For many years, I had drifted. Above me was the light that I could not reach. Below me was the darkness that I somehow feared. All around me was a cold, gray mist. I hung suspended, trapped. I was nothing more than a package of memories and feelings. I had only yesterday, for tomorrow ceased to exist. Sometimes, the mist would lift just enough for me to realize that my home was falling down around me even more as it aged. Resigned to my fate, I stayed where I was. A third light appeared, a dim orange. I was pulled towards it before I could even think about it.
The black mask had fallen several feet away from the unconscious girl. Clinging to it was a droplet of blood from a scratch on her forehead. The small droplet of blood fell to the stone and seemed to sizzle.
Another drop of blood oozed out of a crack in the tile. If she had been conscious, she would have screamed, for it was as though the floor had started to bleed. The small droplet had turned into a pool. Out of the center of the blood rose a human heart. The thing shuddered as if trying to beat, but it gave up. Muscles, organs, bones, and finally skin formed and the pool of blood was drawn into the reanimating body. After a few seconds, the amber eyes behind the mask opened.
The Phantom of the Opera was here again.
Much to his dismay, he still wore the same clothes he'd been wearing on the fateful night of the fire. Testing his strength, he sat up slowly. After so many years of being a vaporous form, his body felt strange and heavy to him. It was a struggle to get his limbs to move at first. One hand clutched over his chest detected no heartbeat. How was it that he was still alive, then?
He noticed the fallen girl some distance away and staggered over to her. Anger flared up in him. Someone had invaded his home!
He flipped her over roughly, but froze when he saw her face.
"Christine…" he choked out in a heartbreaking whisper. His breath froze in his lungs (though he doubted he really needed to breathe). A gray-white hand touched her face, trembling.
This was why he hadn't crossed over to meet his judgment, he realized. She had come back to him…after all this time…
Sliding both arms under her, he struggled to lift her. She was quite a bit heavier than he remembered…it was either that she weighed more or his lack of strength. Just now, he wasn't certain. He was only certain of one thing: she would not get away from him again. He had waited over a hundred years for her return…
He placed her carefully in the boat. The candles that had not been lit for quite some time guttered to life as they passed. For the entire journey to his home, the only sound was his own labored breathing. Though he was no longer alive and no longer needed oxygen, his emotions affected his lungs nonetheless. A spark of hope made his stomach clench painfully, but he suppressed it. Now was not the time to get emotional, he reminded himself. His love was badly hurt and he needed to tend to her.
The lair was dark. He had not seen it for quite some time. The candles guttered to life here, too, from the sheer supernatural force of his presence. He lifted the dark-haired girl out of the boat and carried her up to the swan bed. It amazed him that everything here was untouched by time, but he supposed it was from the curse that held him trapped between the worlds.
Upon his death, Erik had sworn he would never leave this opera house. He had lived out the rest of his days here, though he had died quickly after The Incident. There was no explanation of his failing health other than his loss of will to survive—he had developed a nasty cough and his health had gone downhill after that. After seeing the smear of blood on his hand, he knew he would not live much longer. He had closed his eyes and drifted away with Christine's ring still clutched in his hand.
The coffin was in the corner of the room near his organ. Erik glanced at it with a sense of unease. Knowing he was too corporeal to be nothing but a spirit, he wondered if his corpse was still there. He lifted the heavy lid and braced himself for what he might see.
The coffin was empty except for the ring and the sheet music he'd been clasping in his cold hands. It was an unfinished score he'd been composing at the time of his death—the notes quite literally represented his emotional roller coaster. There was tumultuous anger, the sharp, acute pain of his grief, the flat depression he'd sunk into, and the longing that had persisted for years. The very last part of it was left unfinished—it was what he'd intended to write upon Christine's return. With a shaking hand, he lifted the supernaturally preserved paper out of its macabre container and placed on the organ's music shelf.
