The opera house was a little too quiet that night. The curtains closed on the last show of the evening, leaving the prefomers to slowly dwindle and leave the stage they had lovingly served that night. Sitting alone at her small corner of the stage was Lyra Soul. The brunette was calmly wiping away a day's worth of makeup from her skin, slowly exposing the red undertone left behind from the irritating discount powder the opera house was using in an effort to maximize profits. The young woman scoffed before rubbing a wet washcloth over her face to soothe the burning. The sooner the house started selling out shows as they used to, the better.
"Lyra," someone called. The brunette turned her head to find one of the younger performers standing near the curtains. The younger brunette closed her blue eyes and sighed, "Ethan's here to see you."
"Tell him to hit the road," Lyra responded, her voice lacking emotion. When White Hildan opened her eyes to try and give a response, the older actress waved her off. "I do not wish to speak to a man who cannot be bothered to pay for a ticket and watch me preform and yet come crawling to me with a weak excuse for his absence." Her hazel eyes narrowed as she glared at herself in her vanity mirror. "I have no desire to associate with a coward of a man."
White raised an eyebrow but ended up caving in under the older actress's eyes. "Very well then. I will simply tell him that you have gone home." She then disappeared beyond the curtain, leaving Lyra alone in the backstage.
The young woman sighed and stood up from her worn stool. Her throat burned from singing five shows in one day. Usually they would only play two, one in the morning and one in the evening. However with the recent financial troubles of the house, the girls found themselves working overtime. The men had been given some sort of notice and had understudies that would fill the odd numbered showings, meaning they got paid to work half as much. The women had no such luck. Their roles were supposedly too important to cast another to play a few of the shows each day. Such were the pains of being in showbiz, she supposed.
A low creak caught Lyra's attention. The young actress ceased her efforts in pulling her hair free of the monstrous curls they were trapped in to turn and look around. The sound seemed to have come from near her very own vanity. The brunette looked to her small space to find a splash of color in the dusty room. Upon her vanity perched a single red rose, the petals opened ever so slightly, as if it had just bloomed. A smile moved to her face as Lyra slowly walked over and picked it from the tabletop.
Just as there had been every night the past month, a simple note was attached to the flower. The small piece of parchment held only the same three words in a tight cursive hand. "From an admirer," she whispered to herself, the smile growing on her face. Ever since the house had started maximizing schedules in an effort to earn money to restore the aging building, there had been a flower placed on her vanity after the final curtain of every night. It brought a bit of joy to the stress of working so hard for so little.
Her hazel eyes drifted to the singular clock on the wall only for her face to pale. It was nearly an hour after the show had ended and she was still exactly where she had been the whole time. Tucking the rose into her modest handbag, Lyra threw on her coat and scurried for the back exit. She still had to catch a ride home before it hit midnight and travel became too dangerous. She left with a slamming door and an empty opera house behind her, not a sound to be heard.
From the shadows of the backstage came a flicker of movement. A shape peeled away from a neglected corner to reveal a man in all black standing near the very room Lyra had been occupying. The man ran a hand through his red hair and smiled under his mask. To see the young woman smile like that made him feel important, as if he had actually brought joy to someone once again. The redhead turned and reluctantly walked away from the vanity with a ballpoint pen clutched between his fingertips.
He ducked under a metal pipe to enter an abandoned stairwell leading to the empty space under the stage. His feet stopped to allow him to cast a longing glance over his shoulder at the stage before quietly disappearing in the darkest corners of the opera house.
Author's Note: A very short drabble to fulfill another AU prompt on tumblr, this one being the Phantom of the Opera. I am very sad to say that I have never seen any sort of adaption of the tale. The closest I can get is that one episode of R.L Stine's Goosebumps that was on a while ago, and it's been years since I saw that. Looked up the 1986 musical after reading the original novel's summary on Wikipedia and I can't really say that I see the story as romantic. The Phantom of the Opera may have his sweet moments, but he did try to murder people and hold a woman against her will. Sorry pal, but that's not my idea of a love story. Therefore I chose a Silver who was...a lot more phantom in execution. At least no one's getting killed! :D