I was meant to do next. I could feel everyone's eyes like needles on my arms questioning what lay before them.
They knew it was no longer a performance.
My thoughts warred with each other, desire versus logic and song versus safety.
After my hand reacted on its own account, his eyes had pleaded with me.
That look in his eyes… he may have killed before, but I, in that moment, killed him. He had poured his heart out and all I achieved was to put him on show, humiliate him, and betray him.
Sleep did not come.
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1/14/15: This first chapter was revised in five minutes, so, if you are new to this story, there will still be some major changes to occur! Many apologies, but I hope you trust me and stick with it! Let me know what you think... red roses for all :)
Another note: I am considering drawing this story back in time and beginning it from when they are onstage... any thoughts on the matter? I have a few ideas for the DOM scene.
Yet another note: these little asides will be taken down once they are taken care of or are no longer significant.
Consider yourself to be having a conversation with... a ghost.