Decayed rose
An obituary published in the newspapers L'Époque changed a life.
It is with unbearable grief that Raoul, viscount de Chagny, announce the death of his spouse, viscountess Christine, born Daaé, who entered the realm of Light on November 27th, 1881. Her funeral will be held at the Madeleine on December 1st.
The wed just weeks before she abruptly died of typhoid fever.
Erik met the Persian one last time two weeks before.
He was dying too, but his combustion was slow and contained, whereas Christine burned intensely for a short time.
He read the obituary by pure chance.
He interpreted it as Fate's hand, one last twist in the plot, one final irony, in his horrible life. The woman he loved left before him, who was dying for her.
She never managed to reach the North of the world.
She was still in Paris.
She'll be buried tomorrow.
Wood, soil, stone and snow will cover her delicate body like capes.
Her flesh was probably already cold as ice, stiff limbs, closed eyes, blueish lips. The Viscount would've wished she wore the wedding dress she took off a few days before leaving this world.
And maybe the ring he, Erik, gave her as a wedding gift, the one he asked her to give back after his death without even thinking about her leaving before him, was still on her finger.
Atrocious irony.
He was getting used to it.
But beyond the immense grief he endured, the possibility of this being just a stroke of bad luck was so unlikely to him that he refused to believe it. No, this was his revenge.
Fortune just offered him his dead wife, after taking her from the viscount.
And he won't bother to hesitate.
Definitively not.
The day after, Christine was buried, according to the plan.
Erik was not attending her funeral.
Bloodless, Raould fainted when the slab was set on the grave, shutting away his beloved's body.
A slender silhouette all dressed in black moved the slab aside the very same evening and took possession of Christine's corpse, in her wedding dress, ring on her finger, just as he predicted.
And then, he put the slab back in its place, as if nothing happened.
He took his precious burden in the Lake House, laid her on the bed, using the few last days of his miserable life to enlarge the coffin.
Then, he laid Chrisine's stiff, cold body in it.
It would be the only night they spent together before Eternity.
They never slept together before, even when she accepted to be his living wife. She lever laid next to him.
A sweet, intensely bitter, night.
He still held on to her, embraced her.
And when he felt his last breath about to leave his chest, his last movement was to turn on a hatch.
"Together, in death."
Then, his arm rested around Christine's waist.
The hatch closed the coffin over the two embraced bodies.
Curtain.
Erik is dead.
Raoul de Chagny kept his dead wife's promise. He buried the Phantom of the Opera.
He did not know.