Disclaimers: the passage about the "wishing to be dead" part is completely accredited to Lisa, author of "From Darkness Purged to Light" (Go read it! It's a GOOD story)…Thanx Lisa for the good IM convo…it was very constructive.

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MARQUIS DE SADE

"The Vicomte de Chagny mourns the death of his mother Countesses Valerie de Chagny, who passed this Sunday, Feburary 8th.  She had long been suffering from an unknown illness and will be finally laid to rest by friends and family on Saturday, the 12th.  The Countess was also known as Elisabeth Satié, wife to wealthy merchant Richard Satié before his untimely death in 1831.  The countess had wished to remain nearly anonymous in the bourgeoisie society, reluctant to reveal even her maiden name.  The reason, shall we say, remains a mystery."

Elisabeth Satié…

I read that name madly, fifty times forwards and backwards until my eyes bled with tears of incredulity.  Now I ask you, dear reader, who obviously has good reason to be interested enough in my affairs to have come this far in this trilogy, what kind of God exists to torture me?

For a moment I felt that the Infallible Being and I, had an understanding:  We, who both share a mutual need to explore our perverse obsession with cruelty, have come to our final match.  I feel the need to explain myself now because I must leave you to decide whether what has occurred is considerably the ultimate wrath of His irony. 

The article meant nothing to me.  People live and die everyday; it is a common casualty—but I would have overlooked every aspect of that dreary news if I had forgotten that Elisabeth Satié was my mother.

Yes she, the beautiful maiden who'd fed me and bathed me when I was a babe, was the currently deceased.  The woman, who'd pressed the white silk against my cheeks to muffle the sobs and ugliness of my sunken face, had remarried.  She, who had hoped I was stupid enough to think that she'd been kidnapped and had left me accidentally to grow up with gypsies, had a son.  Out of her desperation to forget a nightmare's prodigy, she conceived a newborn baby.

Raoul.

Vicomte de Chagny.

I laughed, quite unhappily really, but laughter freed me.  It was more distressing to know that she was my mother than that Death has beckoned her away from me.  She was never here in actuality, and I certainly have no qualms with forgetting family, let alone, only a half-breed.  Perhaps I felt insulted that my blood flowed through the Vicomte de Chagny's veins steadily but had not turned into toxin and killed him for his larceny. 

He obviously had a very pleasant childhood—I find him constantly smiling, and most definitely carefree.  To think that he was given the treatment and privilege of a human child that was denied me!  Well, my mother must have been very proud of her newest achievement!  He is, impeccable indeed!  But common…a commonplace in a very common world.  I would rather be deformed than ordinary…

But on the other hand, being his older brother might prove to be very beneficial.  With any luck, he'll find it suits him well to listen to me, not just as the Phantom anymore, but moreso as "family".

I tossed the article into the crimson fire and stood thinking for a long, long time.  Then I picked up Christine's doll and undiplomatically threw it into the flames; following that, I heard the echo of my chair smashing against the wall like firecrackers in my ear.  I must have thrown it without realizing.  What I did realize, was that I had the overwhelming wish to die.

Or perhaps, I wish to be dead.  The act of being is so much more tempting than the act of becoming.  It is a pity that one must die to be dead, so I am left with living; yet under such circumstances, I have no life.  Well, since I'm stuck in the vague perimeter of being neither, I might as well make the effort to make use of being alive…

Yes, I daresay that's what I shall do.

*   *   *

Three days later I became obsessed with this new person in my life.  My blood has forced me to look at him differently, as someone who I had no desire to love or to hate completely.  I became enthralled by the activities of the Vicomte the Chagny.  I saw the carriage leave his concierge in the morning as it brought him to his appointments to discuss the next location of his expeditions, and at night I watched as he returned quietly, often in good spirits until he would set out once again to find Christine.  I assumed he had enough funds under his brother's name to support himself for the next three or four years, but it relied completely on his capacity for journey whether or not he would survive alone.

            I watched him and as I could never let him go.

            His visits to Christine were, most of the time, cut short; she'd convinced him half-wittingly that his life was in jeopardy because her Angel of Music was "very strict". 

I found that part particularly amusing.

            Was I very strict?  I'd mentioned to her once that she must remain faithful to her voice lessons and always be prepared and on time for me.  I'd warned her that anything that came before her music would upset me greatly.  But I'd never raised my voice at her or exploited my temper when she was with me.  So why did she claim that I was "very strict"?

            Perhaps she didn't want to say, but I saw that she did not love the Vicomte de Chagny.  She had wanted him all for nothing from her nostalgia for an old, burgeoning flame.  A flame which had been slowly settling and flickering at a constant velocity…and she missed me.  I heard it in her voice every time she answered to my beckoning through that glass mirror like a potent insatiable longing.

            "Erik, where have you been?"

            She'd press her fingers to the glass and sink her cheek into her hands, begging me to pull her back in.  But she was already pulled back in.  The poor child, so unsure of what she truly wanted, had given me all the answers I needed, except for the physical one. 

            "How is the Vicomte de Chagny?"  I asked, without sarcasm for once and with a bit of genuine feeling.

            She blinked.  Once.  Sometimes she would cough uncomfortably into her fist as if she did not hear me, but she knew better than to lie like that.

            "Happy." 

            "Happy?"

            She nodded.

            "How happy?"

            She shrugged unenthusiastically.  "I answer that the same way one answers 'How do you do?'…I just assume Raoul's a happy man."

            "And I?"

            She shrugged again.

            "A mystery."

            I laughed.

            We would go on and on like this, our talks of legitimate nonsense that bemused and amused both of us.  And it gave me a glimpse of what it would be like if she and I had been married.  We would never tire of each other, frankly, because I could never find myself unaffected by her quirky individuality.

            She was my Christine.  And I sheltered her deeply under my wings, spoiled her, and loved her until she breathed of a constant craving. 

            And I watched as Raoul struggled to believe her love for him was everlasting—and I waited as he refused to fade from our lives.  He was quite dashing and noble, you see. 

That was my half-brother, the irreproachable hero. 

I suddenly realized how much I was beginning to like him…

**Just a quick note: The Marquis de Sade was a controversial French novelist and essayist: In his writings, Sade tried to show that criminal acts and sexual abnormalities are natural to human behavior. The word sadism comes from his name. Sadism is the enjoyment of cruelty, especially—as in the case of Sade—for sexual arousal. The unconventional aspects of Sade's writings influenced writers of the surrealism movement of the early 1900's. His works are often used to illustrate certain theories of abnormal psychology."