A/N: As much as I wish these worlds were mine, credit must be given to the respective creators of the Phantom of the Opera realm from which I have borrowed so much, and also to Lewis Carroll and his brilliant story, Alice in Wonderland. Special thanks to my beta and muse, RandomBattleCry. She's been through so much with me on this story and I cannot thank her enough. It's been two years since I could resume work on it and it is for her that I am posting it now. Thanks, Ran!
Behind the Looking Glass: Down the Rabbit Hole
Glass scattered the floor where he had broken the mirror. It glittered in the candle light like a shattered soul. The lake bore away his heart and the mob quickly approached. He had no choice but to go forward into the darkness of an uncertain future. Risking a last glance at his sanity's downfall, he stepped through the mirror's frame… and fell.
The drop was startling, though not very deep. It sloped slightly and he slid to a stop on his back in the middle of a spacious cavern. His head was spinning and he closed his eyes against a wave of nausea, cursing himself. It had been too long since he had examined that passage, a foolish mistake on his part. It was common for the rise and fall of water to open fissures in the rock; but he never actually believed that he would need to make use of that particular escape route.
The nausea passed, yet a cold sweat prickled his skin. The feeling was similar to being doused with hot water while standing in a freezing wind. He opened his eyes and gazed at the stars above. They winked at him through a canopy of strange trees with large heart shaped leaves.
He blinked in wonder.
There was a forest beneath his underground lair, and a beautiful night sky illuminated by the smiling quarter moon. In the distance he could hear the music of a roaring waterfall. Everything around him seemed to glow with an internal light that defied the darkness of night. It was an ethereal illumination that was soft, beautiful, and lively. He half expected to see fairies darting about in the trees that danced to the timing of the twinkling stars -surely this must be their realm.
How odd that the realization was so easily accepted.
Beside him, the flowers began to sing in shrill voices. He cringed at the noise, yet he imagined flowers would sound like this if given voice. Idly, he considered giving them voice lessons. They sounded like miniature Carlottas, warming up for a night of operatic temper tantrum.
It was a moment before he realized the sound of laughter was his own. He could not remember the last time that he had laughed.
Had he ever laughed?
A small, haughty voice chimed in his ear. "What is so terribly amusing?"
He turned his head and smiled at the indignant red rose.
"I've gone mad," he chuckled. "She's left me and I've finally cracked!"
"Well, be off and be mad someplace else," she cried, shaking her thorny arm at him threateningly. "I am trying to sing!"
"Keep trying," he retorted, scrambling to his feet, "and perhaps you'll succeed sometime before you wilt."
She picked up a small stone and threw it at him. "Be gone, you ugly Bandersnatch!"
He strode away from the furious flower, shaking, though he could not tell if it was amusement or the odd chilled feeling. Barely taking five steps, his attention was arrested by a sound quite different from the floral chorus. Clutching a hand to his heart, he slowly turned.
Sitting on a very large mushroom in the center of the flowerbed was a young woman. Her back was to him and dark, unruly curls cascaded past her shoulders. She sang a nonsensical tune with an angelic voice. He knew that voice well though it currently lacked emotion or even innocence. It was merely… precise.
"'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves," she was singing to something in her lap, "did gyre and gimble in the wabe."
"Christine," he breathed, and even his voice trembled.
She looked up at the sound of his voice and raised the object in her lap to eye level.
"Is it the Jabberwocky, Cheshire Le Chaton?" she whispered fearfully.
He noted that the object was a black and purple striped plush kitten bearing a malicious grin. It was rather cute aside from the grin, though obviously sewn together by a child's hand. The copper button eyes were too large and the seams were ripping which probably gave it the hideous smile.
"What is a Jabberwocky," he said as he smiled indulgently upon the girl, "or a Bandersnatch for that matter?"
Never had he encountered such strange names, and yet somehow everything he discovered here was accepted for the dream that it was. It never occurred to him to be angry or truly confused. Perhaps he had died and this was the point between heaven and hell. He smiled at the thought of his love for Christine being the death of him. At least then he would have done one noble thing in his life. At least there was music here, even if it was strange.
Surprisingly, she laughed and clapped her hands together. The cat fell forgotten into the now silent flowers.
"Oh, the Jabberwocky would never ask such a question," she cried in delight. "I was fearful because only he says that strange name. I am not Christine. I really don't know who I am or if I am anyone, but everyone that is no one calls me Lotte. What or who are you if not the Jabberwock?"
She turned to him then and he nearly screamed in horror. The likeness was his darling Christine, only it wasn't her. Something was odd, different, wrong - it appeared as though the wax replica he made had sprung to life. She gazed steadily upon his unmasked visage with large, permanently startled brown eyes. They were empty, soulless eyes that gleamed with a bright edge of insanity.
"You're not real," he said numbly.
"Of course she is," a small female voice mewed, and he looked down in its direction. The black plush kitten was sitting at his feet licking a paw with detached interest. Seams, button eyes, and wicked grin were gone; cloth was now sleek fur, the purple giving the black fur a blue sheen in the moonlight.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
She smiled up at him and replied with a purr. "What are you?"
He blinked. The cat had smiled at him, and the smile was… maniacal. It was absolutely beautiful, chilling, and completely catlike… if a cat would smile. Could a cat smile? Even so, it was simply crazy on a small sleek kitten. He refused to believe that it was possible.
"What am I?" He pondered the question. "I'm mad, I think. Or dead. Maybe both."
