Golden eyes flickered open
Everything was so still.
Everything was so dark.
Was this death?
A consciousness within endless eternal darkness.
A laugh threatened to come forth from his chapped lips at the irony.
No death was a never ending sleep with no dreams.
This could not be death, so then what was it. His fingers reached out to the edge of the coffin as he did when he first had laid down for the long sleep.
But instead of of the sleek composition sheets of Don Juan Triumphant his fingers only met velvet.
He rose, no papers fell from his body.
Hadn't he encased his coffin with his life's work and lain down with the remnants of his opera lying upon him?
Rage simmered and grew as he rose from his bed, his limbs still laden from exhaustion but as he flicked the electric switch for his lights on the far wall, his artistic mess greeted him.
The woman!
Madame Valerius!
That older woman had been in his home!
Erik tried to remember why but his mind was lagging as his bodily fatigue caught up with him.
Something compelled him to his eatery where he choked down a couple of stale biscuits and lukewarm water.
Something was not right.
Something was off.
Something told him to be above, as if something was calling him to make his ghostly appearance once more.
Perhaps the woman was above, Madame Valerius was a frequent visitor of the opera after all.
One way or another he would find her and get his opera back.