Gone. Everyone was gone. The mob, every last one of them. And Raoul. And Christine. She was long gone.
There was a rivulet of water, drip-dripping into the lake, slowly and quietly, but no other sound. His cavern had been ransacked. A worse mess than he, in his anger, had ever been able to manage. Everything that could be smashed was; paper covered the floor, and nothing except the organ was left standing. Only one candelabra hadn't been knocked into the lake. This was the one he held aloft, as he surveyed the destruction of his domain.
The golden light flickered as he gently paced his way through the paper and glass. There were no longer any mirrors, only splinters and shards.
There was a puddle of dark ink, seeping into the ground beside the organ, with his quill pen sitting in the middle of it, snapped in two pieces. What was once the glass inkwell crunched under his feet. He stopped, set the candelabra down on the organ seat, then bent down, and tried to mop up the ink with a few sheets of paper. There was too much spilt. He only succeeded in staining his fingers, before he gave up on the exercise.
Something much whiter than any of his papers caught his eye. The discarded bridal veil. It was now pinned under an overturned table. He reached out to touch it. The ink on his fingers made an ugly black smear on the white netting, and he quickly drew his hand back. The contrast was so stark. It had only been a slight touch, but the mark would remain. Perhaps it was simply inevitable. He hurt or ruined anything he touched.
He had threatened Christine with the life of the boy she loved, because of wretched, vengeful jealousy. He remembered her tears with a shudder. Her face had held an expression of horror and shock. He had caused that. In truth, he had nearly killed the boy.
What he failed to understand, was how, after the trickery, the forcing and the threats, she had still found it in her heart to care, to pity him. He had always felt that because of his cursed deformity, the world must hate him, so it did not matter if he hated the world. Everyone despised the sight of him, so he hid. People feared him, so he fuelled their fear with his tricks. But Christine...
Though he had stood before her unmasked, and laying bare all the ugliest parts of his character, she wanted only to show him love. She saw the pain, the loneliness, the broken heart of an unwanted child, and a hated and haunted man. She truly was an angel.
He tore his gaze away from the tainted veil, grabbed the candelabra, and strode down to the lakeside, forcing himself to block the hurt from his mind. He stared out across the black water, trying to ignore the bitter tightness in his throat, and to blink his blurring vision back into focus.
He suddenly realised that he had been gripping something very tightly in one hand. For a moment he could not recall what it was, so he opened his hand and held it up to his face. Christine's ring sparkled in the candlelight, balanced on his palm. His hand was red, and little impressions of the ring's metal settings were imprinted on his skin. He quickly closed his hand over it again, but it was too late. He remembered too clearly his final look at her, before she left him forever; the sadness he saw in her eyes. The pain came rushing back. Gone! She was gone!
The candelabra slipped out of his hand and hit the water with a splash, plunging the cavern into darkness. He stood still a moment, then lowered himself to the ground. He pressed the fist holding Christine's ring hard against his mouth, to stifle a sob. She was gone forever. The only person who had ever, or could ever, care for him. And he loved her still. But she was gone.
"Everyone runs from you eventually," a dark voice inside his head whispered.
She didn't run. He had told her to go. Because she would be happier without him. She had shown him love, when he had acted shamefully. So he had told her to go.
His eyes had adjusted to the darkness, but looking down he could only see a vague shadow of his face on the water. He reached up and touched the warped, broken side of his face gently. It was the same face a mother had hated, that a girl had looked beyond, to see a man, rather than a monster. She had shown him the only love he had experienced in his lifetime. That was why she had to go. Because she deserved to be happy. And she would not have been happy with him. But there would be no other like her. Never.
"Christine I love you..." he sang quietly into the darkness. His voice caught and wobbled with emotion. Tears traced their way down his cheeks.
"There you go again," the dark voice spoke in his thoughts, "Pretending you know what love is."
"No," he said aloud, " I love her. And I know what I mean."
She was gone. But she would be happy. She would grow old with the man she loved. He had let her go. He had done what was best for her, even if it hurt. That's what love was.
He would never forget her. Not as long as he lived. But she was lost to him. Memory was all that was left. The memory of an angel. Could he live on a memory?
The black emptiness closed in around him, hemming him in. Warm tears fell into the dark lake.
No, he would never forget. But he was alone once more, alone in the empty, silent, darkness.