"I am Cheshire Le Chaton," the kitten nodded but persisted to smile at him, "and you must never call this girl by the name you mentioned. Here, she is known as Lotte. Here she has forgotten that other name because that other name does not come here anymore. Lotte is all that is left because that other name left Lotte. I don't blame her, really."
The kitten suddenly jumped onto his cape and scampered up it with tiny needle claws digging into his legs, arms, and shoulder. "We welcome the mad," she purred into his ear in a tiny whisper or hiss. "All are mad here, but the Red Queen redefines madness. Beware of her and forget your name. The Jabberwocky feeds on our names for the Red Queen. The mad wench will send it after you if you're not careful."
"I have no name worth taking," he replied distractedly, staring intently upon the Christine likeness, "but you may call me Erik."
His mind was spinning, trying to make sense of what the kitten was saying…trying to ignore that a kitten was actually saying it. It seemed this was a place of imagination… a true dream world. So maybe he was dead after all.
Lotte continued to smile at him and he noted a similarity between her grin and the cat's.
"What is this place, Cheshire Le Chaton?"
The creature jumped down and wound herself around his feet several times before purring a reply.
"It is the place between dreams and nightmares. When you gaze into a mirror, have you ever wondered what your reflection thinks about you?"
"No," he nearly growled, carefully stepping across the flower bed to approach the girl. She was wearing a pale blue dress that appeared more appropriate for a child than a young woman of her age. He had always disliked how Christine looked in pastel colors.
Cheshire Le Chaton flexed the claws of her right paw and examined them closely. "Well, you should think about it once in awhile. Every coin has two faces," she chimed.
Erik momentarily ignored the feline as he stared at the soulless creature before him. Slowly, he lowered himself to the mushroom beside her and reached out a trembling hand.
Caressing the frozen dimple upon her cheek he said softly, "Little Lotte thought of everything and nothing."
"She's wasn't always like this," the kitten giggled. "Like you… she's broken."
He raised his eyebrows inquiringly. "What do you mean?"
She gracefully leaped into his lap and shoved her head underneath his chin. Absently, he began to run his long fingers through her soft fur. Purring deeply, she placed a paw upon his shoulder and dusted it off.
"Do you see the dust of broken glass?" She tilted her head to one side. Her face was the night; stars for eyes and the quarter moon for a grin.
"I do," he frowned at the tiny shards that now made the foolish flowers sparkle. They twisted and turned, admiring themselves in the moonlight until a daisy sliced open a leaf. They all screamed dramatically and began picking the glass off each other like fleas.
Cheshire Le Chaton howled with laughter, then suddenly grew as calm as the eye of a storm.
"Only a broken spirit could enter our world through a broken mirror," she said soberly, sharpening her claws upon his knee.
"That makes no sense," he began to argue, but a hand gently grasped his arm.
"Nothing really makes sense here," the girl beside him reached out and grasped his arm. Her voice and touch were gentle and very alive. "You'd do well not too think about things too much. You'll go mad, or sane. Here, one is as bad as the other."
He turned to look at her and started, falling off the mushroom. A sharp pain stabbed into his backside and he yelped.
Erik had never yelped in his life.
The girl held out a delicate hand and helped him to his feet. The rose diva was slightly rumpled, and shaking in fury. He never imagined that flowers would be capable of the profanity she was shrieking. The other flowers had obviously not imagined so either, for the violets blushed and the brave pansies attempted to drown out the soprano rose by singing in a rather weak alto.
The girl frowned at the angry rose, a cold expression in eyes that had been filled with a blank innocence moments before. Calmly, she reached down and pulled the screaming bud from its stem. It melted like heated wax in her hand and the other flowers shrank back in horror. The pansies began to cry.
Erik pulled two large thorns out of the seat of his pants and glanced at them briefly before returning his gaze to the girl. He had never seen Christine perform such a malicious act. It was like witnessing a violent murder and his stomach twisted painfully. It wasn't so much the act as his innocent angel coldly snuffing out a tiny life like a mere candle flame. Cheshire Le Chaton was rolling on her back mewling with laughter.
The girl stared at her petal-stained hands and said softly, "Erik, what are you doing here? I thought you were dead."
"Christine," he whispered hoarsely around the knot in his throat, "please tell me what is going on."
She turned her unhappy face toward his and he knew that he had not imagined it. Christine, the woman he worshipped with every breath, stared at him from large, pain filled eyes. He feared this woman sitting before him who could don her soul like the mask he usually wore.
"When you've arrived you can only ever slightly leave…" she murmured to herself before turning her eyes up to the savage unmasked visage gazing with despairing love into her face. "Erik, please don't call me by that name here." Her eyes were wide and she whispered urgently. "There are things that you don't yet understand. Whatever I may seem, call me anything but Christine."
"What would you have me call you?" He raised his hand to hers, still upon his arm.
She smiled weakly at him. "I remember, once upon a time, a misty underground lake in another world that lay behind another looking glass. I should have learned the first time, but I've always been a dream chaser. You may call me Lotte… like everything else. Hello C.C."
Instead of purring a greeting like the kitten wanted, the fur on her neck stood on end and began to jump in place, hissing and spitting at the dark forest.
In the distance, a low growling voice began to sing. The sound seemed to crawl like a snake across the small clearing and the flowers paled. The cheerful darkness brightened slightly, like the light just before dawn that bleached away star washed color and made the world appear a bleak, faded image.
"Christine Daae," it hissed along Erik's spine, "always with her head in the clouds…"