Joni Oliphant

'05.May.19

3

Erik's Loneliness

There was a jack-of-all-trades living three floors below the old Metropolitan Opera House in New York. No one save the one who brought him there and his pupils knew of his existence and never questioned how he came to live there or even cared to take notice if he had any feelings at all. All of those who knew the legend all assumed that he was a cold, heartless gargoyle and that if they talked about him behind his back that he would not even know. There were, as there always are, those who would call him a Phantom or a Ghost because he was rarely seen; that never stopped them from believing the old legends mind you.

Sitting surrounded by candlelight, he let out a frustrated cry as another auditioned to replace the rôle of Prima Donna. The only way that Erik even allowed this to happen was that the one that he pined for, the one that he knew he could never have, the one who was a taboo from a beast such as him, had passed on and no way in seven universes was he going to let the horrendous singing of La Carlotta fill the Opera house with her hideous voice; not if he could prevent it anyways. The late Christine Daaé had kept singing even though she knew her days were numbered. Only a few days before she inevitably passed did she resign from the Opera house. This thus brings us to the present.

Erik was sitting in his usual chair in Box Five and used his exceptionally good eyesight to view those down below and the orchestra. Now auditioning was a very scantily dressed woman, no older than twenty-five, Erik had estimated. Shifting his eyes through the half-mask falling on M. Reyer and Mme. Giry (both of whom had sensed his presence) gave a tilt of his head and jabbed a finger at the girl and then to the exit. He made it very clear to the girl (later found out to be Kelly Gordon) that he, the composer, did not approve of her "rich-girl, stuck-up, snobby attitude and her sluttish clothes when he had forcibly kicked her out of the theatre and told her that if she returned again ever, he would not hesitate in pulling out his Punjab Lasso. "Thank you for getting rid of that…disturbance, M. Reyer, Mme. Giry." He said and then fell silent.

Apparently, Kelly Gordon was the great-great-great-granddaughter of Charles George Gordon, a British general who died defending the city of Khartoum in Sudan and thought that because that made her famous enough she could become a star with her horrible singing. M. Reyer and Mme. Giry bowed slightly, letting him know they had heard him and they awaited the next untrained, soprano-want-to-be. Consequently, the next one happened to be Catherine Willows, a former CSI member, but she lost her job whilst she was helping Warrick on a case. She had tried her best to please the composer and those in the theatre, but like Kelly, she too was forced out.

Erik was not going to be backing down anytime soon, Mme. Giry had noted, his willing nature and self-determination was able to drive him on with very little sleep, and he held auditions everyday from midnight to midnight of everyday until he found that one person to be his love's replacement. He was getting more depressed by the day, his usually soothing voice to the auditioned persons was now beginning to sound scary, and he never thought that he would find the ONE. He had changed since Christine Daaé entered his life. He was not as lonely and uncompassionate when he was around her…unless for some reason the blasted Viscount Raoul de Chagny followed her down to his lair. Then jealousy would consume him, but that was very long ago.

Sighing heavily, he commanded the next auditioned person to sing a piece from his work "Don Juan Triumphant". Sora Winchester smirked as she stood at the edge of the stage and belted the entire song starting from "You have come here…" to "…past all thought/of 'if' or 'when'-/no use resisting/abandon thought/and let the dream/descend". When she had finished, Erik was aghast that a Japanese descendant would know any of his songs start to finish. He was so shocked with her that he dismissed all of the other would-be-auditioned persons and made Sora stay behind for the rest of the day. He was so self-confident that he did not know that his former enemy was standing at the entrance of his Metropolitan Opera House. He snarled viciously at Raoul and told him to get out or he would not mind killing him. That idea would have worked too, but Sora jumped in front of Erik to try to stop him.

Erik thought back to that one evening when he had forced Christine to make her choice, him or Raoul, and could not help but smirk at the similarities that this…Sora Winchester had to his Christine. Raoul had only come by one other time, and that was to inform Him of Her death. Sora was immediately clinging onto Raoul and he was whispering sweet nothings into her ear making her blush a bright red crimson. Erik watched as the pair walked out and all the while walking back to his lair below, he kept thinking about Her. Maybe She was the One who could free him from harming himself and others…maybe, just maybe she was the reincarnation of Christine Daaé. He could only hope. Their figures had finally vanished completely and he was left to himself. Reaching his lair, he took out a stick of incense and burned it at Christine's shrine that he had built. He just sat there for what he thought only a few minutes, in reality it had been five hours thinking about the past and what he was going to do differently this time around to prevent Sora from falling in love with Raoul.

Sora crept back into the Opera house and made her way down the hallways to her dressing and living room. The "date" with Raoul had been more taxing than she would have imagined and she needed a nice, hot shower. While she was in there, Erik decided to enter her mind and sing in her head, like what he did before with Christine. He did that for several months and in the meanwhile, she had stopped seeing Raoul, much to Erik's relief, and was starting to become his, and only his. On one of Sora and Raoul's "dates" Sora was talking about how great of a teacher the "Phantom" really was and kept telling Raoul to give him a second chance, but Raoul stubbornly refused. Well, now he has the Punjab Lasso around his neck and is beginning to realize that Erik was only a dangerous, dark being when he was forced into a corner by the rest of them to become the Phantom. He only realized that it was because of people like him that Erik was suffering so much grief and despair, being known as a living corpse, it must have had it's affect on Erik for a long time, Raoul thought, judging by the way he reacts to it.

Raoul was dying and he knew that this was his only chance, if he even had one, to be forgiven and, at the top of his lungs, shouted "I'm sorry!" before taking his last breath and plunging into the cold water of the lake. Erik had reflected back on what he had just done and thought maybe, in the deepest recess of his brain that he regretted killing the Viscount, but when he reflected upon it, he found nothing. No guilt, no remorse, no regret, no nothing. And all because of how he and his "kind" treated a gargoyle like me, he thought.

THE END