A big thanks to all who reviewed! I saw some new readers, too, which is always great.
We're getting closer to the end. Just a technical note. I used the actual Rite of Exorcism as inspiration for this chapter. The rite was updated within the last twenty years, though, which means there could be some copyright issues, as strange as that may sound. In any case, I tried to avoid using the actual text. But the basic framework is kind of there.
Enjoy! Read and Review!
Raoul remembered one year ago, the previous summer.
He and Christine had sat on a grassy hill at one of the local parks and watched fireworks. They had cuddled on a blanket, cold sodas in hand, and stared up at the exploding night sky. Oohs and Aahs. A week or so later, they had headed to the mountains and stayed at a cabin that Raoul's father owned. The evenings were the best, the buzz of cicadas and the smell of hotdogs roasting. And while they hadn't been dating long enough to make it permanent, Raoul remembered thinking: This might be the one.
At the cabin, they'd sat outside on lawn chairs and watched the orange sunset. She'd said, "I wish we could stay up here forever. And not go back to school. I'm kind of nervous about this next semester. I don't even know what I want to do."
"Your classes are going to be fine," he'd reassured her. "You'll figure out your major. Just give it some time."
She'd smiled at him, but there was a slight sorrow in her eyes. Maybe she was just nervous about school. Yet as Raoul stared at her unconscious, frail body - surrounded by three strange men - he wondered if Christine had felt this nightmare approaching even back then. Was this meant to happen?
Raoul wished he'd had some power of foresight. He would have kept her in the mountains forever, foregoing an MBA and everything that he was 'supposed' to accomplish. They could have been like those weird people who gave up modern life and disappeared into the wilderness, living off the land. It was a nice fantasy, more realistic than what was actually happening in front of him.
It was nearly five in the morning by the time they were ready to begin.
John and Lorenzo each made the sign of the cross over their chests. Taking a small white bottle, John sprinkled holy water over her torso. She didn't react. He quickly scattered it over the rest of them, including Erik, who looked as out of place here as Raoul felt. His yellow eyes were distant and detached. Barring a miracle, there was really no happy ending for him. Raoul felt no satisfaction from this thought.
John knelt to the floor and cleared his voice. Holding his leather-bound book, he read through a long series of lines, pleading with God for mercy and for strength. Lorenzo would repeat the words or give a similar response. Their chanting and prayers continued for a long while. Christine didn't move during any of this. Raoul felt his heart hammering in his chest. Fear that it would work. Fear that it wouldn't.
Finally, John commanded the creature, the unclean spirit, to leave her body. Raoul tensed as he waited for her, or the thing inside of her, to react. For anything at all. Her head jerked to the side one time. Raoul held his breath. Still nothing.
John again ordered the creature out of her, placing his large hands on the sides of her head. Erik flinched, preparing to protect her. Yet the older man only said a prayer for her to be well. He sprinkled her with holy water again and said another plea. Erik slowly retreated, his narrow shoulders slumping.
Finally, Lorenzo and John stopped speaking and stepped away from her.
"Is that it?" Raoul weakly asked. She was still completely out of it.
"This can take time," said John. "I don't know what's going to happen. But you need to have patience."
At least their efforts seemed genuine. After actually seeing her, John's expression had softened, and Raoul had trusted him a little more. As they stepped out of the room, speaking in low voices, Raoul noticed Erik watching her. "She is agitated," Erik murmured to himself.
"How can you tell?" Raoul asked.
"The tension in her face. She is fighting all of us."
"What does that mean?" Erik didn't answer; his bony hand tenderly brushed over her cheek. "Do you think we should keep going?"
"She wants us to stop. And yet she will die if we do. What is your answer, Chagny? Should we stop?" Erik finally looked up.
Raoul coughed out a brokenhearted laugh. "I don't know."
They didn't stop. After thirty minutes or so of rest, John and Lorenzo returned and took turns reading selections from the Gospel. Most of the passages were in reference to demons and the casting out of them from the afflicted. With more force, John again commanded the creature out of her. His voice grew louder, angrier. He ordered it back to the fire, referring to the creature as a dragon and a serpent and a monster. He pled with God to save her. Erik was leaning over her with a livid glint in his eyes—anger at John because this wasn't working…anger at the entire spectacle because he saw it as ridiculous. Raoul felt this frustration, this hopelessness.
