Disclaimer: The scene related here belongs to Susan Kay, not me. I took some liberties with young Erik's age, as I could not remember the age he was when he ran away from home. If the age discrepency bothers you, please let me know what age he was so that I can correct it accordingly (as I do not yet own my own copy of Phantom and therefore do not have it available to reference such things). That said, enjoy!
Perfection
Time warped and twisted until he was eight again. Eight and insatiable. Eight and unstoppable. Eight and terrible. Eight and unloved. He loved his mother, he loved her. All he wanted was for her to love him, not to fear him. Him and his dead face, his dead hands, his dead everything. Though inside, he was very much alive. Why was that so impossible for others to comprehend? Was he really not alive? Was he a certain breed of not-quite-living, not-quite-dead? Was he not human? No, of course he was, but he was the only one who knew that.
"Mamma, I want... I want two kisses." His own mother had looked on him with horror. Even to her, he was not human. And it was his inhumanness that caused her to live in isolation from other human society. He heard the names she called him when she thought he wasn't listening, heard the names that she repeated which were uttered by neighbors' lips. "Corpse Child," "the Walking Dead," "the Curse of the Devil," "the Devil's Child." He knew very well that the neighbors speculated about the great sin his mother had committed to be punished with such a demonic child. He knew very well that his mother wondered the same thing. He heard her say it when she thought he wasn't listening.
That was why he had to run away. He had to run away to save his mamma; maybe in his absence she could forgive him and even love him! Though her affection would be from afar, it was all he could hope for. It was all that he had the right to hope for. After all, he apparently wasn't even fully human or alive, and what monstrous being deserved affection except from afar? What being such as him should have hope of any affection? He would leave in hopes of being forgotten, of fading from everyone's collective memory, even his mother's. But he would not leave without first destroying the statue child which he so passionately hated but longed to emulate. He had embodied himself in that statue, thus vicariously gaining his mother's affections. It only seemed right that the statue child should be as dead as he. He would use mirrors to project the murder scene a million times over so that his mother would never forget the broken image of her dearly beloved son. In dismembering the statue, he would dismember his own soul as well.
She hadn't even approached his door that evening. His last night at home, and one would think that she would have the courtesy to at least say goodbye, even though she didn't know that she would never see him again. "Adieu, adieu, mother dear," he had said as he severed the statue boy's head. The last farewell of her darling boy, her darling dead boy. When he was gone and found his own house, far removed from all human life, he would sleep in a coffin, not a bed. A coffin was a fitting resting place for a child of Death. That's what he was, wasn't he? His mother had sinned by being too perfect, too beautiful, and Death - jealous Master as he is - thought it a proper punishment to give her a child that looked like the offspring of Death itself. Her only wrongdoing was perfection. Perfection. He shuddered at the word as he broke off the statue's other arm.
He arranged the broken pieces artfully in the center of the room. Now for the mirrors, his crowning touch; shattered bits of reflective glass to mimic the shards of his own young, shattered soul. He propped the six largest chunks around the dismembered statue - six, one digit short of the number of perfection. He scattered smaller bits about on the floor. The rest he hung from the low attic ceiling at varying heights on strands of nylon thread to create the illusion that they were floating in mid air; the fragmented reflection of a soul that had never been whole hovering above its prison ground, trapped by the impenetrable ceiling. At least he would no longer be trapped inside physically. The mirrors would capture the morning sunlight, creating a prism. The scene would serve as both a symbol of the freedom which he knew he should never have and the death in which he found himself daily imprisoned. He wouldn't bother closing the window once he was out.
He stepped back and surveyed the scene once he was finished, imagining it bathed in a flood of morning light. Perfection. He laughed at his own irony. The only time perfection would ever be his would be in the grave. He would make a perfect corpse, that was it. Six is one digit short of the number of perfection, the number of completion. Six was the number sealed upon his life.
He had never thought he would know perfection until many years later, on the day he heard it sing.
A/N: Please review if you found this story worthwhile. Constructive criticism is always welcome.