WARNING: YOU MIGHT CRY WHILE READING THiS CHAPTER! If you want the full experiance listen to all I ask of you Reprise from the 25 aniversary.
Chapter 20 Part 2
"Wait?" Roxanne began to tear into someone else for a change. A cruel smile crept on his lips. "You were eavesdropping on me?!"
"No, I was only… I mean that I was making sure you were alright." Raoul blabbered. He was digging his own grave. If Erik wasn't going to put him in it Raoul was doing a fine job all by himself.
"I can't believe it! Is there no one I can trust?"
"You can trust me."
"I have a reason not to now."
The idiot did not answer for a while. Erik thought Roxanne might have finally shut up but he didn't get the satisfaction. "Believe me little Lotte. I would never attempt to hurt you on purpose."
"I know."
Erik couldn't take the suspicion any longer. He had to see what they were doing. Carefully he hid behind Apollo lyre to see what was happening. The scene set before him was Roxanne crying. That sight tore his heart at the seams.
"So then," he put his hands on her arms. "Tell me what has happened."
As soon as she started to tell Raoul what had happened he couldn't take any more of it. Even when she told Raoul about him it would be followed by a cry or a terrible event. The knife dug deeper with each cry that escaped her lips, with every tear that ran down her face. She was so innocent when she first came here with dreams but he had taken that away from her. Her eyes were filled with fear and tears. Not a hint of joy and laughter. This had come over her like a tsunami wreaking all that she had ever known. Erik had afflicted so much on her that she was becoming more and more distant from reality. All he wanted to do was rip himself to shreds for bringing her so much pain.
"Let's run away from all of this." Raoul proposed. "If we get married then he can never hurt you."
Anger rose with in Erik after hearing such words. He wanted so desperately to yell at that she was only fifteen and too young to marry a man she hardly knew. If anyone should marry her it should be me! What am I saying? I am just as sick minded as he is right now.
Roxanne grew quiet. She spoke so softly that Erik couldn't here. They talked in whispers for a while. Erik tried desperately to hear her answer but the wind picked up and blew the snow around them encasing them in a sound proof barrier.
She burst into another fits of tears and Raoul wiped them away. Looking to her eyes Raoul bent his head down and pressed his lips onto hers. Erik's heart sank. The world froze for a span of time. So many emotions mixed inside him while watched his rival spin her in the air. Her joyous laughter rang in his ears making them bleed terribly. He didn't hear that laugh when it was for someone else. Erik covered his ears trying to block it out. Raoul placed her down to kiss her for a second time. He tried t close his eyes but they were unable to not stare at the crushing scene before them. There was nothing he could do but watch as his heart began to rip slowly and painfully.
They finally left to race back down to the light beneath in a fit of giggles and smiles. Erik came out from behind the statue when he heard the bang of the door closing off to the world below. There was a tremendous amount of pain in his heart that was awakened when he saw them kiss. His mind and heart were now aligned to realize what he felt. It was jealousy. But that wasn't all that was there.
Erik loved Roxanne. Not Christine, not because of a drug, but Roxanne. The truth battered him almost knocking him off his feet. He was blinded by reason his mind told him to follow that he had neglected his heart; a frightening thing that he had shut away for so long. No one was able to touch it as she had. The feistiness from her words had awakened a burning fire in his heart. The kind look in her eyes when she had began to know him now made it hard for him to breathe. When he kissed her Erik thought that maybe Roxanne held feelings for him. Just as the one from the lair had sparked his interest the kiss from Christmas showed his desire for her. He thought maybe for a moment then he could be happy with her. There was a place in his heart that she could only touch. When she was in his grasps he had taken it for granted. Her smile would never be for him again. She had looked at his face in fear. Roxanne was not different than the rest of the world when she first saw him. But there was hope when the second time she saw his face she didn't show any fear or disgust. He thought she was different. It was only a lie. His deformity, his blindness, his pride, his ignorance drove her away. She would dare not to sing for him. It would be for someone else. He had lost her.
Love. It is a simple word that could destroy a man. Once you lose it that will be the most heart-retching feeling you will ever feel. That was what impaired him the most. She is gone. I drove her away when all I had to do was hold her close. There is no light no happiness in my life any more. It is my fault. All my fault.
Erik put on the mask to hide himself away from the rest of the world, from reality. He stood where Raoul and Roxanne had just been. A small circle of blue caught his eye. His body went numb. There nestled in the snow was something in which he would always recognize. It was the ring, his ring. It was placed in the fallen snow waiting for someone to come. Reaching down he picked it up slowly as if it would also run away from him if he scared it. Tears pricked his eyes.
"Roxanne… Roxanne…." He cried softly to himself. Barely even a whisper it was carried through the wind to the stars above.
Closing his hands around the fragile band his heart at that his heart was shredded into a million pieces. With no consciousness of what he was doing he began to sing a song that he had listened to once from Roxanne.
"I gave you my music… made your song take wind and now how you've repaid me, denied me and betrayed me. He was bound love when he heard you sing…" he choked on the last words. The song didn't make sense to him when he first listened but now it was apparent. It was what he felt at the moment. Hopelessness. He felt the tears run down his face underneath the mask. They burned as they fell to the snow below.
