Disclaimer is in the first chapter!
Thanks to those that reviewed and put this as an alert, but please a review would be awesome too. Just to clear something up before I continue, this is not simply a future fic, but you'll see what I mean. Enjoy and review please.
"Bienvenue á L'Opera Garnier! Je m'appelle Kari…" A perky blond woman welcomed the group of 30 tired-eyed jet-lagged students in French before continuing in English, "Welcome to the Opera Garnier, my name is Kari and I'll be your program director for the duration of your stay here. Now before I give you the tour and assign your rooms, how about we introduce ourselves…Starting with you, the young man attached to the young lady at the hip." Kari pointed to a tall and pale youth with a mop of curly brown hair.
"Umm…I'm Eric. Hi. I'm a pre-law major at Cornell and my girlfriend Christine," he nodded to the petite Asian girl in his arms, "made me come." The girl smacked the arm crossing over her collarbone lightly.
"Right, I'm Christine and a pre-med major at Cornell and I wanted to see Paris." Christine stated in a breath. The brunette girl next to them introduced herself as Carly from Georgetown and the introductions continued so on until they came up to Lio. Thirty pairs of eyes stared waiting for the olive-skinned girl to say her name, it was unnerving.
Lio watched lazily as the introductions continued, she leaned heavily on her large indigo luggage that was propped carefully against the faded pink marble wall. Despite her exhaustion of a nine hour flight, Lio couldn't help but be in awe over the faded gold and brass figures against the dingy pink marble walls. The young woman allowed herself to absorb every bit of detail to memory from the gold painted decaying wood of the doorframe to the little hidden alcoves behind the pillars screaming to be explored. She had treaded carefully on the dull marble floors fearing a greater damage to them, Lio was even so careful as to control her breathing as though the condensation from her breath would cause a greater harm to the opera house.
"Mademoiselle?" Kari's voice took Lio out of her thoughts. Kari barely kept in her alarm at where the younger woman seemed to look and cleared her throat again hoping to distract from the small hidden alcove.
"Oh…I'm Lio from USC, a theatre and film studies major and I figured that the Opera Garnier is as good as any to get used to theatre." Lio stated simply.
"Lio? I'm sorry but I don't see your name on the roster." Confusion lit upon Kari's face and Lio wrinkled her nose with a sigh.
"Because I prefer Lio over Calliope," Lio replied shortly, she hated her given name with a passion mostly because of the expectations attached to it. Her entire family was talented, her mother and brother had incredible voice talents, while her sister and father shared a talent in acting, it was only Lio that preferred the life outside of the spotlight, and she could neither sing arias like her mother nor act on the stage like her father and would rather focus her talents on creation. Lio loved art with a passion and would only participate in the drama club to create the sets and costumes; but her mother disapproved in any of Lio's production aspirations and hoped that this trip would show Lio that there was no future outside of the spotlight. "The listing will say Calliope Foster, not Lio; but please don't call me Calliope."
"Okay, now that we've got everyone introduced, how about we set up the room assignments and perhaps take the tour of the opera house." Lio inwardly groaned in relief as Kari read off the names and assignments of each person, there were about 18 girls and 12 boys, and about four serious couples.
As Kari led the group to the sleeping quarters she explained that much of house had been converted and changed to have suitable living quarters and while the design was kept in mostly the same way as it had been built all those years ago. She also explained the general rules of the Opera House and specific places not to go, especially not the cellars or the levels under L'Opera Garnier.
"Why, is the Phantom of the Opera gonna get us?" One of the boys joked eliciting a few chuckles from those that knew that stories. Kari turned and gave a tight smile.
"No. Whatever gave you that idea?"
"Well, this is the infamous L'Opera Garnier, where the Phantom of the Opera is said to have lived." Another boy, Jeff, stated simply.
"Well be that as it may, the lower levels of the opera house are off limits because of the labyrinths of catacombs down there. Whatever was written in fanciful stories is just that, stories. I'm warning you away from there because it is very dangerous down there and there isn't enough man-power to retrieve you if you get lost, so let's avoid any mishaps okay?" Kari continued on with her tour as though the conversation never happened. To her mind its best to just forget the whole Phantom of the Opera all together, no use getting people hyped up for nothing. And hopefully the matter with the girl, Lio, would be nothing more than a passing fancy.
Meanwhile, Lio soaked everything up and immediately took pictures to send home. "Hey, why so many, now? We're gonna be living here for the year." Carly inquired next to her.
"Wanna annoy my mother; she'd been dying to see this place." Lio replied to her new roommate with a grin, "If I send these pictures home, I can barely imagine how jealous she'd be."
"But didn't your parents pay for your trip?" The girl was baffled at why anyone would want to try and torture their parents if they were the ones who sent their child on the trip.
"Hardly, I worked my ass off for three years just to go on this program. This doesn't include the extra loans I had to take out for school." Lio gave a wry grin to the girl. "They didn't think I could do it on my own, so this..."Lio swept a hand around them, "is my sort of 'told you so' for not believing me."
"Really, that's how my Dad can be, but he paid for everything," an auburn haired girl by the name of Faye chimed in. Lio, Carly, Faye and another girl, Anne were settling their things in their room relishing in the fact that they were in a strange new place with new people. Based upon first impressions, Lio felt rather comfortable with her roommates and hoped that they all would get along. Being from a rather sheltered life, Lio had never had roommates aside from her sister and technically family didn't count.
"Bonsoir tout le monde," Kari knocked on their open door only to receive blank stares…apparently none of them spoke French, "That means 'Good evening everyone.' I guess none of you took languages huh?" Four heads shook 'no'. "Okay, well then it's a good thing this program helps develop your language skills. Anyway I just wanted to tell you that dinner is ready in the kitchen if you're hungry, but you'd better rest up there's jetlag to deal with tomorrow." For a moment her eyes lingered on Lio who was furiously typing away on her bed with a laptop covered with sticker precariously balanced atop her knees. 'So it seems the moment of curiosity has passed…good.' Kari thought as she waited for them to follow her to the kitchen.
Well I hope you enjoyed this one enough to leave a review. Preferably a lengthy one as your comments are very important to me and they help me develop as a writer. Thanks to reviews and general readers for taking the time!