"Depart!" John exclaimed. "Be gone!" His wrinkled hands trembled. His eyes were a little wild, and his voice was hoarse. Again, Christine flinched. A soft moan finally escaped her lips. John again exclaimed, "I command you to leave her! God commands you to leave her!"
Finally, Erik roared, "Get out of her!"
John looked at him, startled. "That is not approp-"
Christine opened her blue eyes. They all froze. She blinked at them.
She panicked.
"Stop!" she half-croaked, her voice dry and unused. "No, stop! What are you doing? Stop! Please stop!" She writhed and twisted in her tight bindings. "Stop!"
"There we go," John whispered. He quickly continued to read, to pray over her and cast the creature out of her. "God commands you to leave her!" Lorenzo stared forward with his jaw set, one hand clutching a wooden cross.
She cried out, "Stop! Stop! Stop!"
"You must release it," Erik softly pled, kneeling and placing a hand to her cheek. "We are driving this disgusting monster out of you, do you understand? You must let it go, Christine! Release it!"
"No," she moaned. Tears dripped down her cheeks. "It'll go to someone else!"
"It does not matter who it goes to. You will live! You will live, Christine! That is what matters!"
"No!" she cried, her face crumbling. "You're going to-No! No!" She sensed what was going to happen. She knew it was going to be Erik.
"Christine," Raoul began. And maybe he wanted to tell her that, if she preferred, the creature could go inside him instead. But it was hard to force those words out. And she interrupted him, anyway.
"I can kill it! I can kill it! No! No!" She threw her head back and released an earth-shattering scream. She sounded like she was being tortured. Maybe she was.
John continued to speak over her. "I cast you out, evil one….."
"My God," Raoul whispered. Christine choked, sputtering and squirming. She was turning blue, about to suffocate on her own panic. "Stop!" Raoul turned to John. "Stop for a second! She can't breathe."
"No!" Christine whimpered, coughing. "Please stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!" Her words were nearly gasps now. Her pale face was soaked with saliva and sweat.
Erik suddenly had a clear syringe in his hand, his arm frozen in the air. He gripped her shoulder. "Christine, you must be calm. You must be. Or I will have to-"
"No! No! No!" Her head whipped back and forth.
"Well, do it," said John, slightly out of breath. "Calm her down, so that we can get this thing out of her!"
"Christine," Erik whispered. "I must, if you will not be calm. Do you understand me? I will not let you die. I cannot watch you die. You cannot ask that of me!"
"Then don't-" Her voice broke down into coughs and gasps. Again, she twisted and squirmed, trying to escape them.
With misery in his eyes, Erik pulled back the sleeve of her t-shirt and injected the sedative into her upper arm. "I am so sorry," he whispered. "I am so…I am..."
"No," she whimpered. She cringed as the needle pierced her skin. "No. Why won't anyone listen to m-m-me." She slumped back onto the blanket. "Please listen," she whispered. "Why won't you listen?"
"I love you. That is why," Erik murmured, stepping back as his arm fell to his side. "That is why."
And while Erik was the one who held the sedative—Raoul knew they had all made this decision. They had all made the decision to ignore her. They knew what was best for her, after all.
Didn't they?
Her eyes closed. Her body stilled. Her head fell to the side, and she released a soft and defeated sigh.
Raoul was shaking.
"I am going to continue," said John, taking a deep breath.
Lorenzo muttered, "It'd be better if she were willing. This isn't exactly-"
John harshly replied, "It's too late for that now. We either do this, or she's not going to make it. Look at her." Lorenzo nodded. There was a noticeable change in her features as the sedative took full effect. It was difficult to describe. Greyer. Colder. The thing was returning.
"Prepare yourself, Erik," murmured Lorenzo without looking at him. "Will the creature into you, if that is what you really want. Will it into yourself."
Erik glanced at Raoul and gave him a subtle nod. Raoul's stomach clenched as he followed the unspoken order. Hours before the exorcism had begun, Erik had told him where the gun was - tucked away in an innocent looking black leather bag at the left corner of the room. The safety was on, but it was loaded. Erik had said, "I will make every attempt to do it myself, to not endanger her. But if I command you to end it, then you must go forward. Aim for the chest first. Twice, if you must. Then, if you have a clear shot, the head."
Raoul had felt sick. Still, he managed to ask, "What if the creature goes into one of them instead?"
