To anyone out there reading this who supports my other story, 'Turning From True Beauty', I'd like to thank you for being so patient and you'll be happy to know that I am in the process of writing the next chapter.

So, without delaying any longer, here's an odd little one shot that I wrote late one night...

o0o

Christine grows desperate to keep her dying tutor alive and refuses to believe that these few, short minutes with him may be his last.

o0o

The seraphic tones of the young soprano were now twisted into sorrowful moans, each one filling the air potently with bitter loss. Her eyes did not dare to linger on one place longer than a few seconds, for every look brought about painful memories, and her hands barely felt the chipped pieces of dark wood on the door frame as she leaned against it, desperately seeking the energy to prevent her legs from giving way. A gloomy sob escaped her mouth as she staggered forward through the mounds of silk and ink soiled paper that lay on the floor. The sight before her was too much for this aching soul to bear.

A ghastly vision clad in mournful black, which once towered over her form, now stood slouched over himself. His formerly sinister shadow accentuated just how frail and thin his body had become. It was as if she was staring at a clothed, yet malnourished skeleton.

He made no ill-fated attempt to raise his concealed head but instead weakly reached out in search for his weeping muse. The distressingly cadaverous fingers of his withered hands began to creep through the air like evil spirits hunting for their prey as his feet moved him forward. It was frightful to bear witness to such a pitiful sight! To see his fragile feet try to carry him with little success, was what made the young woman's sobs reach a sombre crescendo. As a dreadful splutter erupted from his poor lungs, the figure lurched and collapsed onto the ground at her feet. His back was terribly arched and his arms encircled his body trying to cease his endless quakes.

His time was nearly at an end, they both knew this, and yet for a moment she wanted nothing more than to escape this grievous scene. Her role in his little play of deceit was also nearly at an end but, despite her protesting mind, she knew she had to see this through until the final notes were played and the curtains closed around them. Her eyes watched every laggard move he made with pained and chilling interest. She did not even flinch when his fingers eventually found the hem of her torn dress and curled themselves around the rich material.

"Christine," he moaned, his vocals fulfilling her empty soul once more. But his voice! It was weak, so very weak. "Christine..." he spoke again and she wondered why on earth he would waste his much required breath speaking. "You... you came back? Why?"

Christine knelt down next to her dying teacher and raised her hands in one fluid motion until they rested in the air above his pinched chin and neck. "Yes, Erik," she said as she smiled down at him and, in that moment, he truly believed himself to be in the presence of an angel of God. "I came back."

"Why?" he repeated.

"I could not leave you, Erik. No matter how hard I tried, I could not escape your memory. Now, hush. Try not to speak," she murmured as he tried to say her name again.

Mustering the strength that both knew he had little of, he managed to turn himself onto his rigid back, allowing himself to gaze up at his ethereal siren. He stared up at her lovely yet sad features with a pair of dense melancholic eyes. A dire need to caress her cheek, to wipe away her doleful tears, overpowered him and forced his hands up to her face. Unfortunately, they did not travel beyond his own body before they descended to the ground with a thud. He released a defeated sigh and turned his weary head away from her. How pathetic, he thought. He could not even touch his redeemer due to his hapless condition. A few aching moments passed before he emitted a small ragged pant. His divine girl had aided him! She had taken his hands in hers and placed them on her moist cheeks.

"Erik," she whispered softly. "Oh! Your hands are cold."

"Christine—" His words were silenced by a series of coughs, his chest caving in tremendously as they sounded. "Oh, Christine! I am so sorry!" he cried, pressing his palms closer to her skin. "So v-very sorry!"

"What are you sorry for?" she asked.

"For everything, everything I have put you t-through." Her head hung low as he spoke, her deep waves dangling about her waist and threatened to touch the cloth of his arm. "I am the one who has made you suffer these past months! I, alone, am t-the cause of this and I must pay for my selfish decisions with my own deplorable life."

"Please do not say that, Erik," she pleaded quietly, her head shaking vigorously back and forth.

"I am to blame," he continued, ignoring her beseeching words. "I am solely to blame and t-this is my reward."

"No!" she protested. "You are not to blame. I am! Who sent you into a pit of desperation? Who drove you to do such terrible and unspeakable things? Me, that is who." Her strong voice stilled, her timbre now softer than before. "In many ways, more than you would admit, I am to blame. I am! I made you like this! Your blood is on my hands! I... I am your murderer, Erik! I killed you..." She carelessly dropped both sets of hands upon Erik's chest, wailing as she did so.

