The Phantom of the Opera is dead.
That was what they told everyone upon the discovery of the badly rotten corpse inside the bowels of the catacombs. They remarked upon the state of the body, how it was found in a coffin, assembled as if sleeping. They mentioned the twisted skull beneath the decayed flesh as the true unmasking of the Phantom at last. They noted the simple golden wedding band upon his finger, and questioned whether it was from that famous disaster which had happened so many years ago.
But the Phantom's story was never told, merely documented by the Parisian Press. There were several things they had failed to mention about his last, lingering, dying months. The main thing they had failed to mention was his name. He had a real name and not simply the Phantom. Erik. Erik was the name of the Phantom of the Opera.
Once the Angel had left him, most of his heart left with her along with the last remaining dregs of his sanity. No longer did he feel truly alive, more of a shadow or a passing memory, no more than half way real. In fact, he had nothing more to live for such was the overwhelming force of his love and utter adoration of her. No one else would do, and in his heart of hearts he knew they were two souls unimaginably entwined forever. Like Dante and Beatrice, Lancelot and Guinevere, like Tristan and Isolde. In that moment when he had released her, Erik had felt at once both unimaginable joy to make her so happy, and the dark spiral of jealousy and depression. It was a double edged sword. It had been almost tangible, the slick and bitter-sweet taste she had left in his mouth. That Angel's kiss which had torn his heart from his chest, still beating, still raw, and still proclaiming his love.
Openly he had wept as a small infant might at the loss of a favourite toy, the anguish unashamed and fresh. The Angel had been no toy however, and the tears that fell from mismatched eyes had been pure and sweet, the tears of a lover, of a kindred soul, an artist in mourning for the loss of his muse. It took many days for the salty rivers to stem their flow down his naked face. Erik never donned the mask again, casting it away and leaving it to rot in the minds of the world above him. He wanted nothing more, and asked nothing more. As far as they knew, the Phantom was already dead.
The weeks passed and months passed and Erik's life dwindled. Refusing to nourish himself to prolong his pain, he waited patiently for Death to claim him. Somewhere in the back of his mind it occurred to him that he would be able to play the Angel once he had died, and better serve her, than his current miserable state. The body withered like a leaf in autumn, the mind closed like a prison door, but the hope still blazed within him. Poor, unhappy Erik. He aged and perished more and more each passing day, if it could be called that in his world of unending night and he was barely aware of it. He sat upon the throne, or on the stool of his organ, gazing at the faded gold filigree engraved there. Weakened hands had attempted to compose one last time to no avail, the hands and heart too frail for music making any more.
At last, the light in the candle of his life flickered when Erik felt it within his very bones, and walked one last time. Staggering, shuffling, slowly towards his bedchamber. Towards his coffin. A skeletal finger still wrapped in the gold wedding band had been lifted to his lips. He closed his eyes and for a second he swore he heard her sing once more.
Erik; the Phantom of the Opera was dead.
He died of a broken heart.