AN: This is entirely 2004 movie-verse and is meant to be humorous. The only people that are going to be out of character are the people who actually exist (Gerard, Emmy, etc). With that said, read on and enjoy the insanity.
Everything seemed the same when the kiss was over, aside from the flooding of emotion through Erik's soul. All that was in his line of vision anyway. But when he heard an irritated man yell "CUT!", he found he was highly mistaken.
"Too enthusiastic again, Gerry," Christine sighed annoyedly. Erik stared at her in total confusion, then glanced around frantically, panicking like a claustrophobe in a small room as he saw more and more strange things around him.
"This was the ninth take on ONE kiss! You'd think you'd have it down by now…" a man with grey hair and a sallow face muttered. "Lunch break! We'll come back to this scene in an hour."
"What the hell is going on?" Erik demanded Christine—or at least, he thought she was Christine.
"Finally! I was getting sick of just standing here…my arms were going numb," a whiney man's voice complained from behind him, and Erik turned to see Raoul simply walking away from the ropes that had rendered him immobile only seconds before. Erik nearly stopped breathing at this point.
"What has gotten into you?" Christine asked, looking hurt.
"What has gotten into ME? What is wrong with you? How did these people get in there? What the hell are they talking about? What are these things?" he shouted, pointing to one of the odd, box-like structures that some woman was adjusting nearby.
Christine gaped at him in disbelief before dragging him by his wrist to a door—a door that had never existed in his lair. She opened it and pushed him outside—what? Outside? He seemed to be standing on a black floor with white stripes painted on it. Strange metal boxes with doors and wheels were parked here and there.
Christine turned his head with her hands to look at her.
"Gerry. I know you sometimes get really into the role—"
"Gerry? Why do you keep calling me that?"
Once again she stared in horror, now speechless.
"Answer me, Christine!"
"You need help…you know my name is Emmy," she muttered, closing her eyes in frustration and rubbing her temples. "Ok, I'll play along just so you'll stop. Your name is Gerard Butler, my name is Emmy Rossum. You are at a movie set, ACTING. Get it? You aren't really the person who you're playing. The year is 2004, and—"
"2004?" Erik cried. "Who even thinks that far ahead to make up such an elaborate joke? This is not funny, Christine! I know who I am! I am Erik!"
"This is my last warning. Calm down before we have to cancel this entire movie and I have to kill you for ruining it."
Erik desperately tried to slow his breathing. His head was starting to feel sweaty…
"Now. I'll ask for a longer break while you face reality. It might help to get out of those clothes and the prosthetic."
"Prosthetic…?" Erik dully whispered. Emmy pointed to his face with a blank expression.
Now he was really confused.
/
"Meh, I didn't really like that take. Can we do it again, Joel?" Gerry muttered, looking around. "Joel? Joel?"
All of the cameras were gone, as well as the director and everyone else. Gerry swallowed and turned about, but could only find Emmy and Patrick.
"Nice one, Andrew! Pretty damn quick to hide everyone in the twenty seconds it took to kiss her!" he played it off, desperately looking around for any sign of the playwright—or anyone.
"What's he doing?" Patrick asked Emmy. She only watched in as much confusion as Gerry searched for any clue that he was still in a set.
"Erik?" she bravely asked.
"He doesn't seem to be here either, if you're talking about the prop manager…", the actor said, feeling around for a hidden door.
"I'm talking about you, and you know my name!" Emmy—or whoever—explained, mindblown.
"Untie me and let's escape this madness while he's in this lunatic state!" Patrick (?) whispered to Emmy (?) thinking Gerry couldn't hear him.
"Hold on! I need you guys to explain this to me!" Gerry stopped them, flipping around. "Come on, this joke is getting old…"
"What joke?" the other two shouted in exasperation at the same time. Gerry stared and slowly sank to the floor, holding his knees to his chest like a mental patient.
"Oh God I really have gone crazy…" the actor whimpered, rocking back and forth a little. "Do your names happen to be Christine and Raoul?"
The other two nodded as if he had just asked if the world was round.
Gerry cursed under his breath and then looked up, eyeing Raoul with distaste.
"You aren't going to help me, so scram," he ordered, pointing to the exit.
"But—but…" Christine stammered, even more shocked.
"That was the deal right? Your freedom in exchange for his life or something like that. Untie him and show him out."
She started undoing the ropes.
Okay…where's that lever thing….ah! he thought, finding the iron bar that raised the door. He cracked his knuckles and yanked it down.
"Wait, wait, wait, wait!" Raoul shrieked, his feet kicking in the air—yes, the air—and looking up in fear at the portcullis disappearing into the stone ceiling. Christine hadn't finished untying him and he was raising with the barred door. Gerry reluctantly lowered the lever again and let Christine finish.
I must be getting used to that prosthetic…I can't feel it at all! Wait a minute…
/
"It's gone. It's gone. IT'S GONE!"
Erik threw back his now perfectly normal head in maniacal laughter. The woman who had taken off the deformity swiftly hurried out the door, obviously freaked out by the reaction.
"Yes! Oh, this nightmare is turning into a most wonderful dream, is it not, Christine?"
"Emmy," the actress sighed, rolling her eyes. "I do wonder where your accent went…though you still sound different."
"Accent? I never had one," Erik said, ceasing his insane laughter.
"If you're a fictional character from France, then why are you speaking English?"
Erik's eyes widened. "I am?"
There was a really awkward pause.
"You say we are actors playing out the story of my life…"
"Yes, but you—I mean, the Phantom never existed. A man wrote a book about you and Andrew Lloyd Webber adapted it into a musical. This is the movie version."
"What is a movie?"
Emmy sighed. "You know how you can take a photograph of someone? We do that only with movement. So you can see a scene exactly as it played out, at any point in time. A moving picture. We put these together and it's like watching a play, only you can view it anywhere."
He thought a moment. "Very advanced…very strange…Assuming this is all reality, and that there really is some sort of play in the future written about my life, since I have this actor's face, I now have his life instead of my own. Not just his life, but his body. So perhaps the body is accustomed to speaking a certain language, so I do so naturally since I am now him. But aside from the deformity, he and I are identical, as are you and Christine, and Raoul and his actor. This can't be a simple time travel phenomenon, or else we all would look very different and this play—ahem, movie, would be based on a true story. But you say I am fictional. Perhaps it has something to do with different dimensions, one in which I exist and you never do, and another where I never existed but you do."
Emmy blinked. "You really are Erik, aren't you?"
"That's what I've been trying to say this entire time, Christ—excuse me, Emmy," Erik said.
"So that means…Gerry has your life now. Oh God."