"I will deal with that." He didn't elaborate.
Raoul had forced himself to say, "Well, if the thing goes into me, I guess it's the same. End it, right?"
"It will be me." That was the icy end of the conversation.
Now, as John leaned over her body and read prayer after prayer, Raoul slowly went forward and picked up that terrible bag. He returned to her side. Erik knelt near her head and inaudibly murmured something into her ear. Raoul reached inside and felt the cold metal of the gun. John was too focused to notice. Lorenzo glanced at him but said nothing.
"It is mine!" Erik rasped, his head touching hers. "It was always mine, you see? I was born to have the monster in me! I deserve it; you do not. I deserve it. I am practically no different than it. Give it back to me. Come back to me now!"
Her head rocked back and forth. Her skin looked like stone. John screamed into her face, "I call you out of her, creature! Begone, Devil!"
"Please," Raoul muttered beneath his breath. "Please. Please get out of her."
"Come to me!" Erik yelled.
Then Lorenzo, with alarm in his voice, said, "It's coming—No!"
The rip of ropes being torn cut through the air. Bindings being broken.
An invisible force slammed against his chest. Raoul flew backward. He hit the wall. His back took most of the impact, and he wasn't knocked out. Still, he couldn't breathe for several seconds, couldn't wrap his mind around what had happened. He slumped to the floor, his legs collapsing out from underneath him.
Gasping, Raoul forced himself to sit up. To his right, Lorenzo was lying on his stomach with his arms stretched out in front of him. He groaned and slowly raised his head, coughing. Alive at least.
Where was Erik?
Erik was to his left, in a crouching position and clutching his forehead with one hand. Was he possessed?
Before Raoul could make any sort of decision, Erik looked up. He jumped to his feet. And released this horrible, strangled cry. Because—
Where the hell was John?
Where was Christine? Where was-?
Erik dashed toward the door of the room. Raoul pushed himself up. And tried to understand what had just-
Raoul's heart stopped. Evil black eyes stared at him from the other room. Along with John's terrified, blood-drained face. John gaped and weakly struggled to break the hold that Christine, or rather the creature, had around his neck. Still firmly in control of Christine's body, the thing dragged him backward on his knees, using John as a shield and a hostage.
In sedating Christine, they had temporarily allowed the creature to overpower her completely. For it could not be sedated. Holy shit.
Lorenzo finally climbed to his feet. "No!" he screamed, his hands helplessly reaching out. "Let him go! Release him, you monster!"
It grinned at them as John coughed and struggled in her unnaturally strong grip. Christine's laughter rang into the air, bitter and abnormal. She-It had John back against the entrance to the apartment.
Erik advanced toward them in several strides and was inches away from grabbing her. To Raoul's horror, the creature threw Erik backward. It opened the door, hesitating in the entryway, still holding John by the neck. Erik looked ready to dive forward again, an enraged glint in his yellow eyes.
"Stop!" Lorenzo screamed at Erik. "You're going to get him killed!"
Erik locked eyes with the thing. And said, very quietly, "He is already dead."
The thing grabbed John's head between her hands and twisted it sharply to the side. The sickening crack of a neck breaking vibrated in the air. John's head limply fell back, his eyes still open in a permanent stare of horror.
Raoul gritted his teeth and cringed. He almost vomited right there on the carpet. Lorenzo moaned and slumped against the wall, all color draining from his face.
Erik just…stared. Only the slight unfurling of his hands and the collapse of his posture gave away what he was feeling.
"Did you really think I would choose to enter any of you?" it asked. "Do you think I am completely stupid? She is the one person here whom none of you will harm. Erik, your race to be the martyr is utterly charming. But I would never go into you again, you ridiculous freak! Ever! No, I rather like existing. Let this be a lesson to all of you!"
The thing hurled the body of John at them. It landed on the carpet with a sickening thud. The creature opened the door and instantly disappeared. On his feet again, Erik jumped over the corpse and raced after her without a word. The door slammed shut behind him.
Trembling, Lorenzo slowly walked over to John's body and made the cross over his chest. "God save us all," he murmured. With a shuddery breath, he disappeared into the other room for several seconds. He emerged, pushed past Raoul, and ran out the door. With no time to think about anything, to make any decisions, Raoul followed closely behind.
A thud. A shout of anger. The echoes of footsteps down the dimly lit stairwell.
