Note: I do not own any part of Phantom of the Opera
Masqued
A narrative based on The Phantom of the Opera
"I will be waiting for you…"
I ran into the rotunda. It was full of people, laughing, joyous people, and I was ashamed to feel that, though I was fully costumed and masked, I could not take part in their merriment. Tonight was the night Erik had told me to renounce my lover forever. Oh, how the thought hurt me! I could not do a thing like this. I loved Raoul, I wanted to marry him so, yet I had to abandon him by order of my… what was Erik to me anyway? He was once my angel, my master, and now he was just a lonely, desperate recluse with only one dream in the world: me. He made me give up all other pleasures, and I was too afraid to leave him. There was one pleasure, though, that I could not give up. Raoul. My lover! My childhood friend! The one who was always there for me, and who I thought I could never part with…
A figure clad in a white domino costume stood at the doorway. "Christine? Is that you?" he whispered, but I bade him say no more. Erik could be listening. I grabbed Raoul's hand and pulled him through the crowd, through the main lobby, up the opulent grand staircase, when I stopped.
There was a crowd up ahead, gathered around a man robed all in scarlet, with a face I knew all too well…
I stared. Though everyone else thought that he was disguised, I knew better. Erik was himself. His nature. Red Death. A wondrous marvel, yet deadly and dangerous. He was more Red Death than anyone ever could be, more so than he was ghost or angel. As Raoul and I watched, horrorstruck, he grasped the wrist of some poor fool attempting to touch him, clutching it with a skeletal hand, with that touch of death that was unique to him. Erik had made the whole crowd cringe in terror. It made me almost sick to know that this was the same man who had once been my Angel of Music, and who loved me, even obsessed over me, because I was the one who would make his life whole again.
I knew that the choice was mine to make. Erik would kill for me. Raoul would die for me. Which is the best sort of love? I was very grateful for my mask, because there would be no other way to hide this fear of my position.