"Christine," he snarled quite violently, making her flinch against his chest. "Do not diverge in such mad ravings! I do not want to hear you say t-that again, do you hear me, Christine?" When she made no effort to reply, he ensnared a powerful grip on her shoulders and began to shake her with every ounce of strength he could spare. "Christine, answer me!" he demanded. "Answer me!" And with those words, he too began to cry with despair and a much sought out desperation to cling onto his beloved and never let go. "Christine?" he murmured cautiously. "Christine?" Even after hearing his voice break with sadness and feeling the shudders through his chest, she still did not reply. "Christine, please! Speak to me, I beg of you! Laugh at me, curse me, only do not lie there torturing me with your silence!"

"Foolish man," she whispered back after what seemed like an eternity of waiting in dreaded muteness. "You ask me to curse you and yet I cannot. You are much a part of me as I am. If I curse you then I curse myself!" Her slender fingers slid away from his, leaving them bereft of her warmness. "Do you believe me when I say this?" She scoffed at herself. "I can scarce believe it myself."

"My life is yours, my love. Surely you must know that I live and breathe o-only for you? My heart cannot b-beat without knowing yours does too."

A naïve glint reflected in Christine's eye as she gazed down Erik. "But... if that truly is the case... then you are not dying!" She eagerly lifted his limp hand to her chest, securing it into place so that he could feel the rhythm of her heart. "Do you feel my heart? It beats as yours does. It will not stop if mine does not. That is what you said, was it not?" Hope filled her watery eyes, and yet she knew that this hope was lost. She knew he was at death's door but she refused to believe such a thing! "Oh, Erik." She slumped unceremoniously over him, allowing her small arms and hands to sprawl out and grasp whatever part of him they could find. "You cannot die... how is it that you die? Why is it that you die?"

"W-why is it that you cry?" A questionable chuckle left his dry mouth, but was muffled by Christine's shoulder. He did not doubt that she had heard the sound, but instead came to the conclusion that she was simply ignoring it.

Her tear stained face rose from its crowded grave beneath her arm, her eyes painted red with soreness and her face as discoloured as his mask. "What?"

"You should not cry over m-me. I am not worth even one of y-your tears. It is I..." Another series of coughs silenced his words once more and Christine's grip on her teacher grew tighter with each uneven heave. "It is I who should be weeping for y-you."

"I do not understand."

"No," he whispered solemnly. "No, I do not su-suppose you would." His eyes bore into hers and stared at her with such intensity that she feared she would freeze under his gaze. "You see, I believe that I should weep for y-you for having met m-me. You would h-have been so m-much happier if I was not in your life."

"Do not say that."

"But it is t-true... And so I ask you to curse me. Curse this monster for ever meeting you! Curse h-him for loving you! His black heart bleeds for the innocent be-before him!"

Christine released a deep sigh before pressing her head into the crevice of his neck. "You are no monster."

"I think that G-God has a rather different opinion on t-that particular subject. He did, after all, create m-me."

"God may have created you, Erik, but I will not let him destroy you. He will not take you from me, not yet. You cannot leave me alone, Erik... Do you remember when you promised that you would never leave me? You have never left me yet, never!"

"And I ne-never will."

"Why?" she breathed, shaking her head as a few more of her dismal utterances filled the drab air. "Why lie to me more than you already have? You have betrayed me in more ways than one could think possible. You feigned being not of this world, you tricked and lied your way through the dealings of my heart and I should hate you for that!"

He tilted his hidden head slightly and stared at her perplexedly. "B-but you do not?"

"No, no I do not." Her eyes turned dark and a sinister smirk appeared on her now barren features. "I do not hate you, my beautiful deceiver..."

Underneath the mask, a frown formed on his disfigured brow. "H-how can this be?"

"I do not know."

"Oh, Christine." He sighed, his eyelids drooping slightly as his words turned to nothing more than an echo. "Oh, h-how I love you, my precious Christine..."

"Erik?" Distress filled her soul as she watched him grow weaker with every languid tick of the clock. "Erik!" With a stiff grunt, he feebly lifted his hand and placed it on Christine's head and began to lovingly stroke her hair. "There is so much that has been left unsaid and now that I am here alone with you... I do not know how to say it."

"Then do not s-say anything at all," he suggested softly.

"But I must! I feel that if I do not then I will surely die!"

"Do not speak of d-death so free-freely," he growled deep within his parched throat.

"And why not?" she pressed. "You do." Her eyes flickered up to the macabre feast around her. Dingy drapes hung about the imperfect walls and fading candles threatened to steal away their only light. "You surround yourself with death. Why?"

"So I m-may have a constant reminder of it... You see, throughout my life, death h-has been a companion of m-mine but all my life I h-have been running from it." He slowly closed his eyelids, welcoming the darkness willingly around him. "It is time to stop running. And, Christine?"

