It was not the offensive whispers that poisoned her, nor the harsh gawks, or even the echoing snickers. It was the oppressive shadow that hunted her at every sundown, at every moment of sleep she could manage to steal, that truly drove her mad. The alien torso which she had finally reigned in command of frightened her as it looked back at her in the mirror - wild, terrified, and warped.
Fresh names and identities only lasted as long as a flower in the chill of autumn, and were as thin as gauze. Regardless of the name or story that she adopted as truth, what remained was that she was unmarried, nearly a spinster despite her young age, with no means, no friends, and, above all else - she was pregnant.
The first groggy village she fled to was not ignorant to her identity. She was, after all, the very Christine Daaé who had headlined at the Opéra de Paris for only a brief moment, like a firefly in the seasonable summer, before blinkering out and disappearing on the wings of some devastating scandal. It was no difficult task recognizing her, even though her sheath of wandering curls had been trimmed back, a rather unbecoming look for the time and for her age.
It was her belly that gave her a new identity, new persona. It labelled her as an adulteress of sorts, a wicked wench who wormed her way into the beds of innocent men like some kind of succubus. In reality, it was nothing of the sort. It was her foolish, girlish obsession that had grown over the fantasy of a man that she wasn't sure, in retrospect, truly existed.
This was the third time she had moved in these past eight months. She was now swollen with the impending child, and rather exhausted from the constant motion. She reminded herself of the Gypsies that her Papa had told her about in one of his lush stories - feeding from the land, skimming it before floating off again. She longed for a home, one rooted deep in memories that she could lavish in during the milky days of her final breaths. She glanced out of the glazed window, a sudden murmur through her body threatening to shatter her bones and melt her flesh.
She took a painful moment to recall the exact moment in which the peculiar creature which was soon fit to burst from her had been created. She thought of some strange God, knelt dutifully at a great potter's wheel and, as it spun, a hazy, shadowy glow spilled forth like inky mist and infected her like the venom of a snake. She nearly cried aloud as she felt the memory of the fingertips of her dreadful lover across her skin. It had been with the same utterly breathless sensation that she was dragged from her pedestal of projected purity, torn into the mirk of licentiousness. Little pleasure, if she could recall any, was gained by her escapade, but it was his wanton glower that informed her it was for the singular purpose of granting him access to a plane of bliss he would never again be privy to. Perhaps, somewhere in the depths of her heart, she could procure the slightest glimmer of a memory in which the most minute fraction of her soared in ecstasy. For his ruse had had beguiled her enough that the warped visage she could conjure in her mind could very easily have been a true angel her father spoke of, the one whose guidance had led her to the zenith of her brief, albeit promising career.
Erik. What a horrid, dulcet name it was. It was pure, and musical, and tainted with the hideousness of his memory, of his face. The name aroused in her the memory of his voice, and she loathed him for the power he still derived from her. She daren't permit herself to weep again, as she had nearly every day she travelled on the murmuring road, but she could not resist the masochistic ache that pulled at her throat, or the fire that singed her eyes, bringing her to a veil of tears.
What a horrible… lovely creature he was….
Erik filled her with dread, a frozen, immobilizing dread, and yet she was brought to her knees by the unbearable light which curved and danced as his voice. It was seductive to her, and she was grossly infatuated with it, and yet she loathed him.