You know it's funny, I have this opening theme in my head for Erik, Serena and Christine.

It has to do with what car they are driving, and who has a car normally.

Erik obviously has his truck, and Christine has her Sedan.

Normally, in the opening of this, it's like "Once upon a time." Today I thought of Christine's car and Erik's Truck crashing into one another, and Serena getting out of the driver's seat, looking at Abel/Erik, very confused, and Erik just standing there with a grim look on his face, with hair falling into his eyes.

Chapter 9 – Slush Rising Waters

Serena

The key clicked in nicely.

"I see you are still going behind my back!" I looked over to the side of the house to see Christine, standing there in her scrubs, arms crossed with eyes narrowing at my figure. "So this is Abel's house?"

"Yeah, listen Christine – Megan, you know I can do things by myself, you don't need to be at my beck and call, I know we both don't have siblings, and I love you like a sister, but – I mean, something's I just want to do on my own, and if I get into trouble well, that's my doing and not yours." The words spit out of my mouth before I really could make sound more, appealing to her, and not make her feel guilty. "I know you love me and see me as your sister, I see you as mine as well! But, there is only so much I want to actually tell you, some details I want to keep to myself you know?"

She sighed, and twisting her strawberry pony tail into a bun, she stepped closer to me. Placing her bag from her shoulder on the ground, she stepped towards the door. "Before – no, wait we will talk about this later, you're here to pick the guitar up right?" I looked at her astonished, how did she possibly know? "I didn't see the monstrous case with you in the corner of your room, I can only assume, and without making an ass out of you or me, that it is in his house." I nodded.

"Yeah, he sent me a voicemail saying he was going to be out of town, and that the key was under this mat outside his house." I concluded. I didn't know how long this was going to go on for. And I surely didn't want Christine following me everywhere I went because she was worried about me. And then it clicked into my head. Christine's Mom. It all made sense. The dawning factor made me see things so much clearer at that second. Of course it would be a conversation for later on, and possibly when she wasn't going to work, for me to speak to her about this. I pushed the door open which led us into the mud room of his house. It was warm, for someone who left for an entire week.

"Jeez, Abel has expensive taste." Christine muttered as we both took off our shoes. "And you've been to his house, what a few times now, I'm guessing?"

"Yeah, he has been improving my guitar lessons, and we have been working on a duet together for both of our strings. Yes, I sort of lied to her about that, not mentioning I am taking lessons for vocal reasons ever since he heard me sing at the Grey Penguin, and I should probably just start stacking that with the facts of Abel hurting my wrists. Thinking about that, I touched the bandages, making me nervous to go up the stairs. "It's so warm in his house, but there isn't anyone here, why would he keep the heat on, and in the middle of winter, this makes absolutely no sense." I was with Christine on this one, why would he keep the heat on? It just didn't make sense.

"His music room is this way," I pointed up the stairs, which had windows again, covered with drapes, purple drapes this time. "I just need to make it up to this door to the left. And grab the case."

"Hey Serena, remember how you were wondering about his past, if he was in the military or something?"

"Yeah?" I looked back to her puzzled, where was she going with this.

"Well, this is the perfect chance to snoop around." Her eyes were glistening with mischievous intent. "I mean he isn't home, and won't be home for a few days now, so, this would be the perfect time to do so."

"I guess, I kind of don't feel comfortable with that, but I see your point. I mean, what if he has security cameras or something? I don't want him to think I'm invading his privacy, you know?" I stuttered, while opening the door to the music room. I noticed that the black curtains were still open, from the other day. Everything was untouched to his piano, and that's when I turned to look at his door, where I slapped him. There were a few drops of blood on the ground, and a small stain on the door. I didn't realize I had hit him that hard! Despite this behavior, I could have seriously injured him. Why was I worrying about him? There wasn't any need too, Abel was a grown man after all and could take care of himself. On another note though, seriously, why didn't he just tell me? Or was it really not that bad after all, and I'm just over thinking this? I shook my head, confusion overlapping my thoughts. This wasn't what I needed to be thinking about right now, what I needed to do was grab my guitar and get out of his house. I was pretty sure if one thing was left turned, or touched, Abel would find it and it would come back to me, and I didn't want to face his wrath like that for the second time, the thought alone was making me cringe.

