A/N: Hello, everyone! It's been a while since I posted anything on here. My brain just hasn't been settling on any new stories successfully. Hopefully I will have a new idea to write out soon. I'm toying with a modern phic, but it just isn't clicking the way I want. Ah, well. In the meantime, I hope you all enjoy my entry to the Phantom's Haunting Halloween One-Shot Contest.
Christine always loved holidays. Though she and her father had little money to spend on them when she was growing up, they still found a way to celebrate. Her fondest memories were of the holidays and how he would surprise her with the smallest of gifts. One year, he fixed her mittens with all of the holes in them stitched up again with colourful thread. Sometimes he would have nothing to give her besides his love and a small concert on his violin. She knew that those were the times that meant the most because it all came from the heart. There was nothing but good intentions and the selfless act of a father trying to make his little girl smile.
Nowadays, she was afforded more freedom on the special days of the year. Her relationship with Erik had ensured her a more financially secure lifestyle. Erik would always make sure his Christine was well provided for, but most of all happy. He would do anything to make her smile, just as her father had.
Christine still enjoyed some of her more traditional forms of celebrating. She would make paper flowers, putting some on her father's grave every year for his birthday, and she made sure that at least one of her gifts to each of her friends was homemade. She often made the candies she put in tiny pink and red boxes that she handed out on Valentine's Day, and forced Erik to help her make the dozens of cookies she gave out at Christmas.
On holidays like this one, however, there were no gifts to be exchanged, but instead a challenge to be accepted.
October 31st had always been one of her favourite holidays. She remembered well the ghost stories her father would tell her on Halloween night in front of the sometimes meagre fire. She would often end up curled up in his arms, knowing he would protect her from the evil spirits and spooky creatures he had told her about. She would fall asleep, cuddled closely to him on those cold, autumn nights.
Now that she was grown and her father was no longer with her, she had a new idea in mind to celebrate the holiday: try to scare Erik.
This task, as it turned out, was easier said than done. Her beloved was not very easy to scare or even startle. Having been the infamous Opera Ghost for so long had made him immune to the general tricks she may attempt to play. She knew this for a fact, having lost the great April Fool's Day competition every time. Erik was not someone you could sneak up on, shock in fear, or mystify with magic. He could and did all of those things himself with no qualms. He was also notoriously stubborn and would, just like a cat, deny the success of any prank pulled on him. Therefore, Christine's work would be cut out for her.
She had only just come up with an idea on her walk to the Opera House, when she realised she had forgotten the key Erik had given her to the Rue Scribe entrance to his home. He had told her to use it whenever she came to visit, which was quite frequently as of late. She had been hoping he would rather just move out of the basement or perhaps ask if they could live together, but no such offers had been mentioned.
She should have known better.
Of course, she also should have known not to walk out on a cold, rainy night without her key or umbrella. If Erik knew she had done this, he would be quite cross. He hated the idea of her being inconvenienced when coming to see him, thus the key. Yet nothing changed that both valuable items were still back at her flat and she was not in the mood to walk all the way through the biting rain to get them, nor were they entirely worth her paying a cab to take her there and back. She sighed heavily at the hidden door she had no key for, and walked around to enter the building like a regular person.
She did not like the idea of having to wander through the theatre and then through the dark tunnels of the cellars to get to the lake, only to call Erik and hope he heard her to bring the boat and fetch her, but she had little choice.
She made her way through the corridors of the backstage area of the theatre and finally to her dressing room. She easily found the mechanism for the mirror to swing open and allow her into the tunnel beyond. Pulling out her cell phone, she used the illuminated screen to light her way through the darkness.
She decided to take this opportunity to try to perfect her plan for scaring Erik for Halloween. She only hoped it would not frighten him into worry. This consideration had shot down a number of her other ideas. She knew that pretending to be hurt, disappearing for too long, or making any sort of reference to his looks would be out of the question. She wanted to scare him as a prank, not make him question her love for him. She found herself rolling her eyes at this. It was a common reassurance, not one she liked, but one she had learned to deal with.
She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she did not think to look around her as she walked. She suddenly found herself in a tunnel she did not recognise, though in all fairness it was hard to tell when Erik insisted upon carrying an old-fashioned lantern all the time. She often wondered about him and his contradictory love for older methods and newer technology.
Looking around, she tried not to think about the cockroaches that scurried in front of her feet, or the rats that squeaked as they ran from the light, their eyes flashing and making her jump. She also tried to fight the shivers that threatened to run up her spine from growing too fierce in the cold, dampness of the tunnels. This was not what she considered to be a fun place to live.