A voice began to speak in his head that wasn't his own. It drove him into madness. Like a voodoo chant it repeated in his head constantly.
Kill them. Burn them. Hang them. Kill them. Burn them. Hang them.
Stop.
Kill them. Burn them. The voices continued to chant.
Leave me alone!
Hang them. Kill them. Burn them. Hang them.
Erik covered his ears. Get out of my head!
KILL THEM!
NO!
Footsteps echoed through the passageway snapping Erik out of his trance. He hid back behind the statue. Peeking around it Erik saw Roxanne looking through the snow. Her long hair was disheveled to the point where she had to move it out of her face. Her soft features burned themselves into his mind. For a moment he had thought that his heart wasn't broken but one look at Roxanne sent him over the edge. Then something clicked inside him.
It wasn't his fault that Roxanne was gone it was Raoul. He took her away from Erik. Erik didn't drive her away. Hadn't he cared for her, making everything to accommodate her every whim. He let her have her freedom. For days and night he searched nonstop to find her away home. All the exhausting days he had spent watching over her in the Market when unseen trouble commenced he protected her without her knowledge. She had sung only for him! The lessons she had asked for and her debut was all because of him not the Vicomte de Chagny. He did all this for her yet she left him.
Someone that was so close to you to then vanish from your reach is a traumatizing event. It breaks your heart. In the Tale of Despereaux it told a way that must have happened to Erik then. The extraordinary thing is your heart has a mechanism that allows it to mend itself even when completely torn apart. However it is never repaired. A heart once broken becomes crooked and bent. It would not be a human's heart but that of a creature of the shadows. It would become a Phantom's heart.
The Angel of music died. Erik was no longer there. In its place was the Phantom. He became a shell. No love or kindness was left in his heart. Only a new power had risen up. It was far worse than anger. Revenge dwelled in his black heart. He desired revenge against Raoul for taking her away from him. He wanted to have his revenge on her for leaving him heartbroken. You will curse the day you did not do all that the Phantom asked of you!
…...
Patience. The Phantom reasoned with himself. The papers of his treasured music lay in his hand waiting to be played. Looking at the time again the seconds ticked by. His patience was wearing thin. It was almost midnight and the he became restless. He had to wait.
The dancers around him danced so merrily that he sneered. That is why he hated people like that. They took for granted to the true beauty that was around them. Such fools they were. Wasting their lives for moments of a false happiness to only wake up into a nightmare again it was pitiful to watch. The harmless lambs were even oblivious that the danger that lurked around them was a wolf. He walked along the edge of darkness teasing to touch the side of the light.
It was time. He quickly strolled to the imposing staircase. Each step he took he counted. It was an obsession that fueled his anger as he neared his destination. The silence that began to come a foot had also put fire in his eyes. All around him silence began to break out in his audience. Troubled expressions lied underneath their colorful façades. The music faded in to a chilling silence when The Phantom scanned the crowd.
Across each unknown face he tried to find the witch who had cursed him. Not seeing her amongst them only made him more irritated. He had already concocted a plan to make her his forever and never have her leave his side again. She would not escape to back where she had come from. She wouldn't fly away from him this time.
Though he didn't find the gypsy he found the two sniveling managers clinging to each other. Pitiful.
"Have you missed me good Messieurs?" he could hear a chill run through everyone. "Had you thought that I had left you for good? Have you missed me? But I have written you an Opera; Don Juan Triumphant."
Then he tossed them the stack of sheet music at their feet. One of the cowardly managers grabbed it hesitantly off the ground. The Phantom surveyed the crowd of frightened outsiders again trying to find her. Instead he was satisfied making them crawl back in fear. "I invite you to comply my instructions should be clear. A disaster beyond your imagination will occur. Remember there are far worse things than a shattered Chandelier. "
Up near the banister a shimmer of silver caught his eye. Turning his head to investigate he stared back at Roxanne. His heart leaped for joy. Seeing her face melted away the anger for only a moment. However it pounded itself back into his heart. Next to his Angel the brat stood behind her like an owner that rarely let her off her leash. The Phantom would never be hounding her as if she was beneath him. He would treat her like the Queen she truly was. For her he would be her slave. But before he could treat her as such he must first remind her.
His bony hand raised and opened his palm. There her engagement ring rested on the palm of his hand. Her eyes widen in horror at the sight of it. The Phantom saw how she squirmed so he closed his hand and pointed ruthlessly.
"Your chains are still mine, Mon Cherie!" He thundered. A billow of smoke and a bright flash of light appeared engulfing him. When the smoke cleared he had vanished. Midnight stroke down on the Opera house.
Disclaimer: I don't own Any Phantom of the Opera.
Did I make you cry? I hope I did. when I was writing about Erik's heart being broken I was listening to the All I ask of you Reprise and i found myself in tears as i was reading it. So I hope you liked my different set of chapters. I will be doing it one more time and I will tell you all when it comes. Thank you again for the supportive and sugestive reviews, I really apperciate them.
OK I already know that i have already written it in the story but:
I gave you my story…
made your spirit take wind and now how you've repaid me, denied me and betrayed. You were bound love when you first read this.
You will curse the day you did not Review! That's all that the Phantom asked of you!