She'd always been such a lovely sleeper. Her golden hair billowed about her head, the precious strands softer than any silken pillow they rested on. He let out a sigh, no, something more than a sigh. The sound expelled from his soul, an echo of the infernal love he felt for the strange and lonely child.
Christine, the darling girl, stirred lightly in her sleep, disturbed by some imaginary noise within a dream. Erik stepped deeper into the shadows, though it mattered little. After a moment, she turned on her side and settled once more.
His heart beat heavily in his skeleton chest, a tattoo of love and sorrow. In these moments, these dark and lonesome moments when he guarded his fragile charge, he could admit to himself the truth he could not acknowledge by candlelight: she would not love him, could not love the despicable beast that he was. His flippant rages and accidental neglect had broken any hope for a trusting relationship between the broken pair. And that was without his wretched face!
He scowled in the darkness of her bedroom, but he could not stay angry for long. Her innocent features had always brought him a little closer to sanity, a little closer to home. That was why she could not leave. She was his home, and as much as she might deny it, he was hers.
"Such a darling child…" He breathed to himself as he watched her scurry to and fro. After the first few weeks of her stay (a disaster on all accounts), Christine had made a noble attempt at normality. His floors had never been cleaner, and his kitchen had never smelt quite as refreshing. She had even attempted to make his tea this morning! Disgusting, to be sure, but he had drunk it all as she watched with a pale face. She had made it for him, and he'd be damned if even a drop was wasted.
Still, there were moments. She'd stare at him with wide eyes when she thought he wasn't looking. The girl had yet to realize that he was always watching her.
The look in her eyes was queer, though, and if he was being honest, it unsettled him. Perhaps he should bring her for a walk. She hadn't asked in quite some time, but he knew she would be delighted all the same. Besides, he probably needed the fresh air as well. His throat was bothering him; too long in the damp cellars was never good for a singer's voice.
"Christine," her name rolled off of his tongue, "could you come here?"
The girl rose from her cooking, blue eyes wide with fright. What an innocent girl she was.
"You have nothing to fear. I simply thought you may fancy a walk. We have been down here far too long."
Without further ado, Christine burst into tears.
"Gud bevare min själ. Varför gjorde jag det? Jag är så ledsen Erik, jag är så ledsen. Förlåt mig pappa! Jag var tvungen att! Förlåt mig Gud! Förlåt mig! Jag kunde inte vara här längre, Erik, var god förstå. Åh gud! Vad har jag gjort!" Her native tongue spilled out of her throat deliriously as she took a pathetic step towards him.
He bolted up, worry pounding through his veins. Her delicate figure swam in his vision, though, and he fell to ground. She knelt beside him, still frantically begging forgiveness in the language he did not know.
"Förlåt mig Erik, men jag var tvungen att jag var tvungen att jag var tvungen att."
"Christine." He croaked. The tea. It was in the damned tea.
Her diamond tears fell onto his mask, and she pulled him into her embrace. Cradled in her bosom, he began to die.
Her rambling had stopped, but self-pitying tears still dripped onto the top of his head. They were like little kisses from her lips, motherly kisses from her rose petal lips against his balding head.
"My mask…" It was all he could mutter. He wanted to smell her, to feel her in his last moments. She shook her head wildly, though, and he had not the strength to take it off himself.
It was over. It was all over. Undramatically, he, the trap-door lover, torturer for the Shah of Persia, the Phantom of the Opera, would die with little in the way of grandeur. Killed by a simple innocent child. He turned his head to look up at her one last time. Her eyes were bloodshot and her nose ran, but her hair was the same golden tone of some far away Juliet or Aphrodite. A warbling tune came from her throat, a Swedish lullaby that he had her sing once before.
He wondered if she would find her way out, or if she would spend the rest of her short life trapped in this house underground with a rotting corpse; her darkest sin doing nothing, really, to save her. He wondered if the boy would help her. He wondered if she would miss him. She would, he thought, at least in her soul.
He breathed a sigh that was not a sigh, but a dying echo of a lonely heart, of a child dying in the arms of a child.
God forgive her, she knows not what she has done!