Once Upon Another Time

by singformeangelofmusic

The chandelier has fallen, decisions been made clear, and yet...the curtain does not close but raises to an entirely new adventure. Christine seeks out her Phantom weeks before she is to be wed and re-enters the mirror and the world of her forlorn mentor. Shortly after when her life is left in ruins by the rumored Opera Ghost, where will the would-be countess turn?

1. Prologue

Prologue

My eyes open to unfamiliar surroundings, I am disoriented. I slowly lift my body from the spot in which I had been lying as I slowly recall the night before. The cold stone floor is rough beneath my bare feet as I drag them forward in the darkness.

I remembered.

I recalled the sweet but rough masculine scent, soft blue eyes, the low light of a million candles, and the tingle of gentle fingertips across my bare skin. Behind my fluttering eyelids flashed the memory of the way he touched me, the way he breathed my name, the way he loved me… While desperate emotions pulsed through my veins regret for returning for my angel was not one of them.

I was Christine Daae, the promising new diva of the Opera Populair, and I was missing. The act of vanishing was one I had become familiar with since I met him. It was merely a month since the fateful night the chandelier fell and rained death and fear upon the Opera Populair and already I had journeyed into the night once more. I sang softly as I searched for the unearthly voice that had disappeared as if it truly belonged to a phantom:

Who was that shape in the shadows? Who's is the face in the mask?

I echoed my words from song's past and waited for a soothing reply. But the stone walls reverberated nothing. I stood in silence…cold, bewildered, and more than anything alone.