I grabbed the guitar case, and took Christine by the shoulder of her scrub removing her from the pictures outside of the room on his walls. "Serena, what's the – " she stopped mid-sentence. "I was looking at old pictures he had on the walls, aren't you curious?" Her question sort of made me angry for some unknown reason.

Of course I wanted to know more about him, but I wasn't going to snoop, that was until I made it down the stairs and saw two figurines on top of his fireplace in the living room.

One was a grasshopper, the other was a scorpion. One was white, the other was black. I blinked several times, just staring at it. Chrissy mumbling in frustration behind me.

Angel of music, come to me angel of music…

I heard a voice, it was strained and very distant, my feet began to walk towards the figurines, for some reason it felt like there was something very important about these two little statues. Like a choice was to be made with them. And then I felt another stirring of some sort of blackout coming on.

Angel of music, come to me angel of music…

Choose wisely Christine, for if you choose the grasshopper, it hops, and hops jolly high! I heard a voice say around me in the blackness which I was in. I blinked once again, and I found I was standing in a house, with lanterns and candles lit everywhere. And in front of me were the same two statues, only they were facing one another on poles attached to the ground.

Choose wisely Christine, I shall give you one hour!

Squinting I saw my hands twitch, and reach for the grasshopper, only to stop and panic, shakily moving towards the scorpion. And finally it turned. The black scorpion turned, and the sound of water draining was everywhere at once.

"Serena, hello Serena?" I blinked several times on the floor. Christine was waving her hand in front of my eyes. "Oh, good, you looked like you fainted, after dragging me down the stairs."

"Are you alright?" She asked.

"Yeah, my heads just killing me a little," I managed to say, the black fuzziness of clouds draining from my eyes as I opened them. "Maybe some water would help."

"I'll go grab some from the kitchen, Abel shouldn't mind," she smiled. "Be back in a second."

I rubbed my head, a dull ache starting to pulsate through. Why was this happening to me? I didn't want to keep blacking out, and I didn't want to keep having strange dreams, or text messages, that was something which was starting to make me crazy. "Here, there is some crescent moon shaped ice cubes in there as well."

"Thanks," I took a sip of water, and blinked twice. I saw what looked like a movie, playing before my eyes. I saw a man, with coal hair, slicked back with a white mask over half of his face. It was a porcelain white mask, which was a curious thing to behold. He was leaning into a table, and reading letters which looked to be centuries old. They were faded from what looked like to be time, since they were a dark yellow.

"Dammit Christine, why couldn't you come to love me, why couldn't you?" He coughed then, and I watched as tears started to fall from his eyes. "I love you, and still you wanted the boy. It was always the boy, but never you're Erik, never your angel."

Erik? Who was Erik? And who was this Christine? Was it Chrissy – my best friend and sister?

I blinked again, and the figure was gone. Who was that man, and why was he crying over a woman named Christine? Who was she, his lover? Ex? I didn't know.

"Angel of music, come to me angel of music… Come to your angel of music."

"Ah, let's get out of here, I need some air, and you will need to get to work." I started for the door, my feet dragging, but trying to move as fast as I could, while still a bit groggy wasn't the best idea, it made me feel sick as it was. Once the door was opened, and I made it outside towards the afternoon air, my head felt better, and clearer.

"What was that about?" Christine asked. "You completely zoned out when you were drinking that water, are you sure you are okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, let's just return to the apartment, okay?" I stated, in a hurry to get out of Abel's home, the air in there felt very thick and his house was the last place I wanted to be. Placing the guitar back in the trunk, Christine drove me back to the apartment. Our drive back was very quiet, both of us just listening to the radio, classical and dupstep, all the way, of course, I was way more into classical then dupstep. So when dupstep was on, I would think of classical pieces or arias.

