Summary: In darkness he had come to the aging stonesman. Soon, it's not only is this kindred spirit that is luring young Erik away from the awaiting darkness. EOW, Pre-Christine. Set in Susan Kay's Phantom!verse.
A.N. Hello, and thanks for checking this out! For the first time this past November I read Phantom (which was awesome, except for the last two sections) and immediately this little plot bunny hopped into my mind. That being said, I wrote this with Susan Kay's style in mind, and I really hope it shows. Leave a review even if it doesn't? This is awfully short (and there is no Erik, which makes this even more upsetting), but don't worry; the chapters to come are longer!
Disclaimer: Erik would have been a happier little phantom had I control over his soul. Alas, he is not, so I guess you can make the connection.
I used to wonder about things sometimes. Usually while in passing while I busied myself with mundane work or errands. The most reoccurring idea that came to mind was how life is so precious, and this one chance we've been given should be taken advantage of to the fullest. A thought that soon followed thereafter is that was in fact the truth, then those who lead lives of adventure are lucky people. I envied a life like that, a life of riches and worries far spread and few in numbers.
Many a time I would dally in my cleaning as the guests in the small hotel that employed me shared their stories of adventure to my fellow Italians. These foreign guests were always extremely wealthy, and had all of us completely entranced by the stories they told. Some had been as far to America, and others had traveled the Orient. I was always extremely envious of their adventurous lives. Mind you, I was a young girl, merely a cleaning person to help my father keep us both fed and as healthy as we could be. The only escape from my childhood poverty was my fantasy, where I was a rich Signora who had seen all four corners of the world, and had discovered the fifth. People were entranced by my beauty and came to woo me, and I was never with worry.
How silly I had been. Thirteen was a tender age for me as my father's health began to decline faster than the savings we had put away. I had hoped to ease my father's burden by working at a hotel that had recently lost a young woman they had been employing to a young suitor who whisked her away to France, but the commute to work and home was rather far after a full day of work and more often than not I slept in the back room of the inn which forced my father to take care of himself. Perhaps that was what made his death arrive as soon as it had. My mother and younger brother had already passed on years before when the pregnancy went terribly wrong, and so there I was, orphaned and taken in by the couple that owned the inn I worked in, but not without a large price. The hotel had been one that for generations, would take in children that would have been otherwise left on the street to raise and sell for prostitution, and immediately beginning that year I was to be prepared for that purpose.
And that was when I met Erik.