Chapter 3:
Silence, unmoved and surrounding as the darkness it inhabits. All of the light, faded away, and the music…gone. Gone, gone, gone! All of it, was gone! Erik ripped his mask from his face and threw it forcefully. What was the point? Not even a mask could hide his accursed ugliness. It wasn't just his face deformed, it was him. He had finally escaped that persisting denial that his only possible flaw was just his face.
"Oh Christine, my Christine…what have I done?" He thought. He shivered and wept like a sick puppy dying in the streets. Self loathing was misery's fine company. The once brightly lit candle in the dark world he lived had been blown away and would never return. And then, the worst part of it all, the music. The once beautiful flow of notes playing constantly in his head had dried up and faded like evaporating water.
Christine was gone, and she took the music with her. He glanced up from the corner he had crouched in at his now destroyed organ. Once brimming and grand, glowing with beauty, now smashed and dead, insignificant. All of his opera, his love, his passion, his life…burned to meaningless ashes. But now, what was it worth? Without his inspiration, without his angel, it was nothing. His life, was nothing. Nothing but a sad story of love, loss, and pain…soon to be forgotten.
His heart ached and his chest felt heavy. Memories of the past raced through his mind all the way to when he was a child. In that moment, he felt as if he were four years old again, living in that small house in Paris where he was born. He could see the red swollen crying eyes of his mother, and the dark eyes full of hatred that belonged to his father. He could see the empty loneliness of his old bedroom, a place where he spent most of his short and miserable childhood.
His stomach felt like an empty less pit and his back stung in what was pure pain as he remember the cruel, swift, swings from his father's thick belt and the starving sensation he suffered daily only being fed when his mother saw fit, which was not very often, and when he was his meals were small and mostly unpleasant. He could taste the stale, moldy bread, and dirt colored water in his mouth. While he could smell the juicy rosemary chicken and luscious mashed potato's being cooked in the other room for his parents and their guest to devour. Erik was never aloud out of his room when their were guest over, his parent's friends didn't even know about Erik's existence.
Then, that face. The one he despised more than his own. The one he hated. The face of his brother, Fredrick. Fredrick was the one his mother loved, the one that made her smile. Fredrick was the one his father gave a gentle hug and kiss. Fredrick was the one with the beautiful golden skin and the Arian features. "Spoiled little imbecile." Erik muttered to himself in disgust.
His memories moved on, to when he was ten years old, to when his father sold him to a cruel brute known as Vlad Moneru, the owner of a freak show, where he spent six years being locked in a cage and tortured by vile ingrates. 10 franks to throw mud at "the living dead boy". 20 franks to whip him with one the shows finest whips.
His unending remorse for his entire life became interrupted by three heavy knocks coming from the other side of his door. A visitor? But who? Erik rose to his feet carefully regaining his balance. Knowing better than to just open the door for an anyone, he peaked his eye through the small peep hole to see a familiar yet strange face staring back at him. "Erik, my dear friend, are you in there?"
Achille? But how? How did he even find this place? Erik unlocked the door and opened it with little hesitation. "Achille?" He said with great amount of confusion obviously present in his voice. Erik scanned his appearance, different than when he had last saw the man, then again, that was so many years ago. "Erik…I see the Persian is more of an honest man that I thought him to be. May I come in?" The Persian? Erik thought, DAROGA! That damned blabbermouth, giving out his whereabouts like common knowledge to be shared with the world. I'll Kill Him! He decided, clenching his fist so that his fingernails left small imprints in his palms.
"Come in, Achille. You are lucky that I know you well enough that I find you trustworthy." He said, holding the door open, "What on earth is going on, Achille? If I had not recognized you by your face and costume, you'd be a dead man walking, do you realize this?" Erik demanded to know slamming the door and locking it behind him. They both took a seat in the living room of Erik's small home.
Achille paused, not sure where to begin in this sort of situation. "Erik, you have changed so much since the last time I saw you." He said, "I remember when you were the helpless teenage boy I saved from Moneru's cruel form of entertainment."
"Yes, Achille. I owe you a great amount for this. If it weren't for you to have come and take me away from them, I'd have eventually been beaten or starved to death. But that was a long time ago Achille. My fate has been long out of the hands of Moneru and in my own. I am independent more than I have ever been in ways not even you would understand."
"The Persian has told me of many things. He is the reason I found where you were hiding, and dare I say you have picked a good place. It took me hours to find this spot."
"How the hell did you even come in contact with the man?"
"I have my ways."
"As do I." Erik finished, rising from his seat to pour some wine for his guest. "The Persian says you are a great composer. Have written your own opera." Achille continued on, taking a drink of the wine given to him. Erik paused, his chest aching, "I once was. But music, in any form…is dead to me now." He chocked out, painfully. Achille nodded, eyeballing the beaten in ash-covered organ in the corner of the room. "He also told me, about the girl…" "Girl?" He repeated nonchalantly pretending not to know what Achille was talking about. "Christine… Daae? Was that her name?"
Christine…The delicate glass of wine in Erik's hand shattered and fell to the floor. "Why have you come here Achille?" He questioned in fierce demanding tone. Achille stopped to take a gander at the broken glass on the floor. "You are in pain my friend…" Achille commented, in a sort of daze twisting his head at the sight of Erik burying his head in his arms, digging his nails into the corpse like yellow flesh of the back of his own neck. "You know nothing of pain." Erik grunted at him. Achille took a moment to let this all sink in. What had happened to Erik? Who had he become? He supposed he should stop beating around the bush before something too dramatic happened. Erik seemed to be uneasy at the moment and not very difficult to upset. But then again, that was the least of his problems.