Author's Note: This was quite literally written on the spot. Enjoy.

Dream

Free the dream within;
The stars are crying...
A tear
A sigh... escapes from Heaven.
And whispers... a dream.

The old opera house was destitute, forgotten; an ancient memory to those who cared enough to remember. And those who had remembered passed on the tale to their children, and their children's children, until the legend of the Phantom and his love for the Angel of Music became a myth of unrequited love and forgiveness.

Some mourned the loss of the opera house. Anna was one of those few. She was a simple creature, one who did not demand a special interest or attention from others. You could call her appearance pleasing, charming at the most. She was not a beautiful being, and she knew it. But beauty is one of many desirable traits.

She sat on the rotted stage, her plain green frock folding out around her bent form gently. Carrot-red hair was pulled back in a low braid, a customary hairdo for the girl. Her eyes gazed about the shadowy theatre hall with a gentle warmth, as if looking upon an old friend. There was such a history in this opera house. If Anna closed her eyes and listened, she could hear the voices of the past, welling up from the deep places. Softly they came, ghostly whispers of songs and thoughts that existed long ago.

There was a great sadness here. Light grey eyes flickered from sight to sight, noting the dusty figures that were carved from what was once polished gold. She shuddered lightly, feeling the weight of a man in despair fall about her. Caught in a shroud of invisible sorrow, Anna could do nothing but hope to never choke in its constricting hold. She had been here many times before, but never had she felt the sadness of Erik so greatly or for so long.

"You're here, even now, with me and watching me... aren't you, Phantom?" she asked softly, her voice echoing in the empty theatre. There was no reply and she expected none. Erik had been dead for a long 20 years. Yet Anna still felt his presence and knew his spirit lived on, caught between this realm and the next. The cause? His love for Christine.

She knew it was what tied him to the Earth. Anna knew, though how she knew, that was a mystery. It was as if he was trying to contact to the pale, freckled girl of naught but 20. Why a great genius should wish to contact her, she could only suspect. But there was no denying his presence there.

"Why do you hide, Erik?"

Again, there was no answer. Arising from her forlorn perch, she began to tread across the stage. Pacing, back and forth, slowly at first with growing speed. Anna could not wait for this mystery spirit forever. If he wished to pass on information to her, she wished it would be sooner than later. However, something stayed her restless soul; a quiet thought made her feet pause in motion.

I hide for the world is cruel.

Unspoken was the thought, yet in her mind those seven words seemed to be yelled for all the world to hear. Anna wondered if this was naught but a dream, a mere wandering of her mind in the realm of unconsciousness. After all, in both sleeping and waking, she often visited the old opera house. Feeling more and more that what was happening was just a vague occurence of the mind, her feet took her deeper into the stage. Her pale eyes looked up at the crisscrossing wooden planks and bridges, a stagehand's haven, high up and perilous.

And then, Anna did something she had not done in a long time. She began to sing. The tune had words, but none that she could remember. It rose and fell in a mournful way, but only the words could give it life. She merely sang the notes with a passion that grew with every forte and piano. Twirling and swaying softly, her braid was caught up in the shifting air that she created.

I hide for you.

She ignored the thoughts. After all, this was a dream... surely she could control the nature of her dreams. Dancing and singing, giving her soul to the music, Anna forgot to take care that her rhythm and pitch were perfect. Her song became something raw, primal, something that the opera house had heard only once inside its rotting walls.

Yet in that one instance, it had been a man full of brokeness and despair who had sung... not a girl who thought she was dreaming. And that man, whose spirit had been hiding and dwelling in the darkness of the theatre, came out just for this girl. For this simple Anna.

She did not see him, but knew he was there. Her eyes were closed and a bittersweet smile on her lips as she continued to hum the song, becoming more and more distant with the real world or this dream realm; Anna knew not which she was in. She believed his soft touch was on her cheek and it was his hands that stilled her feverish form. The barest of fatherly kisses was placed upon her brow, and this unseen guardian wrapped his ghostly arms about her in an attempt to calm this waking dream.

It seemed to Anna that, if the spirit of Erik lived on, then so did the spirit of his long ago lover, Christine. Quietly she asked, "Where is she?"

The spirit left her as soon as she had asked the question, and Anna mourned the loss of him and her own stupidity. However, he answered her question. Her love did not go as deep or as true as mine... she chose a simpleton and received a knight. I was cheated from her, and she was cheated from a fate that she no longer desired. When Christine died, she left this world, content and free.

This revelation was new to her. Anna supposed that the two of them haunted this theatre with their music and their love. After all, she had fancied that she heard a woman's voice as well as Erik's. But then, she had a very active imagination. Already she seemed to think that, while sleeping, she was visiting the opera house and talking to a ghost. Yes, it must have been her imagination.

"What ties you to this world then, my friend?"

The air between her and wherever the Phantom was was cold and still. Music... music and love.

"But you love Christine!" Anna's reply came quickly, the product of shock and known fact. Erik loved Christine, and might always have.

There are different sorts of love, child. There is a lovers' love, and a love of hobbies or pasttimes, and then there is a love that you give freely because you do not need it in return. It is a love devoid of desire or lust but perhaps even stronger. It is the love a parent feels for their child, and true friends feel for one another.

Her eyes, which she had kept close so that she might stay in this dream as long as possible, opened. A slight tear escaped the lashes, built up from the pressure of her lids together... and Erik's explanation. Looking around but seeing no one, Anna sighed. "If that is true, then it is possible that I love you. Oh, not in the first two ways of course. But... even though we have never truly met, you seem to me the dearest of all friends that I have."

She never received an answer. The coldness in that theatre vanished, and Anna had a strange thought. Perhaps... perhaps that was what Erik needed to hear. Perhaps by proclaiming him a friend, she had set him free. "I promise that I shall always study music... for you, Erik." The promise was almost inaudible, but she felt that his leaving spirit had heard and accepted it. And the girl that stood there, a build up of tears threatening to overflow from her pale grey eyes, sank to the ground slowly and lay her head on the dusty ground. In moments, she was asleep... but a part of her heard a soft thing fall to the ground.

When Anna opened her eyes an hour or two later, she supposed that all that had happened was just a dream. Stretching her arms, she stood up and began to walk off the stage. However, something caught her eye. And when she saw what it was, she tried not to cry.

It was a rose. Not a red rose with a satin black ribbon, for those days of Erik's existence were over. But it was a white rose, a rose of innocence and purity. A rose that fit the love Anna had for Erik and vice versa. Taking it in her hand gently, she smiled down on it. He would always be her dearest friend and mentor, even if he was merely a ghost of the past.

-----

Many years later, when she had been married and had children, Anna took down her journal and recorded that fateful occurence from her past. She smiled wistfully as she put the book and quill down. Her husband had died this past year, but like Erik's spirit, she could feel him still about her, protecting her. No one ever knew about her feelings of the dead, but they could not deny that the old woman was special.

And indeed, I am.