"Yes?"

"I want you t-to... I want you to grant me one last favour..."

"Anything," she replied, bravely threading her fingers through the black wisps of hair on top of his head. Another cough broke out from deep within him and Christine winced at the awful sound. She peered down at him anxiously. Each cough was worse than the last...

"Let me behold you without my mask. I wish to see you without it one last time. I wish to feel your sweet breath upon my wretched skin. I wish to not be able to distinguish your tears from mine. Please..."

Christine's hands froze as Erik's request, his final request, was said. Her eyes went wide and her lower lip trembled in fear. Fear. Not of his face, no, but of the words he chose to utter. One last time, he had said. Anything her tutor asked of her, she complied, and this circumstance was no different.

Her fingers were timid as they brushed the cool surface of his deceitful disguise, but increased in courage as they made their way towards the rough edges. Slowly, as not to startle him, she raised his prison away from him and heedlessly threw it into a corner of the room. His face was unlike anything she had seen before. So gruesome and horrid—it was death's face staring up at her with those burning eyes. A face that once made her recoil in justified horror! However, as Christine sat looking down at this creature she finally understood. This was no death mask, nor vision from a nightmare. This was Erik's face and that was what it had been all along.

She smiled a melodious smile down at Erik as he began to weep shamelessly, his amber eyes alight. "You sweet, sweet g-girl." His gaze switched from her face to over her shoulder. "Take me to... take me to the organ, please."

Christine looked behind her and then back at Erik. He was too weak to move. "Erik, I do not think that is a good idea."

"Help me... please, Christine," he begged and no matter how much she knew she should resist him, she could not help by obey.

Gathering this collection of bones within her arms and erecting them was a tiresome task, to be sure, but she was not about to give up on him. His large gaunt hands clung to Christine's tiny frame tightly as she supported him on his wobbly legs. "Erik." She gazed up at him. "Are you sure you want to move?"

"Music," he spat out after a couple of nauseating jolts ran through his abdomen. "We must have music."

Carefully, as if she were carrying glass, Christine helped Erik hobble along the cluttered ground towards their destination. With scrupulous attention, she eased him down onto the velvet bench where he proceeded to tumble forward onto the keys. Thankfully, she caught him just in time before his unprotected head had made contact with them, but she was not in time for stopping his hands from creating an atrocious noise. A deafening pierce of sound penetrated the eerie silence that had engulfed the two and was now echoing off all four corners of the dark room.

Erik groaned as he tried to reposition himself, without success. "Forgive me for that. Now, for some... now for some befitting music." And before Christine could say one word in objection, he began to play. His chords were distorted and false and her soul wept at seeing him being denied his musical talents.

She tried to say his name over the loud thrashing of notes and though she knew her voice was lost within the sound, she tried again and again until she could not tolerate it any longer. Her hands brutally ripped his away from the keys and gripped them to his chest, right over his heart. "Stop, please stop, Erik."

He said nothing but instead silently moved his hands so they were holding both of hers. Christine bit her lip in accursed anguish as she felt, through his thin clothing, the frightfully slow pace of his heart.

"Mine," he whispered, grasping her hands to his heart wildly as his fingers began to flex hopelessly looking for something that was not there. His head rolled back against her collarbone as a sigh was emitted from his mouth. Christine peered down as he did this, dreading what was to come. His glassy eyes glanced up at her one last time, darting about her face, frantically trying to savour her features. Her tears fell lightly onto his skin, dripping down into the crevices and lines imprinted on his face, like small beads of rain. Rain, or so what Erik believed, was a sign of a new life, of being reborn. And now, Christine, his beautiful Christine, had bestowed him this new life from her glistening tears.

"Goodbye, angel," she whispered, leaving him a single kiss upon his brow as a parting gift.

At the feeling of her soft lips against his malformed skin, a delirious smile crawled its way across his mouth. "Goodbye, my love. I will wait for you at heaven's gates..."

His fingers slipped through hers ever so slowly and time seemed to cease as she observed them fall through the air towards his lap. Her arms enveloped him fiercely as his eyelids finally closed. Christine stood rigid on the spot for a moment as she registered the dead body in her arms. "My poor Erik," she mumbled to the bare room. He had died but taken her life with him to the other side. She felt... empty... like a dry wasteland. Her broken soul ached for him and so she attempted to reach him in the only way she knew how. By singing his requiem. And so she stood there, lulling her angel to his restful sleep with her angelic voice, as she gently rocked his lifeless body back and forth until the flames around them turned to smoke.