It was at this point that she remembered Erik's warning for the traps in his vaults below the Opera.
'Travel down the wrong path, my dear, and you will face something quite unbefitting of you,' he had said in his silky, yet stern tone. 'That is why you must always use the key I gave you, or have me there with you.'
Why was it that her mind only thought of these things after she had made the potentially grave mistake?
Taking a gulp of the dank air, she checked her phone for reception. There was none. Of course not. She could not call him to let him know she was down here. She hated how none of the tunnels had signal, but his house and the Opera above did. Erik had mentioned something about the materials of the walls interfering with it, but she could not remember the technicalities now.
She grew nervous the farther down she travelled. She felt she should have reached the lake by now, or run across something familiar. She wondered how wise it had truly been to come down this way. Perhaps the trip back through the rain would not have been so bad after all.
Gulping, she stopped to check her phone's charge. She had that cloying dread that everyone gets when they worry their phone is about to die at the most inopportune moment.
3% charge.
Never a good sign when you are deep in the tunnels under a theatre. Groaning, she looked behind her, wondering at her odds of finding her way back out. They were probably about as good as finding the lake, at this point.
Silently cursing Erik one last time, she decided to call for help. She knew he would be expecting her tonight. Would he be able to hear her?
Letting a bit of her worry into her voice, she called out for him. She heard it echo into loneliness before being swallowed by the darkness. She felt a chill run up her spine, making her long for the warmth of Erik's house and the comfort of his embrace.
She wondered if she should call again when she spied a thin wire glinting in the remaining light of her quickly dying phone. A trip wire. It was for one of Erik's traps. If she sprung it, it would set off the alarm in his home and he would know to come look for her, or at least whoever was trespassing in his domain. She thought it was the perfect plan.
Ducking down and looking about for anything that may try to attack her, she pulled on the wire. Unfortunately, this made the ground beneath her disappear. She fell into the gaping maw of a dark pit, letting out a fearful cry before landing harshly on the stone floor beneath. She had just enough time to look up and see the trap door she had fallen prey to close up above her.
She tried to calm her instantly panicked breathing, her mind telling her over and over how stupid she was. Of course Erik would have trap doors in his tunnels. She should have known better.
She sat in the pit, her thoughts flurrying, questioning if she would ever be free again, or if this was the end for her. She knew she was panicking, but what else can you do in an oubliette? She did the only thing any person would think to do in that sort of situation: cry and hope for the best.
Erik had been sitting quietly by the fire in his home, waiting for his lovely Christine to come visit him. He had actually been considering her pleas to move up to the surface, lately. No more living underground. He would be able to see her anytime he wished. How he longed to spend his days, indeed his every moment (waking or otherwise), with her. He was very much a desperate man in love. He thought of her as he fiddled with the corner of his book, the words on the old pages long ignored for more blissful imaginings.
Just when he was about to check the cell phone Christine had given him, the most dreadful noise filled his abode beneath the Opera.
'The siren?' he asked of the ungodly noise that rung in his ear. 'Has someone come to visit—?' He stopped short, realising his happy thoughts may now be linked to tragedy.
Hurrying from his home, he went to check his traps. The alarm was for all of them, so he would have to check every one. He prayed he would not be too late; that he would find her…alive.
Christine sat on the dark floor of her pit, looking mournfully at the lit screen of her phone. She had watched the battery slowly fail her. She had memorised every feature of the faces on her lock screen picture. Staring back at her was the tight smile of Erik contrasting with her own carefree grin. She had made him stand there as she took the selfie of the two of them. He had grumbled and griped, but she had made him do it. The only reason he had a smiled at all was because she had kissed him just before taking the photo.
Wiping away a tear, she tried not to think about whether or not she would get to kiss him or see him smile like that again. Her mind thought the most terrible things while she sat there, watching the battery of her phone die as the minutes ticked by. What if he was not home? What if he had gone out, or had tried to come see her at her flat? He had surprised her with dinner last week like that, giving her a pleasant evening after her performance. She did not know if his alarm would turn off after a certain amount of time, meaning he may have missed it. She knew he had said something a while back about it not always going off for all of the traps. What if this trap did not alert him?
