In His Darkness…
Disclaimer: I don't own anything to do with Phantom. I wish I did, but I'm just a poor student doing this for fun.
I'm not going to bore you with a long author note, this is just a plead for reviews (con-crit so welcome but no flamers, please. My poor little heart can't handle it).
P.S. I feel that my grammar is pretty good, but if you spot any major errors, please point them out to me.
P.P.S. If anyone is willing to be a beta for the next twenty chapters I've written so far, please email me.
Here's the first chapter!
It all started back in April. My parents got me two tickets to see Phantom in the West End for my birthday. So I took Mark, my boyfriend, with me. He was looking forward to it I guess but not as much as me. Ever since the movie came out, all I could think about was the Phantom of the Opera and how cool it would be if he was real. Not still alive, obviously, but real. Even though I'd read Gaston Leroux's novel, I still referred to him as 'the Phantom'. However, when I found a copy of Phantom by Susan Kay in a cheap bookstore when I was on holiday, I began to see another side to him and started calling him Erik. And that's how it'll stay.
When Mark surprised me that summer with two EuroStar tickets to Paris for a long weekend, the thing that went through my mind before the Eiffel Tower, The Louvre or the Champs Elysées was the Opera House, the Opera Garnier, not L'Opera de Bastille. How sad is that! I knew there was an actual lake under the basement and I knew that you could get onto the roof, all be it very precariously, but I wanted to see it for myself. And I wanted to play there. I'm a musician you see. Not a singer, let me make that clear from the beginning. I pity the lecturer who took my class for vocal training last semester. Although, to be fair on the guy, my voice did improve with two hours of singing a week and I managed to get a C in that class. I think I could have done better if I didn't have someone who thought she was La Carlotta in my group for the performance exam.
Anyway, I'm going off track. Where was I? Oh yeah, like I said, I'm a musician, a flutist to be precise. I know the term is usually 'flautist' but a), I'm not German, and b), I play the flute not the flaut. It's all common sense really. I haven't played anywhere big before and I'm not really good enough or competitive enough to make in the world as a performer, especially since you have to be the best of the best of the best to get into an orchestra.
I don't think Mark was too happy when I suggested going to see the Opera House, and even less so when I told him I was taking my flute and some music along too. He knew without asking that I would be taking along my laptop and lots of blank manuscript paper. I'm a bit of a composer as well as a performer. The only problem is that I tend to have huge rushes of good ideas and then none for about six months so I like to be prepared for when these rushes turn up.
-8-
After all that, I suppose I had better introduce myself a bit. My name...well, you'll find that out later. I'm 27 now, married with a four year old daughter, Natalie, and a baby on the way. I spent a little under a year in Paris, cut off from my family, friends and a lot of the world. I didn't really mind though; I had the best person in the world for company. I left England on 30th July, 2005 and Mark returned home on the 1st August. I didn't. I stayed in Paris and I'm so glad I did. If I hadn't, who knows what would have happened to me. I met so many wonderful people and you'll meet all of them.
"Mummy?"
"Yes, sweetheart?" It's Natalie. Please excuse me for a moment.
"What are you doing?"
I lift her up onto my knee. Being only six weeks pregnant, my bump is still barely noticeable. "I'm writing a story."
"Is it a happy story?" She looks up at me with her big grey eyes.
"Not at the beginning," I reply. "It gets much happier in the middle."
"Does it have a happy ending?" She's so inquisitive!
"It has a perfect ending." I hug her close and press a kiss to the top of her head.
Satisfied, she jumps down from my lap and wanders off. I can hear her tinkling away on the piano. She's so much like her father already. Same black hair, same eyes, same nose, same mouth. The only way she resembles me is with her eye colour; grey. I don't mind at all.
She's perfect. My perfect little angel.
-8-
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