A/N: Well, I have more time on my hands than I thought I would, so I decided to update something new. This was an essay topic for English. The topic was "Write an essay of 500 words with the sentence 'The sounds lingered briefly in the air, almost wistfully. Then came the expected roar and the accompanying chaos.' in it." Very obviously, the first thing that came to mind was to do the chandelier crash from 'Phantom of the Opera'. It isnt really a story as such, but rather more of a description of that fateful moment in the story we all know and love so well.
An Operatic Apocalypse
Everybody looked up, craning their necks to see out of morbid fascination. For a moment, everything was still, the whole scene seemed frozen in time, the fear and tension in the cavernous auditorium so great that it was almost tangible, but nothing happened, no-one moved.
Then, a split second later, came the sound everyone had been waiting for. A slight metallic ping, almost melodious and pleasant in sound, as if out of deference towards it's location. The sounds lingered briefly in the air, almost wistfully. Then came the expected roar and the accompanying chaos.
Screams of terror filled the air as the great chandelier came crashing down at an angle, headed for the stage. It's cabling, thick as a man's arm, ripped through the ceiling, tearing great chunks of frescoed plaster out with it which fell into the stalls below to the accompaniment of the terrified screams of the opera goers and the tortured screams of twisting metal. People, instantly released from their strange, almost hypnotic, hold of a moment before, began to stampede towards the exits, scrambling over chairs and jostling each other in their panic to escape the impending carnage.
And then the cables which had held the mighty chandelier, not built to withstand the magnitude of the forces currently imposed upon them, snapped with a resounding noise like an amplified gunshot. Three tons of crystal, glass and metal hung suspended in the air for a moment, kept there by nothing more than the unbelievable enormity of the display, before they arced down towards the stage and slammed into the front of it, just clearing the orchestra pit, with an almighty crash and the sounds of wood snapping, crystal and metal twisting, and, above it all, the high soprano screams of the last of the terrified people in their hurry to escape could be heard. Then the gas mains exploded and all hell broke loose.
For an instant the auditorium was plunged into blackness as the gas supply was cut off, then sporadic flashes of flame lit up various areas of the vast auditorium like hell's fireworks. The stage was engulfed in flames and the force of the explosions that shuddered through the Opera House smashed windows with it's savage might as the fire moved rapidly outwards from it's epicenter.
While the fires spread out and everyone fled in a panic, contrary to all sensibility and expectation, a handful of people made their way further into the depths of the fiery building with grim determination. For years they had endured the iron-fisted rule of a madman who had no rightful claim to authority. Murders, even. But this was now the proverbial last straw.
He had gone too far and tipped the delicate balance in which the Opera House had hitherto existed. Now, he would be made to pay for his crimes. Now, they would not rest until they had found and ended, once and for all, the reign of terror of the Phantom of the Opera.