Sooo...this is Euphoric Lolita (better known once as Kayla Elric). This shall be my first fanfiction that I plan to finish in over a year. Please bear with me.
Many of my new stories will deal with plots taken from several different roleplays I have done as a GaiaOnline nerd, this one being no different. I hope you enjoy~!
Chapter One: Welcome to the Opera Populaire
Poor Erik...
The Opera Populaire. Besides the Eiffel Tower, it could easily be considered Paris's most famous landmark. It was a building where the highest of Parisian society could engage in splendid gala events, but most noted, sit upon its theater's red velvet seats and view one of the world's greatest musical productions: opera. The voices, as if they had been stolen from seraphs and placed in the throats of lovely girls and thick-chested men, could be heard almost throughout the city. For those unable to afford admission, and willing to park their carriages outside the opera house, they would have enough entertainment for the ears to appease the rest of their senses.
However, the glamorous facade of the Opera Populaire disguised a dark history. For many a year, the cast and crew of the theater had been plagued and haunted day by day, by a man first believed to be a specter. Some reports said that he was a skeleton adorned in dress-clothes and a cape. Others said that this ghost was a tall man of thin figure, with piercing blue eyes and the left side of his face having a pale glow to it from a formed leather mask. Yes, there were many a rumor and story that circulated throughout the opera, as well as its surrounding city. No, they were not lies. The ghost was real. His formal title: the Phantom of the Opera.
Eighteen months ago, the Phantom, known as Erik only to a select few in our plot, took up a strong interest in a pupil he had been tutoring vocally since childhood. This girl, Christine Daae, could only behold him through her imagination or dreams, with only his haunted, soothing voice to be in her presence. Following her first lead roll in the performance of Hannibal by Chalameau, Erik dared to lure young Christine into his world, and attempt to make her love him. As was expected, his attempts were all for naught, for Christine had fallen in love with the opera's patron, the Vicomte de Chagny, Raoul, and fallen into fear for her own life at the hands of her "Angel of Music." Within several more months, Erik would lose Christine, this time, permanently, and he disappeared from his lair, leaving his white leather mask behind, resting upon his throne.
This man, this architect and musical genius, this artist and assassin, had vanished. While the smoldering opera house above was being emptied and saved, a search party had gone down to slaughter Erik, led by little Meg Giry, the chorus girls' instructor's daughter. She had found the mask, and taking it back up with her through the narrow passages of the sewers, would later leave it to rest in the dressing room where Erik had first appeared to Christine. Of course, the Opera Populaire would be fully repaired just in time for rehearsal for another opera within a month or so. The infamous Madame Giry had seen to that.
Within a few days of the opera's reopening, the mask would vanish. Perhaps the Opera Ghost, a man whom all assumed to be dead, had returned once more.
But, enough with accounting for past occurrences. We must begin our story at the base of the Opera's great marble staircase, where a frustrated Madame Giry would be found, leading someone into the theater.
"Come, child; we shall be late," the Madame Giry snapped at her young acquaintance, leading her roughly by the hand into the Opera House.
"Sorry, madame," the young one replied, her voice faint as if she were lost in a dream traveling through the Opera, though rather quickly. The acquaintance was a girl by the name of Aleera Lorenti. She had been orphaned at seventeen years, and for causes that were not of her own control, she would be trained here, as a chorus girl.
Aleera was a rather frail young thing, a short girl of fair skin with large, curious brown eyes. A red lily hair clip that she had worn almost each day was positioned neatly to one side of her chestnut-brown hair. Pushing her feathered bangs back, that completely covered her forehead, her eyes were finally free to indulge in the sights about her. A gasp escaped her throat as she and Giry entered the main theater. To her, it was the most beautiful sight her eyes had ever beheld: golden models of lovers that reached out to each other adorned the frame of the stage and the viewer's boxes. The seats were of polished brass and red velvet. But of course, the real sight to see dangled from the ceiling just above her head.
It was the chandelier, but not the chandelier of Populaire legend. Not the same one that several unsuspecting opera fans were unable to escape being crushed by. That piece of art had been placed far backstage, where an off-white tarp hung over it, just beginning to collect dust. The newer version seemed to be of a more impressive size - if at all possible - and Aleera's eyes seemed to sparkle from amazement as her brain recognized what exactly it was.
Within a few moments more, Aleera had been led around corner after corner, through hallway after hallway, until she came to a room where both she and Giry could hear a commotion going on from within. Giry pushed the door open, revealing all the chorus girls, giggling or braiding each other's hair. The second they saw their instructor come through the door, they instantly went silent and looked toward her with the utmost attention.
"This is Aleera Lorenti, girls," Giry announced to them, trying to put on a friendly disposition so the young brunette didn't take her as intimidating, yet, "and she will be staying with us from now on to be trained, as you all have, to be a chorus girl. She has only lived in Paris for two years, as she was born in Italy, so please do your best to show her how our routines are dealt with, and what is to be expected of her." She gave Aleera a light nudge toward the rest of the girls, and then turned toward the door to leave. "Oh, and please help her feel welcome as well." That had to be added, before Giry made her final exit.
Most of the other girls didn't find it that odd that a new girl was coming here, and all of them were exceedingly curious as to why she was an orphan, what she was pursuing with her life, and the like. Obviously, they all had heard quite a bit of background information on her before she had come. She didn't mind though, and was able to give them tidbits about her life here and there.
...I was born in Capri, Italy. My father, Salvatore, was a successful lawyer. My mother, Gianna, was a prominent woman in the world of modern European fashion design for young woman. We moved to Paris just two years ago for my mother to expand her business and open up a shop. I had always loved the opera, but it seemed that both of my parents were too busy to take me. When my nanny finally decided to take me, it was on the night of Il Muto's premiere. Not only did I get to see a stagehand's body hanging by a noose above the stage, but in my panic to rush home, I discovered my parents. In a filthy Parisian alleyway. Deceased.
Apparently, a small troupe of gypsies had run into them on their way home from a rather important dinner with a friendly client of my mother's. Demanding money, they both refused and were cornered. My father tried to become a hero that night, but it seemed that four to five gypsies were too much for them. They both were cut open like stuck pigs. I could never imagine seeing another horror as gruesome.
I remained alone for a good year, placed in an orphanage. I refused to stay, and kept running back to my home, only to see more and more of my family's possessions had been greedily claimed by my family. As a "favor" to me, they let my parents be buried in Paris. I don't know what I would do if they were sent back to Italy. I, however, was not about to leave so easily.
It was on one particular night, running home to the townhouse in the city, that I had climbed to the top floor and walked out onto the small balcony. I turned my attention toward the Opera House, a strange, orange glow catching in the corner of my eye. It was on fire. Dear God, how it seemed to melt before my very eyes. I was convinced that I had never seen such a tragic, beautiful display beforeā¦
As for my story to why I am here now, well, that can be revealed at a later date. I have my own reasons, and others that have bound me here.
Aleera tried to distance herself slightly from the girls, but it seemed as if the younger ones' curiosity for her life in Italy was insatiable. This girl was focusing on other things. Here she was, in the greatest establishment dedicated to entertainment the world had ever known, and she was to be a part of it. Not to mention, there were quite a few secrets to this building that she died to uncover, one in particular placed on a pedestal above all the rest.
Phantom... are you dead?
