The Hostage
Author's Note: I would recommend reading the last chapter & epilogue of Leroux's novel if you're not familiar with the material from the book.
Disclaimer: All characters, event, etc. belong to Gaston Leroux, but this story belongs to me.
The Vicomte Raoul de Changy awoke to an explosive ache throughout his head which, at the present moment, felt as if it had just been beaten against a brick wall with considerable force. A slight, breathless gasp escaped his parched lips as he slowly opened his eyes, trying to see the wreck he had been unconsciously dragged into. He blinked several times, peering into the black noir that engulfed him. A pang of fear caught in his chest. Have I gone blind? Nothing was visible, not even his hands – even when he held them so closely to his face that his fingertips brushed his nose.
Where am I? he wondered through the pain of his throbbing head, while his other senses failed him miserably. It seemed like he was surrounded by total nothingness. He could see nothing, felt as if he had been run over by the Queen's carriage, and his only other sense that was painless enough to use was the sense in his brain. Standing up, he attempted to take a feeble step forward, only to pathetically drop backwards from the simple movement of rising. As he fell, his head connected with the granite wall behind him, and he was swallowed into a different darkness; this one was pain-free.
For the second time, the young Vicomte opened his eyes to what he could not see. This time he had regained control of his senses, the least concerning now being the dull pain that throbbed around the large knob on the back of his head. He strained to hear something, anything, but the only noises he heard were the slow dripping of water somewhere nearby and his own wheezing breaths. The smell, however, was worse than what he had heard. He opted to breathe through his mouth so as not to get another strong hint of what frighteningly smelled like rotting flesh and dirty water.
His quaking hands pushed his exhausted body off of the freezing, damp floor, and he rose. Once again he found it difficult to stand, and he leaned heavily on the wall, which had the same unwanted feel as the floor. His hair and clothes clung to his body from the clammy sweat and dank water that covered him from head to toe.
The answer he needed most at the moment came to him in a second of clarity. I'm in a cell, no doubt. He had, in fact, seen enough (though few) in his day to recognize the traits.
His previous fears came washing back over him in a whirl of terrifying memories. "Christine!" he croaked, his throat already aching from the one simple word. Speaking, he decided, was not a good action to pursue.
She – his Christine, his own fiancée – had wed that monster, Erik. The pain of loss stabbed his heart with more fire than a thousand knives. She hadn't even looked at him, spoken to him after they got out of that bloody room! Oh, how he yearned to hold her close, to take her away from all of these horrors!
"Christine!" His voice was raspy, nearly inaudible. He pushed himself forward off the wall, his leg pulling back sharply while his body crashed to the floor. As he lay sobbing tearless cries of despair, the broken but determined man gave a howl of rage that would have left a rabid wolf in shame.
"I'll kill you, Erik!" he roared, tugging at the rusted chain that held his leg to the wall he despised, in the Opera he hated. The answering echo deafened him, leaving a ringing noise in his ears.
Each breath he heaved was filled with grief and anger, and they came more quickly with every parched cry that called for his only love, and the predator that had hunted her. The cries soon faded when his body could no longer produce a drop of water to ease his itching throat.
After what seemed like hours of endless, painful panting, Raoul was shattered inside and out. He no longer attempted to stand or call out. He simply lay on his side, his arm draped limply across his face still, accepting that Erik had more than likely left him to die down here, never to be found; that he would never see his beloved Christine again, never be able to kill the demon that inspired such fear in her perfect face. He remained blank and still, an empty husk of what so recently had been a delighted, betrothed Vicomte.
In that state he waited, hardly caring whether the timeless, happy moments he spent replaying in his head where of any consequence to the other persons that had died in the same dungeons he now waited for death in. And knowing the Ghost's tactics, he was sure there had been a decent number. Sitting up, he ran his hands over the smooth stone until he felt a crack; Not a crack, he discovered as he brushed his fingers along the surrounding area, a letter. He moved his hands farther along. T.L. – initials.
He scrambled about on the floor, snatching a small rock as soon as his cold hands touched its jagged surface. His flattened palm dragged across the wall, feeling for a completely flat and untouched section of stone. At last one was found, and Raoul began the painstaking process of carving a letter. R.
A grimace was spread plainly across his pallid face, but it would go unseen unless someone had the ability to see in the pitch-black darkness of the prison. Tucking his fingers tightly under his arms, he let out a small breath. The feeling in his frozen fingers had vanished, the frigid, bloody lumps were no longer able to hold his makeshift tool.
Somehow he managed to grasp the stone again and find his place. Right beside the scraggly R he carved a C, which left his knuckles in much the same condition as the tips of his fingers.
As soon as he had finished tracing the initials, he let the rock drop with a small clatter to the ground, and his body went with it in cold, painful exhaustion.
But his head shot up when he heard an unexpected noise – the door he hadn't been able to see was slowly opening, a faint light spreading over the floor and towards him. Shock, fear, and hatred spread across his face as his eyes focused on the thing that stood in the doorway.