Dedication: AoGA, for being the awesome sauce people they are. :)
Epic
by Autumn Win-Dow
He could feel his long, black nails sink into the crimson velvet padding of his armrests.
Despite the ensured safety and comfort of the theatre seat he was in, Rei felt tense. His back was stiff and unwilling to relax – to sink into the softness of the red velvet cushion – and his thin, bony hands held the armrests as if he was clinging onto his life.
As if his own life was worth saving.
Rei Serio lacked an idea as to why he had bought himself a ticket to The Phantom Of The Opera. He had never possessed an appreciation for dramatic musical theatre, and he usually held no concern for the Alice Festival performances which the Somatic Ability Class held every year. He felt that he was unable to see the immediate change of character required for an actor to play their role – he was not naïve to fall for their professional acting, and to believe that they were in fact the very people they were playing.
Despite his lack of interest in acting, he was definite about one vital term used in the art of acting.
Ironically, he wasn't able to be fooled by the persona they undertook in order to enrapture the audience.
However, the longer Rei watched the characters roam the stage and sing with their intended passion, the more he felt absorbed by the musical. He couldn't help but see himself in the position of the Phantom. Of course, he was able to wholeheartedly empathise with the man who wore a mask to hide his inward ugliness and his unforgivable sins, and longed for forgiveness and small recognition by someone else.
Rei could see himself in the Phantom; the angel of music. He loathed the idea, but it was true and undeniable. Both he and the Phantom were destined to go to hell.
The Phantom is no angel. Neither are you.
From the impending fear, Rei started to cough violently. As he was seated in his own box seat to the right of the stage, no one seemed to notice his intense coughing fit. He could taste the blood in his mouth, and feel a drop of the liquid spread across his thin, blue lower lip.
The horrid taste of terrible, metallic rust.
He raised a thin finger and wiped his lips, and the deep crimson liquid stood out brightly against his white skin, and he could vaguely hear the impending sounds of the trumpets and the timpani resonate throughout the expansive theatre. Rei knew that he didn't have much time left, and he considered the notion to be the reason why he – sick and dizzy – instinctively chose to purchase a box seat ticket to one of the most renowned musicals in history.
His breathing was starting to become heavy with strain, and in surrender, his back finally hit the seat as he gripped his coat tightly – unfortunately, none of his actions did anything to ease the pain he was feeling.
After ten minutes of his symptoms acting up, he began to breathe normally again. However, they had not left him without a trace, as he had broken into a cold sweat and the taste of rust still sat in his mouth. Rei's eyes shifted back to the stage, where the scene of the Final Lair was being performed. The main soprano, Christine, was running away in fear while being clad in a large wedding dress, followed by the Phantom in all of his ugliness – hairless, scarred and eternally distorted. She was disgusted at what she had seen, and he was pleading for her love.
The scene had forced Rei to rethink his past memories – how he had finally been acknowledged by none other than Izumi Yukihira, and the happiness he had felt as a normal boy his age.
Until he killed Izumi with his own hands.
It was the very event that killed all the kindness in his soul – creating a cold, merciless monster.
He couldn't help but question the final kiss at the end of the musical, when despite her bitter feelings towards him, she still kisses and 'forgives' him. Rei was without a doubt sure that in fact, the Phantom wasn't forgiven, and that his death for his sins was precedence.
He asked himself incredulously, what was the power of a kiss to ensure someone's forgiveness? Was it really that easy to be forgiven for sins as terrible as the Phantom's? Murder, torture, imprisonment… was a kiss really enough to erase them out of memory?
No, he immediately answered himself, no, it isn't that easy. And it never will be.
With a trembling hand, he weakly removed the white mask on his face. Upon his entrance, people had assumed that he was dressing up for the event – not knowing the truth behind it. Rei stared at the mask for a moment, before clicking his tongue in irritation and tossing it onto the thick red carpet in front of him. He was disgusted at the small mask which had covered his face just a second ago – at the object which, like the Phantom, seemed to segregate him from normal people.
From the start, he was never a normal person. Rei Serio was cursed with the ability to kill, and in turn, was being killed because of it.
And he had never chosen to have this ability. It was the very ability which turned him into a killing machine, of whom didn't deserve to be forgiven.
Rei felt the consequences finally coming to effect.
With the harmonic fading of the orchestra in the background, Rei leaned his lead on the seat and sighed breathily. He felt his heart clench, and his tight fists relax. Ever so gradually, his back started to slide down the seat, but he made no effort to change his posture.
Before closing his dark eyes, he remembered that there was one difference between him and the Phantom.
Rei 'Persona' Serio did not have an ending worth calling epic.
No kiss, no forgiveness, no decision, no acknowledgement.
He was going to die alone in the massive theatre, leaving behind only a small, white mask – which would only pass off as a piece of inaccurate costuming for the epic play.
Lights out, curtains close.