Alive Again;
A Phantom of the Opera Story
By
Stephanie McGee
Disclaimer: I do not own or presume to have rights over any of previously created characters in this story. It is not my wish to infringe upon the works of Andrew Lloyd Webber or Gaston Leroux, merely to expand upon them.
"It's over now, the Music of the Night!"
As the words I never dreamed I would utter fell from my lips I could feel my heart dying in my chest. How could this be real? Christine, my beloved songbird, my angel, was leaving me once and for all. I could hear her sweet voice as she floated away in the skiff, singing to that clod Raoul the words I so longed to hear.
The shattering of glass wasn't even enough to drown out her voice. It echoed in my head as I thrust the leaden candelabra through the mirrors that lined my lair. One after another, shard after shard, this one act of rage was all I had left in the world. I reveled in the smashing of my image, the face that had brought me a lifetime of pain.
My chest was heaving when I came to the final mirror. Without hesitating I raised the velvet curtain and destroyed the last bearer of my effigy, knowing full well what I would find behind it's callous exterior.
Many years ago, when I first came to live at the opera house, the place that became my magnificent lair was but a vacuous, moldering expanse. I shaped it and crafted it in my image, made it inhabitable. I designed the organ where I composed my magnum opus, Don Juan Triumphant! I implemented a series of clever and elaborate traps for any would be intruders.
As for the space behind the mirror; I can't explain why but I never touched it. I discovered it one night while I was plotting exactly where my sleeping arrangements would be. As I was inspecting the wall some loose stones gave way and revealed a wide and empty cavern. Looking up I could see a sewer grate from the above street. Looking below there was a sharp drop off, a cliff almost, that fell about twenty feet.
There was something sacred about that place. The idea of suicide was never far from my mind, and I thought that if I were to die by my own hand one day, what better place to do it than a mysterious hole in the bowels of the most magnificent city on earth, where no one would ever find my remains? So I left it alone and barricaded it with my mortal enemy; my reflection.
And here I was again, greeted by the smell of rancid water from the darkness. I breathed it in deeply, listening to the last lilting notes of Christine's voice as they faded away. Then I stepped mechanically over the broken glass and breached the short distance to the drop off. I didn't look back. I didn't weep. I walked unceremoniously over the edge and waited for the impact.