A/N- It's a random idea I had. I don't own Erik, the Persian, Christine, or Raoul, the poor dears, and neither does Susan Kay. Leroux owns them, and Leroux alone.

"Raoul!" I cried. "Raoul!"

I heard his sweet, clear voice and, before even listening to what he was saying, relief flooded my body, and words of love and despair poured out of my lips. Raoul was still speaking, as was the Persian, and I knew that they could only understand me as well as I understood them, which was not at all. I was sobbing; I told them how terrible Erik had been, how he had done nothing but rave, waiting for me to agree to be his wife – of course I could not! Yet I told him I would agree if he would take me back to the Louis-Philippe room, back to the torture chamber, but he had refused. He had threatened all of mankind if I said continued to say no, repeating something about everyone being dead and buried… Then at last he had left, after hours and hours, leaving me alone…

"Hours and hours?" Raoul repeated. The mere sound of his poor voice made the tears come again. "What time is it now?" he continued. "What is the time, Christine?"

I did not even have to consult the ornate clock hanging over the monster's mantle to answer, "It is eleven o'clock! Eleven o'clock, all but five minutes!"

"But which eleven o'clock?"

Which eleven o'clock? What other eleven o'clock was there? "The eleven o'clock that is to decide life or death! He told me so before he went… He is terrible! He is quite mad! He tore off his mask and his yellow eyes shot flames!" This was not entirely true, but it seemed so at the time, and how I needed Raoul to be free, to rescue me! I continued my story, telling the men about the key Erik had given me and his instruction to turn the scorpion if I said yes to marrying him, and the grasshopper if I said no. "Oh, his last words were, 'The grasshopper! Mind the grasshopper! A grasshopper not only turns: it hops! It hops! And it hops jolly high!'"

Now I glanced at Erik's clock, and I saw that the hour had nearly come. If only Raoul could get out of that forest, out of that room with the light, and save me! Time was running out… Now Raoul, sweet Raoul, was telling me something about the grasshopper blowing up the entire opera building and everyone inside… Only one more minute!

"Christine! Turn the scorpion at once!" he cried.

The scorpion… I moved over to the little black caskets and stared at the dark keyholes on each. The tiny key was suddenly very heavy in my hand… To turn the scorpion meant, of course, to marry Erik! Erik, the madman with the face of a corpse, the eyes of Lucifer, and the voice of the Angel of Music! But if it meant poor Raoul would be safe…

I put a hand on the casket and raised the key.

"Christine!" the Persian called loudly, "where are you?"

"By the scorpion," I answered. My voice shook.

"Don't touch it!"

At these words my hand leapt away at its own accord. The Persian must have a plan! Soon Raoul and I would be safe, far from this madman and his opera…

"Don't touch the scorpion," the Persian said again.

I heard Erik returning… I faced the locked door of the torture chamber and hissed a warning. The door opened, and Erik walked slowly toward me. My hands shook, and again the little key seemed to weigh more than it should.

"Erik!" called the Persian's voice through the wall, "It is I! Do you not know me?"

The monster answered without taking his horrible yellow gaze from my face, "So you are not dead in there?Well then, keep quiet." And when the Persian tried to say something else, Erik continued, "Not a word, daroga, or I shall blow everything up. The honor rests with mademoiselle… Mademoiselle has not touched the scorpion," he said ominously, "mademoiselle has not touched the grasshopper, but it is not too late to do the right thing. There," he smiled, pulling open first one container, then the other, "I open the caskets without a key, for I am a trap-door lover and I open and shut what I please and as I please, I open the little ebony caskets; mademoiselle, look a the little dears inside."

He pointed to the very ornate metal creatures that sat in the now-open ebony boxes. The grasshopper and the scorpion… either way I would die. Either way I would be without Raoul… Poor Raoul, stuck in that dreadful forest for an entire day and night! He must be hungry, thirsty… But I could not get in, for Erik had the key.

"Aren't they pretty?" Erik said almost fondly. His maddening eyes were on me again. "If you turn the grasshopper, mademoiselle, we shall all be blown up. There is enough gunpowder under our feet to blow up a whole section of Paris!"

I wanted to ask if that included the torture chamber, but realized the question's stupidity before I had opened my mouth. The grasshopper meant that Raoul would die!

"If you turn the scorpion, mademoiselle, all that powder will be soaked and drowned-"

Drowned! What a hideous word! Raoul had said that the powder was hidden under a trap door in the floor of the torture chamber – certainly he wouldn't be drowned too?

"Mademoiselle, to celebrate our wedding, you shall make a very handsome present to a few hundred Parisians who are at this moment applauding a poor masterpiece of Meyerbeer's – you shall make them a present of their lives. For, with your own fair hands, you shall turn the scorpion, and merrily, merrily, we will be married!"

Wed to that creature! We both knew that if I turned the scorpion I would take my own life in the end. But to save all those people… and perhaps Raoul… yet I saw his terrible eyes again. To be the wife of that monster!

"If, in two minutes, mademoiselle, you have not turned the scorpion, I shall turn the grasshopper. And the grasshopper, I tell you, jumps jolly high!"

And then there was silence. Erik was gazing at me again, challenging me with his dreadful eyes. I chewed my lip until an odd taste filled my mouth… the bitter, metallic flavor of my own blood. The clock on the wall ticked mercilessly. I went over the same options in my mind – death! My death, Raoul's death, everyone's death… I saw the tomb before my eyes… Raoul's sweet face came to me… The memory of the times we had spent together at once cheered and maddened me. I suppose that all along I knew I would reach for the scorpion, but something stayed my hand…

"Two minutes are passed!" Erik said at last, moving across the room. He reached into the casket further from me and touched the metal insect inside with one of his thin, skeletal fingers. "Hop, grasshopper!"

"Erik!" I cried desperately, "do you swear to me, monster, do you swear to me that the scorpion is the one to turn?"

He removed his hand from the other casket, turning his masked face to me, "Yes, to hop at our wedding!"

Hop! He said that the grasshopper would hop, and the opera would explode! If the scorpion were to hop… "Ah, you see! You said hop!"

"At our wedding, ingenious child! The scorpion opens the ball…" he looked pointedly at my hand, frozen a few centimeters from the surface of the scorpion. "But that will do! You won't have the scorpion? Then I turned the grasshopper!"

I felt as if my heart had stopped when he took the little contraption in his white hands and grasped the handle.

"Erik!" I pleaded.

"Enough!"

I heard the Persian calling the monster's name from inside the torture chamber, and I heard Raoul's voice muttering something over and over…

The scorpion was in my hand. "Erik!" I shouted, "I have turned the scorpion!"

Erik put the grasshopper down and watched me as I slowly did what I promised.

The floor shook and I heard a series of explosions beginning.

Erik's eyes widened. "Oops!"

"Oops?" I repeated.

"I had them confused."

The ceiling cracked above my head, and when I saw it begin to crumble I turned and glared at Erik. "Moron!"