Burying her head in her knees, she let out another pitiful sob. She would never see the sunlight again. Never sing or see her friends. Worst of all, she would never again get to tell Erik how much she loved him. She was sure he would think her disappearance meant she was tired of him and did not wish to see him again. She would die and then he would; only he of a broken heart. She would be the cause of her Erik's death. This thought alone brought more wailing sobs to her throat.
To say Erik was panicking was an understatement, the price of which no one dared calculate. He was frantic and hysterical. He had checked every trap in the fifth and fourth cellars. The third and above had none because people would occasionally use that for storage for the Opera's sets. Yet he was certain Christine would not have made it down much farther.
Knowing she was lost to him made him want to pull his hair out and claw at his hideous face. He was going to go mad looking for her, he was sure. He swore that if this was just some rat chewing on a trip wire, he would burn the place down. He would burn the theatre and move somewhere far away with Christine. There would be no more darkness or old Communard catacombs—
Once more he was stopped. He had yet to check the old tunnels that had been put in so very many years ago. Most of those passages did not need traps, their labyrinthine design did enough to punish trespassers without his help, but some of them he felt needed the extra precaution. He only hoped he would not be too late for the nastier ones he had set.
1% charge.
Christine hated her phone. She hated everything in the world besides her Erik. Even though this pit was his fault, she did not hate him. She could not. He was the only chance she had at getting out. She had looked up at her "ceiling" and noted that there was no way to move it, being just a few torturous inches out of her reach. The walls were sturdy and lined with paving stones, so there was no chance of digging, not that she thought it would do any good. She looked at the smile of her pictured Erik one last time before the phone finally lost all power. She was bathed in darkness.
She felt her throat complain as she screamed, but she did not hear it. If she could not hear her own scream, what chance was there of Erik hearing her?
He was truly at his wit's end. He had searched the Communard tunnels, but found nothing. His darling was missing. Then, like a beacon in the fog, he heard a sound. It was faint, but like music to his ears. He followed it and quickly found a trip wire. It was one of the first traps he had ever put in and had forgotten about it entirely; his fear-driven brain working against him.
Crouching down, he pulled the wire until it snapped, quickly moving out of the way of the pit that opened behind him.
'Christine?!' he called hoarsely into the dark. He had been shouting her name for the better part of an hour now and his hysteria was evident in his voice.
'Erik?' he heard drift up from the black pit. He heard sniffles before it broke into full sobs.
'I'm here, my angel!' He reached down blindly into the hole until he felt her soft hand meet his. He swore he had never felt anything so wonderful in all his life. Taking her other hand, he worked to pull her out.
The moment she felt her shins touch the ground a good distance away from the edge, she was engulfed by warmth, sobbing, and the scent of old cedar and light smoke. Her Erik. She clutched at him blindly, trying to grab hold with all her might.
Erik felt he must have said her name a thousand times as he held her as if the sun would never again rise.
'I was so scared! I didn't know if you would come for me!' Christine said amidst her sobs of gratitude.
'I thought I had lost you!' came his similarly happy replies.
Pulling back from their embrace, he held the sides of her face, checking briefly to make sure she was unharmed before crashing his lips down onto hers. It shocked her, being the first time he had ever initiated a kiss, but she quickly melted into it, pulling him in tighter. They sat like this for some time until neither had breath left. Gasping, they continued to hold each other as if an inch between them would part them forever.
Finally, when the shock was just starting to take its effect on Christine, making her shake, Erik scooped her up in his arms. He started to carry her back to his home, intending to wrap them both up in one of the thick blankets Christine had knitted for him the previous Christmas.
Through her chattering teeth and gasping breaths, she told him what had happened. He had only leant down to kiss her head when she wept at telling him she had forgotten her key at home.
'It's all right, Christine. It's all right. You're safe now,' he soothed her, holding her a little closer.
She even told him what she had planned to do this evening in light of the holiday, but he could not find it in him to chuckle. Instead, he looked down at her, his eyes glowing amber in the dark.
'Christine, I need you to promise me something,' he said, his tone tight and leaving no room for her to deny him. 'Promise you will never try to scare me like this again.'
She wept, pulling herself up to cry into the side of his neck, apologising the whole way to his home. He finally calmed her when they were both sat on the sofa before the warm fire, hot cocoas in hand, and her phone charging next to his. She snuggled into him eagerly and listened to him hum softly until she finally fell asleep in his arms.
A/N: Happy Halloween, everyone! I just wanted to announce that I am actually the first-place winner of the contest. Thank you everyone who has reviewed and followed/favourited this story. It means a lot to me. I can't wait for the next contest!