Raoul panted as he made his way to the bottom, turning corner after corner, always afraid of what he might see on the other side. He made it just in time to watch Lorenzo run out the glass doors of the complex. It was very early in the morning, a hint of light visible against the dark horizon. Clouds covered half the sky. The smell of summer rain hung in the air.
Raoul stopped running, his stomach cramping. At first, he could only see Lorenzo running back and forth across the sidewalk. Then Erik reappeared, obviously unsuccessful in finding her. The streetlights glinted off his black mask. Lorenzo pressed a hand to his forehead.
Raoul asked the obvious question as they took a left onto the next street, "Where did she…did it go?"
"We'll have to split up," Lorenzo muttered.
"How are any of us going to handle that by ourselves?" Raoul replied.
"I could call some people," said Lorenzo. "But it'd be probably be too late…."
With his back turned toward them, Erik lowered his mask to beneath his eyes, as though that would give him better vision. His head slowly turned back and forth as he eyed the landscape. People began to step out of their homes, on their way to work and school. None were aware that a monster lingered among them.
Erik replaced his mask. His head turned to the side. The yellowed eyes closed. The masked man was still, his shoulders rising and falling.
"What—" Raoul started to ask.
"Hush!" Erik snapped, his hand touching his temple.
"We need to go in different—" Lorenzo began.
"Will you be quiet?!" Erik hissed. "Both of you be quiet!"
Seconds ticked by. The only sound was their heavy breathing and the rumble of a passing car.
Erik's eyes opened, and he ran off in a very distinct direction.
"What's he doing now?" miserably asked Lorenzo. "Has he lost his mind?"
Raoul swallowed. "I think he can hear her."
"Hear what? Her voice? Her footsteps?"
But Raoul raced after Erik. Lorenzo followed.
His mind had gone numb.
Perhaps that was why he could finally hear.
Because he could not let himself think about what had just transpired. Not about their utter failure to save her. Not about how he had just watched as Christine's lovely hands were used to severe someone's spinal cord, although that image would be forever branded into his memory. A corruption beyond words.
He could only act, put one foot in front of the other, one motion after the next.
And then, for a moment, he could do nothing. The creature had used its power to trip him as he raced down the stairs; he'd been too late to see it leave the complex. Sunrise was approaching, and he stared at the nearly empty streets. Helpless. He had destroyed her.
And then he'd heard it. Maybe he'd sensed it before that moment, but now there was no mistaking what she'd described so long ago. Head chimes.
Somehow, she had given him a piece of her gift, her curse. He could hear them clearly. He knew which direction the creature was heading. And he knew that it was quickly weakening.
As the rising sun cast long shadows, he ran through alleys and streets. Daylight brushed against his pale, cold body until a grey cloud obscured it. Voices of people—
"—shouldn't be more than a hundred—"
"Did you remember to buy milk? We're almost—"
"Took the cat to the vet this morning-"
"I can't find my son! I just had him. He was right beside me!"
"I'm sure he's around here somewhere. Maybe he went into one of the stores."
"They're all closed! He was right here! I know he was!"
The last exchange, between a newspaper stand man and a younger woman, made him briefly glance up. Only briefly.
He heard a few gasps as he passed a café where commuters stopped for their morning cups of coffee. With his mask, he likely looked like he had just robbed a bank. He tried to stay toward the side, in the shadows, and finally ducked behind a building. The noises of rush hour were making it more difficult to hear.
He closed his eyes and listened. The chimes tinkled softly in the center of his mind, guiding him. He stepped over cigarette butts and broken bottles. Some drug paraphernalia. The air was warm and damp, making his mask stick to his face. A car horn honked in the distance. A siren.
And then he finally heard her voice, whispering eerily, "Let me into you. Just relax your little mind for me and let me into you, child. It will not hurt. Not a bit. It'll just be like you have a friend with you all the time. Don't you want a friend? I so want to be your friend."
"I don't understand!" a child exclaimed. "I want to go back now. You said we were going somewhere fun, but we're not. I want to go back to my mom!"
He turned the final corner, into an alleyway that was completely concealed. Even he, with his skeletal build, had to squeeze between the brick walls and a dumpster to arrive there. The thing knelt in front of the standing boy, her hands at his waist, holding him in place. They were eye level. The child, six or seven, had tears streaming down his cheeks. Her breathing was heavy, and the black eyes were exhausted. The thing was unquestionably languishing. Which could only mean one of two things.
