A/N: Welcome to another PhanPhiction by me! Hope you all enjoy. As always, I appreciate all comments, questions and suggestions. I did rate this as 'T' but it is pretty violent, as you'll see. I believe that, though it is sad and, at times, brutal, it is nothing that a movie with similar circumstances would earn a PG:13 rating. If it turns too graphic, I'll change the rating. There will be violence, swearing and suggestive content. If anyone feels that this story deserves a different rating, I will take it under serious advisement.
His iron grip enclosed around her velvet throat. He could feel her entire body trembling like sapling in a hurricane. Her tears fell from her bruised cheeks and onto his hand, mixing with the smear of blood that still coated fingers. The blood that belonged to the two men now lying dead. One a few feet away and the other in the next room. Their pitiful attempts to save this woman were brave but pointless. He could not be stopped by any mortal hand, and since God had long ago turned His back on this mutant reject of the human race, no ethereal force would hinder him now either.
She was speaking to him, this pitiful creature in his grasp. Choking out words as he was strangling the life from her. Blood pounded too loudly in his ears to hear yet something very strong inside of him forced his desire to understand this girl's final words. He inhaled deeply, letting his grip on her throat soften almost imperceptibly.
"You won't kill me. I know you won't," she was saying like a prayer.
"Are you so certain?" Came the demonic voice in reply.
"Yes. You won't kill me. I know you, Erik. I love you." Her voice was pathetic and irritating and her tactic was feeble.
"Erik is dead. He died with Christine and only the monster remains." He pressed his unmasked face next to hers, eliciting an involuntary whimper. He ran his tongue over the trail of salty tears on her cheeks as she pressed her eyelids tightly together, trying to turn away but unable.
"Christine is alive!" she was saying desperately. "Look at me! I'm Christine! I'm your Christine. Don't you recognize your Christine, Erik?"
He grabbed a fistful of her hair, yanking her head backwards so that she was forced to look full in his wretched face. "Christine is dead and if you insist on pretending you are her than I will let you join her in death."
The monster watched, feeling a tinge of horror, as she lifted her left hand, the right one dangling useless at her side, broken in at least two places. Her trembling fingers touched his temple as she looked desperately at his forehead. Searching the marred flesh as though she could see beneath it to the flawed interior.
"I know you're in there, Erik. Hear me please! Come back to me!" Her nails dug into his skin, almost like she intended to claw her beloved out of the monster's body if she could not persuade him. A hard backhand snapped her neck sharply to the right before once again encasing her throat.
"Now," the hellish voice said with a leer. "you will die."
His hands forced the fragile neck together. He could feel the air struggling to course through her windpipe until it ceased to flow into her lungs altogether. The patches of skin not covered in bruises turned purple. Her eyes rolled upwards in her head. Her right hand, clutched into a tight fist since the moment he had burst into the room now unhinged, dropping a small object that hit the floor with a tink and rolled to the killer's booted feet. As he looked down at the thing, he released his grasp on the woman's neck and she slumped to the floor, lifeless.
"….Christine…."