CHRISTINE

Share each day with me, each night, each morning

My heart broke for the first time as I stole my very last glimpse of him. Raoul and I were free, yes, but he never would be. His face, that precious deformity, would forever haunt him every time he looked into a mirror. He was staring blankly back at me with something I never noticed before. He was no longer the Phantom I once feared. He was, simply, just a man that had an eternal fate with darkness.

I turned forward to the lake in front of us. I soon heard the Phantom's cries ring into the air along with the sound of breaking glass. My chest soon felt heavy, and I tightened my grip on Raoul's shoulder.

"Don't worry, Little Lotte," he whispered to me. "He can't hurt us anymore."

My hand was still damp from the man's tears. They were not fake tears nor tears of sadness. I wanted to believe that these were tears of happiness. After all, his deformity had been accepted. Wasn't that what he wanted all along?

There was no more that could be done, nothing except look ahead to the future with the one I truly loved: Raoul, the one I chose over my supposed Angel of Music.

PHANTOM

You alone can make my song take flight

It pained me to see her go, but what choice did I have? Her eyes had said it all. She didn't love me, and she never would. If she were confined to me, she wouldn't have had the true happiness Raoul could offer her, and her beauty and talent would have been shunned from the world. Yes, it's true. I loved Christine, and I did all of those things. For her.

I let her go because I love her.

I watched them as they glided across the water with my boat and was shocked to find her child-like eyes looking back at me. My hand flew to the deformed side of my face, the same side she touched so softly as she kissed me. My fingertips then grazed my lips. In that moment, our moment, she acknowledged me not as a monster but as the person I had been hiding for so long. She accepted my disfigurement, and because of that, I was satisfied.

And yet...

They disappeared behind a column, and I immediately felt empty. I peered down at the ring, her ring, in my hand. I held onto it securely with no intent of letting it go. My only memory of her, my Christine.

I made my way to the mirrors and grabbed a piece of a broken candelabra. The mob's chants were coming closer.

It's over now, the music of the night!

I smashed the poor object with all the strength I had left. The glass shattered all over the ground in two hits: one for guilt, and one for rage. I did the same to the second, but this time for eternal loneliness and pain. I came to the third and lifted the red velvet curtain. I paused, examining myself. I was so... appalling. And without further hesitation, I crashed the golden stick into the hard surface, striking away the suffering I had put her through until my reflection was no longer visible. In its place stood a long, dark pathway. I turned and looked around at my lair, my home for over half my life. Now, it held no meaning to me. I stepped into the broken mirror and closed the curtain behind me, leaving the facade I lived under behind. All of those things were just mere objects that could be replaced. There was only one Christine Daae.

A life without her was nothing at all.