Either her body was nearly dead. Or Christine was again fighting back.
"Please!" the child cried. "You're a stranger. I wasn't supposed to go with you."
"No, I am your friend," the thing replied, ruffling his blond hair. "I just want to be with you. Just for a little while. Let me in. Let me in now. Then you can go back to your mother. Yes?"
Perhaps the creature had weakened so quickly that it knew there was no time to find a perfect victim, a mental patient or an insane criminal. So the thing had grabbed a child as a last resort. A little boy would perhaps be weak-minded. Vulnerable to possession. And, no matter how bizarre or terrible his behavior, a child was safe from most repercussions.
He finally made himself known, stepping out from behind the brick wall. The thing glanced up and growled. It grabbed the child and positioned him in front of her body, a shield, one hand wrapped around the boy's neck. Just as the creature had done with John. "How did you find me?!" it viciously rasped. Her voice was distorted beyond all recognition. "That does not matter! I do not have time for you! Come any closer, and I will kill him. Do you really want that on your conscience?"
"Honestly, I do not have much of a conscious left," he replied. "I do not have much of anything left. You have taken everything." Still, he didn't take a step forward. His crumbling mind slowly assessed the situation. What did he want to come from this? What choice could be made here? He felt far away.
It held tightly to the child, continuing to make pleas and commands. "Let me into you right now. Open your mind to me. Open it!"
"I don't know how!" the child shouted through his tears. "I don't want to! I want to go home!"
The black eyes looked back up at him. "Well, Erik? Maybe you can be of use. Shouldn't you be encouraging the child? Isn't this what you wanted? Me to find another body? Tell the boy to let me in. Tell her to let go of me. And then we can all be joyful."
He opened his mouth. Because a part of him wanted this to happen - to save her at any cost and damn everyone else! Yet he still said nothing. Perhaps the idea of sacrificing a child did scrape against some distant part of his humanity. Maybe he knew all too well what it was like to be a little boy with a brain-dwelling monster - unable to understand what this was or why it was happening to him…or what he had done to deserve such a fate.
Or maybe he was finally done fighting her. Maybe he was simply done.
"Tell her to release me!" it screamed at him.
"I am no longer your slave," he replied. "Do not make demands of me."
With a snarl, the creature turned back to the child. "Let me in, you little brat!" The little boy just sobbed and begged to leave. "Leave me alone, you stupid girl! Let me go! Let me in." It simultaneously fought with Christine and pled with the child. Its voice grew increasingly more desperate. It twitched as though in pain. "Let go of me! I swear you will be sorry, girl! Let go of me!" it screamed at her. "Let go!" Then back to the child. "Let me in!"
"Over here!" Lorenzo exclaimed from behind them. He and Chagny appeared and came to a screeching halt at the corner of the alleyway.
"Oh my God," said Chagny. "She has a…."
"All of you!" it shrieked. "Tell her to let go! I will kill her! I will! Release me from her horrid grasp!"
Yet none of them said anything. None of them obeyed. One look at the child's tear-stained, terrified face—and that was it.
With a scream of rage, the creature shook the little boy. "Let me in!" For a moment, the child quieted and appeared confused, his eyes darkening and a grimace forming on his mouth. "Yes," the thing whispered. "Good boy. Let me in. Good little boy. Yes. Relax your mind. Yes." And then-"Let go of me, you stupid girl!"
Her eyes closed for only a second as the creature attempted to release Christine's mental grip. And he used that second to dive forward and grab the child by the arm. He jerked him away from her weakened fingers. "No!" it screamed, reaching outwards. Her body collapsed to the asphalt, a hoarse moan escaping her lips.
"Take the child!" he ordered. Chagny obeyed, grabbing the little boy's hand and pulling him away from danger.
"I hate you!" it snarled at him from the ground. He felt a light force pushing him back, no stronger than a spring breeze. "I hate you! You are a freak! You are a nothing! You are disgusting! Hideous! The greatest failure! I hate you!" It continued to hurl insults, each one weaker than the last.
That was all it could do now, and the words had no effect on him. The creature had no power over him now. He knelt to try and coax her back out, all his attention focused upon what remained of his Christine. Her lids closed, and the black eyes disappeared. He touched her cheek. "Come back to—"
"No!" Chagny shouted from the corner. "Leave her alone!" Chagny released the hand of the child and sprinted forward. The little boy immediately slipped through the crack and ran away.
