The Phantom of the Opera © Gaston Leroux and Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber
Story © phantomgirl110

This was the first piece of fanfiction I ever wrote and posted anywhere, in 2005 or early 2006, but I recently managed to delete it from the site while attempting to edit another story, Her Face Will Still Pursue You. (I clearly posess a special brand of stupidity.) Luckily I was able to find a backup copy in my files, so here's take number two. It's not especially wonderful since it was written when I was about 15, but it holds a special emotional value for me, so I hope you enjoy it. ^_^

Oh, and I know that the destruction of a certain item in this story screws up the beginning of the musical. Just…use your imagination and forget the prologue, ok? Work with me here. Thanks.

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A Few Moments Where He Stood
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She lifted the mask reverently in her tiny hands, momentarily oblivious to her surroundings. She squinted as she looked at it. The candlelight that reflected off of it was certainly no brighter than the lights that shone in her eyes each night onstage, far duller in fact, but after allowing her eyes to adjust to the darkness of the serpentine corridors that led here, the white plaster burned her retina. She shifted the bulk of it's weight to her left hand and noted that it was much heavier than she had expected it to be. She couldn't imagine going for any length of time with it on her face. She turned it over, the front side now in her palm. Lifting it closer, she debated setting it to her own face, but, with a sudden jolt, decided against it. It would be terribly rude, she thought. It's not mine.

With sudden realization, every muscle in her body tensed and her blonde head snapped forward. To the best of her knowledge, the mask's owner had not been captured. He could be watching me right now, she thought, glancing about the room without really seeing it, lost in her own thoughts. He might jump out and rush me away as he did to Christine onstage tonight. He might kill me or have his way with me. And yet, even as the thoughts raced through her head, she could not bring herself to believe them.

For the first time since her discovery of the mask, she began to observe her surroundings. Oh, what Messieurs Firman and André would do if they knew that their Opera Ghost lived in such luxury beneath them! Well, they are soon to find out, she thought, confused as to why her knowledge of the approaching mob might cause a heavy feeling in her chest. It made no sense to feel sadness for O.G., for the Phantom. She quickly dismissed the feeling.

The furniture around her was made of the finest woods; the rug beneath her feet was intricately woven and looked to have come from the East. Asia? she wondered. It doesn't look Chinese…

There was an organ to her left that she might have paid little attention to had something not caught her eye. Her delicate feet treaded silently across the floor to the intimidating instrument. Setting the mask down carefully atop the organ, she leaned over the keys to peer at the sheet music. Hundreds of notes, written in violent red ink, danced across high quality parchment underneathe a bold title: Don Juan Triumphant. She had been forced by Monsieur Reyer and her mother to memorize every word and note, but her copy was written in black, as were everyone else's. She had never seen sheet music written in red and, for a reason she couldn't identify, it intrigued her.

She lifted the heavy parchment from it's perch on the organ and let a few pages slip between her fingers; their flipping caused an short-lived and welcome breeze against the hot skin of her face. It struck her how much there was to the piece. Melodic arias, vengeful ballads, woven together in beautiful harmonies and chords. Not all of it was exactly to her liking—she found bits of it, particularly the scene before Don Juan's attempted seduction of Aminta, to be rather strident and dissonant—but she knew enough about opera to recognize an extraordinary work when she heard it. She wondered, vaguely at first and then more acutely, how long it had taken the man to create it. Christine had often spoken of his genius, even after she found out what he really was. She spoke of him with hate and terror in turns, but the young ballerina had always sensed an underlying wealth of respect and awe.

She realized, scanning the pages, that this was his life's work. He sat at this organ and wrote these notes for years upon years to complete this, only to have his opening night—his night of triumph—destroyed before his very eyes by the woman he loved most in the world. She suddenly felt like crying.

A crash sounded outside the house, breaking her out of her thoughts. She dropped Don Juan Triumphant hurriedly and unceremoniously back onto the organ and stepped away as if she would get in trouble for possessing it even for an instant. The bulk of the mob rushed haphazardly into the room and the next few moments seemed a blur to the little dancer. The gaping looks on their collective faces at the sights before them. The angry cries that filled the air as they began to realize who resided here. The managers already beginning their assessment of the goods: "This rug…is this…Persian?!" The terrified screams that filled the chamber as Carlotta cracked open the door that must have lead to the room containing the black coffin Christine had often mentioned in undertones.

The dancer stood rooted to her spot next to the organ and she faintly wondered if they were even aware of her presence. Her doubt was heightened when Monsieur André shoved by her without so much as a glance in her direction, leaving her to reach for a handhold to keep from falling over. "Look!" he shouted, ripping Don Juan Triumphant harshly from where it sat, making the girl flinch. He held it up for the others to see. "His opera."

"Give it to me!" Carlotta shrieked, rushing forward. She took the music from his hand so quickly that she knocked over a bottle of ink sitting on the organ in her haste. The bottle smashed loudly on the keys, but the diva paid it no notice. With disturbing relish, Carlotta tore the first page of the sheet music off, then in half. The dancer's breath caught in her throat, and she heard an odd choking sound come from her mouth. She watched, unmoving, as Monsieur Firman took his turn, ripping several pages out of the middle. Eventually each one of them had their moment to destroy a bit of the masterpiece. They began to tear at it all at once, grabbing what sections they could and simply pulling it apart. In the end, they stood in a small circle in the center of the room, surrounded by scraps of sheet music. Carlotta reached down for a handful and then tossed it gaily into the air like confetti, and they shared a laugh in the midst of their ruin.

