The rough walls of the passageway felt cold to his fingertips as he stumbled against them, trying to recover the strength, the strength that so much emotion had drained from his body. His haggard breathing only reached his own ears and echoed off of the cold bricks which were slowly becoming his new prison.
No light could be seen, but water could be heard slowly trickling through cracks in the wall. It pooled on the ground, scattering when his feet moved forward.
"Move...move," a small voice resounded in his head, "just move forward. Don't stop now, you've made it this far."
He just did what he had to in order to survive. He reminded himself of that one fact. They were the ones that had shunned him, those that had hurt him, punished him, placed themselves in his way and deserved what they had received.
The man named Erik, once known as The Phantom, fell to his knees and his hands ground into the rough slabs of the passageway. His fingers brushed against something and his blood and tear stained face lifted up, peering at the gold glinting near his left hand.
The long chain of the item felt warm to the touch and his fingers slowly caressed it as his numbed mind scrambled over thoughts that he would have rather left behind in the cold catacombs that he had once used as his home. The echoes of a love song sang in his ears as he pulled the chain towards him.
It glinted gold even though light was absent, glinted as though it had some internal source of heat, power. His thumb brushed over the delicate carvings and part of it began to spin under his gentle prodding's.
The corridor began to spin slowly around him as his strength collapsed.
Voices droned on around her slouched body as her eyes slowly peeked open. As they opened further, all the action around her seemed to come to a complete stop and she groaned inwardly, hesitant to look up at the figure that was surely hovering over her desk.
"Glad to see that you have finally decided to grace us with your presence, Miss Carmendie," Professor Snape sneered in his peculiarly harsh voice, "Since it seems that you have decided that you don't need the instruction of a professor, perhaps you could perhaps, instruct me as to what the proper procedure to prepare a Draught of Peace is?"
Her mind scrambled to search through her memories. Damnit, damnit, damnit, her sleep deprived mind refused to function in its normal state. Maybe he would listen to her excuse...no. Of course not, this is Snape we're talking about.
Was it perhaps...?
Sighing to herself, she sat up fully and tried to avoid Professor Snape's eyes.
"I'm sorry Professor, I...don't know."
"Perhaps this will teach you not to fall asleep in my class again, Miss Carmendie. Ten points from Ravenclaw."
A few of her fellow classmates glanced in her direction, hiding small grins from the professor's view.
Her table partner leaned over and snickered, "Second time this week, Rain. First in Charms then here?"
Sighing, Rain turned back to her books, "Studying Amy, studying. That's what Ravenclaws do, isn't it?"
She hefted her books into her arms as she wandered down the halls in a slight daze. At least she hadn't gotten in trouble yesterday, as Professor Flitwick never noticed what was actually occurring in his Charms classes anyway. She hadn't even known that she had fallen asleep until the Hufflepuff sitting next to her elbowed her sharply in the side.
That voice...it had seemed to penetrate her dreams for the last week. She swore she could hear a low, coaxing timbre as she wandered the halls down into the deepest dungeons for choir or up into the highest towers for divination. The pain that resonated from it seemed to call to her, sending an ache into her heart and an urge to search for its owner.
Rain shook her head and walked towards flight of stairs that would lead to the trek to the dungeons.
Far below the surface of the school, the brightly colored banners signified the corridor leading to the practice rooms. Only a select percentage of the whole school was allowed down here, and only a small few of those were given the chance to come on their own whim.
Choir was a class that she could fully lose herself in, no longer worry about her work, her responsibilities, the future that was inevitably coming towards them at full speed.
Smiling softly, a song formed in her head and she began to hum dreamily, "Da da-dum, dada dada da da-dum, dada dum, hide your face so the world will never find you..."
Stopping abruptly, Rain looked around her, sure that she had heard the sound of a chorus of singers dancing to the tune of a jubilant orchestra, a tune that she could remember faintly, but was sure that she had never heard before.
The path was quiet, the only sound was of her soft breathing.
Walking faster, as she neared the main choir room she could hear the voices of her classmates. The sound never failed to bring a smile to her face and as she pushed the door open a figure that she couldn't see moved in the shadows behind her.
It glided slowly down and away from the jubilant voices ringing out. He couldn't take the sweet sound of music, a sound he had once worshipped, but he had to watch her. She reminded him so much of Christine, and that thought pressed on his chest so heavily, that he was forced to lean against the stones before he could move on.
Moving one stone, his cape swirled around him, black as the night that he had always welcomed Glancing back towards the classes once again, he disappeared into a dark corridor that slowly sealed behind him.
This place puzzled him. Left to his solitude, he had had many nights to peruse the many hidden passages, trying to surmount to what this place was. So far, Erik had discovered that it was a type of school, but completely different than the ballet academy at the opera house that he had observed for most of his life. The males mixed with the females and they walked around the passages laughing, joking with one another while hurrying between classes. Their long robes flowed around them and the spirits haunted the corridors day and night.
Though he didn't dare surface above his lower floors, he heard rumbles about a war going on around them and how their civilization was slowly crumbling.
A war, a place, and even a time that was not his own. And he had no idea how he got there.
