Lily looked at all the boxes and sighed. She didn't really want to move all these herself, but there was no one else to do it, so she decided she might as well start. She went through five boxes in an hour and then felt hungry. She looked through her little kitchen and decided to go with Mac and cheese, for the third night in a row.
After dinner, she went back to the boxes, and in two hours she was down to six boxes. Ripping the tape off a fresh box, she revealed an old clock her mother had given her shortly before she died. A tear went down Lily's cheek as she read the inscription from her father to her mother, "My dear wife, let's hope the sands of time never outlasts my love for you."
She looked around the apartment for a place to put it. She searched all four rooms and finally found the perfect place, in the living room, on the mantle. She set it down, and then put up two pictures of her parents and her, and it was perfect. The mantle was above what used to be a fireplace, when it was legal to have fireplaces and actually burn wood, but those days were long gone, and the previous tenants had boarded it up.
It was a little unsightly, and she also noticed a large crack that ran through the top of the wood. She bent down to get a better look. The crack had dust from numerous years ago, and was nothing new. But Lily decided she should tear the wood down and put up a new piece. But that would have to wait; she still had boxes to unpack.
It was close to ten when Lily got all of the boxes unpacked. She sighed relief and threw herself onto her bed, which was really just a mattress with a tablecloth on it. She tried to go to sleep, but she seemed restless. All she could think about was the board covering the fireplace with the big crack on it. It just wouldn't get out of her mind. She finally made up her mind.
She got a crowbar and went into the living room. She imagined how silly she must have looked, pajamas, slippers, and a crowbar ready to whack down any board that stood in her way. She didn't care about her appearances, though; she just hoped none of the other tenants complained about the noise.
She lifted the crowbar up above her head and threw all her weight into it. She came crashing down with the crowbar and through the piece of wood, and ending up on the floor looking up one very dusty chimney. She sat there dazed for a second, but then the coughing fits started.
She hacked away for five minutes trying to find a glass (she had yet to move her eating and drinking utensils from her old place) and finally found a plastic cup. She gulped down a few glasses until the coughing went away.
She looked at herself in the mirror (she didn't really understand why there was a mirror in the kitchen, but there was) and saw that her whole upper half was covered in soot. She washed off best she could (alas, the plumbing for the shower was broken, and no plumber had been called.) and realized that she might have broken the clock.
"OH MY GOD! THE CLOCK!" She did not scream out loud, nor realizing that they're nobody around to hear her scream. She ran into the next room and to her relief she saw that the clock was not broken, but was shifted around. She walked up to it and put it back in its place. That's when she noticed it.
It was a tiny little speck of color in the black soot, but enough to catch her eye. She wondered what she could have let fall, and picked it up. The paper was so brittle it felt like if she breathed on it, it would break. It was an envelope, an extremely old one by the looks of it. The paper was almost completely yellow, except where it had soot on it.
She turned the envelope around and saw a note written on it:
A Story
To whichever occupant of my house that has come after me
Lily read it with astonishment. She wondered who would leave such a note, obviously someone with a lot of time on his or her hands. She looked around for a name and found this on the first sheet of paper inside the envelope:
Let us begin with introductions. You're probably wondering who would leave a story for someone to find later. I know that is what I would be wondering if I found a note in my home. But wait before you toss it out as garbage, my story is a most interesting one.
I have traveled the world many times over, and my stories are plentiful. That is the foremost reason for this letter; it is more of memoirs than anything wrong. But I think that at the end of reading this, you might view it as an apology, and probably a much overdue one. But, as I said at the beginning, let us have introductions.
My name is Erik, and I am The Opera Ghost.