Through all of it, the girl had found herself disgusted and horrified, and yet unable to move or turn away. Now she forced her eyes to find a new focus. Turning her head slowly to her side, her gaze fell again on the organ. The ink from the smashed bottle coated the majority of the keys. The white ivory keys were temporarily stained blood red, and trails of it ran down the front and dripped to the floor. Looking at it, she felt bile rising in her throat. Her body began to sway and she tried to turn away. She wanted to see anything else; even the mob tearing apart the room would have become welcomed.

But all she could see was the ink, the blood red dripping off the keys. She closed her eyes, but couldn't shake the image from her mind. The red seemed to have burned its image to the back of her eyelids, and the bright red trails against the black of her closed eyes sickened her even more. Without warning, her knees gave out beneath her and she instinctively reached around her for anything to hold onto. She felt her hand brush something and grabbed at it, but it wasn't enough to keep her upright. As she fell to the ground, she felt whatever it was topple down on top of her, then roll to the side and land on the floor beside her with a crash.

She heard startled gasps from the group in the center of the room as they suddenly realized she was there, and immediately felt her cheeks flush. Why couldn't I have passed out? Why must I go through this humiliation now? Her own thoughts felt foreign in her head. She felt as though she had been in a trance, numb somehow. She'd felt emotions coursing through her body, but her mind was just beginning to register them.

"Meg Giry, what are you doing down here? What's wrong with you?" Her mother's voice was harsh at first, then became concerned. How long has Maman been down here? The whole time? She felt sure her mother would not have taken part in the destruction of Don Juan Triumphant. "Meg? Meg, what's wrong?" She suddenly realized she was kneeling on the ground and had yet to open her eyes since falling. She opened them.

There again was the organ—ink stained or blood stained, she could no longer remember. The sight of it repulsed her and she immediately averted her gaze. Beyond the organ, a fire was blazing. It took the girl's eyes time to adjust to the brilliance of the flames, and then more time to recognize what was burning: Sheet music. Furniture. Clothes. Paintings. They were burning his possessions, each one of them wearing an expression of childish glee. She noted, looking around her, that anything valuable had been looted, stolen away to the world above.

Madame Giry moved toward her and grabbed her arm to pull her up off the floor. She put her hand down to floor to help push herself up and felt her knuckles brush fur. The object she had knocked to the floor now shifted position and she heard a small clink, as though a tiny gear had been set into motion, and she looked down at it.

The tune they so often waltzed to at grand parties emanated from the music box as the toy monkey brought the cymbals in its hands slowly together. The girl caught herself humming along against her will and could plainly her a voice sing the words. "Masquerade…paper faces on parade…" The words sounded muffled, and she realized with a start that they were coming out of her own mouth. "…hide your face so the world will never find you…" She sang it quietly and realized that this was not the joyous song she had once thought it to be.

As Madame Giry pulled her to her feet, André strode over with heavier and more purposeful steps than Meg had ever seen him use. Stooping, he picked up the music box, now silent. What little magic it had once possessed was now gone. He said something to the others that she didn't hear or comprehend, and they voiced their approval. As André headed toward the bonfire, Meg suddenly realized what was happening and panicked. She quickly heaved herself up, but to no avail. The faux fur had already begun to burn, the base to crackle and pop in the flames.

The mob paid her movement no attention as they began to move around the room, randomly tossing items into the fire as they found them. As she watched them, the firelight glinted off something on the organ. She wanted nothing more than to have the hideous red stained organ out of her sight and mind forever, but her curiosity, as it often did, got the best of her. She stared at the object on top of the instrument for what seemed like hours before the image seemed to make sense. The mask. The Phantom's white mask, the very essence of the man whose life they were burning, had somehow escaped the fire.

Without a second thought, she strode forward and picked it up. Glancing around the room to be sure no one saw her, she moved to the door, attempting to look natural while her right hand concealed the mask against her thigh as best as possible. She paused in the doorway, listened to them laugh as the fire ate away at all that he had known. She moved on.

Once she could no longer feel the heat from the fire on her back, she slowed her pace. She pulled the mask out from hiding and peered at it in the dark. She couldn't understand what had affected her so deeply in the house on the lake, but something certainly had. Her mind felt fuzzy, like she'd been repeatedly slammed into a wall, and her throat ached. She swiped angrily at tears threatening to escape the barricade of her eyelashes. Her hands shook and she almost dropped the mask twice.

The second time she lunged forward to catch it, she held it down in the awkward position in which she caught it and stared out into the blackness. Instead of straightening her back and standing tall, she crouched down low to the ground and set the mask down. She looked around. The area she was in was dark and out of the way. She could see the firelight glowing about a quarter way around the lake from where she was, and nothing but inky blackness stretched between the two. Glancing around, she spotted one of the large bricks that had been set into the wall incorrectly. A corner stuck out into the gallery, and she carefully set the mask onto it. She backed away slowly, watching it and looking out into the darkness in turns. Finally, she stopped and looked out over the lake that she knew was there but that she could not see. After a few moments, she tipped her head out to the blackness, then turned around and walked back up the corridor leading to the Opera above.

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The end.
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