When all is burnt, all is dark and the love that was once there gone, all that is left is a tortured soul. A shell of a man who was never seen as a man, but only seen as a phantom.
The show was over, the curtains long burnt away and the smell of smoke still in the air. The man stood proudly upon the gothic architecture of the opera house, the memories flooding his mind. He had watched as the one person who he adored with every bone in his being had disappeared from him. Taken, rather, by a much more handsome man. And here he stood, truly alone once more.
The night air was cold and he pulled his best cape tightly around his skeletal figure. For days he had hidden after being hunted out of his home. The home where he had lived, away from prying eyes. The only place he had ever felt truly safe, truly in power. Now he was back but for the first time he did not feel welcome, it was as though the building itself had rejected him.
All of his life he had longed for the most basic human things. Acceptance. Love. Respect. Friends. Yet he was never to receive them, he knew that now. He was naïve to think someone like Christine would ever fall in love with someone like himself. A monster. But the more he thought about being a monster the more he realised he truly wasn't. It was those around him who behaved monstrously towards him.
His eyes which sat in hollow like sockets filled with water, like a murky pond as he remembered watching his only love get taken away in a carriage, driving further and further away from him. When the carriage had been but a single dot in the distance Erik had thought that his heart would just give up but was surprised to see he was still alive. Yet his surprise did not last long as it was soon replaced with despair. He didn't want to be here anymore.
He didn't want to live in the shadows any longer. He didn't want to spend the rest of eternity alone with his music to keep him company. Once upon a time this may have satisfied him, just him and his music but now, now it was like a curse. He had experienced the desire to love, to be loved and now there was nothing but emptiness in his soul. His song had finally ended and he was left with no audiance.
The gravity of his sadness could not be conveyed into words. It was just the gut wrenching pain of being alive in a world where he was not wanted. Being alive when you wish not to be was something Erik had often felt but with no music, no safe place and no Christine it was as though the world had finally had enough of his presence.
Stepping closer to the edge of the roof, Erik glanced back at the old opera house and gave it a sad smile. His mask glinted in the moonlight and he felt only the moons eyes on him. It was as though this was his last performance and only the heavens would bear witness to such an act. He closed his eyes and thought one last time about his precious Christine. The way her eyes sparkled when she sang, her dark brown curls, her smile. Just her. The thought brought the unshed tears tumbling down his sullen face and he felt a sob try and force itself from his throat. But he pushed it back down. He would not mourn for her as she was alive and well, yet he hoped that she would mourn for her angel of music. For in a few moments he truly would be a star in the sky, watching her always yet never being able to meet.
He didn't exactly know what to expect when he died but if it ended the suffering, the excruciating pain he was feeling from being alive, he would be content. He was dressed in his best clothes, they now hung loosely on his almost skeleton like figure and his mask even felt uncomfortable to wear. From the moment he was born to the moment he died he knew that he was unwanted and uncared for. Yet for a glimmer of a moment Christine had shown him kindness and he would never forget such an act.
Stepping even closer to the edge, he opened his arms wide in one last bow and painted a smile on his disfigured face. He never wanted to die, not truly for everyone desires life. But for Erik he knew no one would miss him, cry for him or beg for his life. He was a phantom and nothing more, nothing less. With a name on his lips, he fell forward into oblivion.
That night only the stars and the moon heard his final words and soon after his body met the ground the sky began to cry for the lost soul of the phantom. The Phantom of the Opera.