She dropped me off and I opened the door, placing the guitar inside of my room. I wanted to know what these visions or whatever flashbacks, blackouts whatever they were called, what they were about. So, to dig up more information, I typed into a google search, angel of music. I didn't know what to expect, and honestly I thought it was going to be a big run around.

The first search which was highlighted, was a Wikipedia page on the Phantom of the Opera. Since I never heard of that in particular, I clicked on it. Again, I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into and it could all just be from an overdose of caffeine, but, I was willing to take my chances.

After the first several paragraphs talking about a masked composer, who was named, Erik, his persona OG, otherwise known as Opera Ghost, or The Phantom of the Opera, it was clear to me that there was something more at work, because little things started to add up. The whole angel of music thing, a girl named Christine, some boy named Raoul, who was in love with Christine… it just didn't stop there though. Since I was having these dreams, per say, I wanted to delve deeper into the subject matter, I wanted to make sure I wasn't just going crazy, and having an imagination gone wild moment.

So I clicked on a few more links, all saying the same thing about a book, movie and more off the topic fantasy type things about this man or phantom named Erik. Still didn't explain why I was having these dreams or visions, and I wasn't getting any closer to that conclusion while looking at my computer screen. Sighing, I looked at the Otter Point, library to see if this movie, and or book was there by, Gaston Leroux. Both which were in, so over the internet I signed them out, and dashed over there to get both items.

I didn't know why I needed to know what was causing this so much. But I knew I needed answers, and the internet, well I could only trust so much information posted up there.

After getting to the library and signing both items out I sent Chrissy a text asking her if she was interested in movie night. She obviously replied, she would enjoy that, and that the fajitas we were going to make tonight were going to be killer for that. She asked what movie and I wrote back to her The phantom of the Opera.

-"I didn't know you were interested in Opera's, Serena?" – Christine wrote.

"Well, I mean, this is for your dads theater, and while Abel is gone, I thought about conducting my own research about this subject matter, on singing, since I already knew the part about being in the orchestra pit." – I wrote back, she seemed alright with that answer, because she didn't send anything back for quite some time. It was around five in the afternoon, when she got back from her shift, and we started to make dinner.

After cooking the dishes up, we sat on the couch, my phone was plugged into the charger, and she placed her phone on silent. We both started to eat our burritos in silence as the movie began to play. Before Christine got back, I placed in my messenger bag, the book so I could compare both of them while she was at work.

I hoped this would clear some of the questions I had building in my head, if not that's what the book was for.

Erik

Crawling into the truck, Erik grabbed as much supplies as he could. But before he could apply it, he needed to relieve some stress which was building in his back. So turning to the only thing he could, he made his way towards a motel to check in, and gather his fishing pole for some time by himself.

He also checked his phone to see If Serena had called to leave some sort of message for him. Nothing? Why isn't this spell not working like it should? She was supposed to be all over him, begging him to come to her, that's usually how it worked, why wasn't it working this way? He didn't understand that. And it was something he couldn't fathom, himself. He had been doing this for several centuries and woman usually flocked to him with this spell he used on them. They didn't usually just sit idle and wait.

She needed to take the bait somehow, and sometime, but why this time wasn't it working right in his favor.

She was just some toy he would use, and she, after the fact wouldn't remember anything, her memories of him would be blocked and she would go about her life, just as he would go about his eternal life.

She needed to become cloaked under his wing. There had to be something he could do, couldn't there?

He shook his head, getting the fish bait onto his hook.

"Hey could you spare some bait, left mine at home," an older gentleman maybe in his late seventies, stood by Erik, he was wearing jeans, black shoes, a red jacket, with a grey cap on his head, his eyes, were covered in a particular pair of sunglasses.

"Yeah, here, catch"

He watched as the stranger took the bait and placed it on his hook.

"Thanks, I needed that," he stated positively.

"No problem."

"I'm Andrew, Andrew Snow by the way." He stated.

Erik tried to keep his composure cool and collected.

"No relation to the guitarist Charles Snow, correct?"

"Oh you know my son?"