It took him only a second to understand.
Lorenzo now held a gun in his right hand. Still at a distance, he started to aim it toward her head. "We have to destroy it!" he exclaimed, his face damp with perspiration and his jaw clenched. "We can't let it go into anyone else! Especially not you! There's no other way! I'm sorry, but there's no other way!"
He quickly scooped her limp body up, shielding her with his back, and growled, "If you harm a hair on her head, I will boil you alive!"
"You can't kill her!" Chagny exclaimed, trying to tackle Lorenzo and grab the gun. "It wasn't her fault. It's not her! That thing is not her!"
"I understand that!" Lorenzo cried, pushing Chagny back with his free hand. "I do! But there's no other way to destroy it! John was right. It's a terrible situation, but we don't have a choice! It murdered John! It nearly killed a child!"
"That child is only alive because of her!" he roared. "I will kill you if you touch her! I will you kill you!"
"This a menace to the entire world!" Lorenzo retorted. "You of all people should know that! It's practically the Antichrist! There's no other way!" Lorenzo knocked Chagny to the ground with his elbow and held up the gun. "There's no other way to be rid of it!"
"Get her out of here!"
He was already halfway out of the alley before Chagny finished his sentence. Clutching her in his arms, he ran. He braced himself for a gunshot and a sharp pain in his back. Neither ever came. Perhaps the idiot was too much of a coward to pull the trigger. He raced forward through the alleyways, holding onto her for dear life as dismal grey and brick walls flew by in a blur.
"Erik." Her hoarse voice spoke. In his single-minded need to continue forward, to just run toward nothing, he almost didn't hear her. He looked down, preparing for another fight against the creature. But - blue eyes. "Erik? Where-where are we-"
"Christine," he helplessly whispered, slowing. "I will take you to a—a hospital. Or a—a-" He stuttered through the final terrible options. He'd always considered himself of high intelligence, one of his only positive qualities. He had nothing left to say, though. He had nothing.
Erik, please listen to me." Her voice was weak but firm. "Please. I can kill it. From the inside. I was getting so close. I have to be the last one."
"But-"
"Please listen this time. I'm begging you. Or I am going to-to not be very well. But if you'll listen to me, I think it'll still be okay. Please give me a chance to kill it."
He stopped walking. A raindrop hit him on the hit, cold and firm. As though the heavens were trying to knock some sense into him.
"Fine," he rasped. "Fine. Fine."
Without another word, he continued forward. Her skinny arms wrapped around his neck. The streets were empty now that the rain had started to come down harder. A few people scurried by with umbrellas. They returned to the complex and the black car. He hesitated as he opened the back door.
"You don't need to tie me up," she said, reading his mind. "I can hold it back. If you don't sedate me again…." He gently placed her in the backseat. He climbed into the front and inhaled as he took the key from his pocket, feeling the heavy weight of defeat on his chest. As he started the car, she asked, "Erik? Something very bad happened today, didn't it? I don't remember what, but I have this feeling..."
He didn't answer. She didn't ask again, and he didn't know if he would ever tell her.
He knew exactly where he was going. She remained awake during the drive, her cheek against the seat as she stared out the window. He eventually turned into a dark parking garage near campus and stopped the car. Through the rain, he carried her around several buildings. Through a door that was supposed to be locked. Down a set of concrete stairs. Down they went into darkness.
Dark and cool. And somehow so right.
"Where are we?" she finally asked, her voice curious but unafraid.
"An unused basement. This is where I used to stay," he softly explained. "When I first arrived. When I first met you. This was my temporary home. "
She looked around. "Oh."
"You see that coffin over there?" She glanced at it. "That is where I rested. I could not sleep. I could not die. But I could rest there. It was quite comfortable." A pause. "And, if you die, we are both going in there. Forever."
"Erik—"
"No," he whispered, feeling that clenching in his chest. "You want me listen to you? Fine. Here we are. I will not fight you any longer. We will do exactly as you want."
"Erik, you-"
"No! You never asked!" he exclaimed, sharply staring down at her. "You never asked me what I would want, before you went and did this. I had no say. Otherwise, I would have told you that this is worse than anything else, including forty years of torture. So do not tell me what I should do. That is my decision! You have no say in that. You get no say in that, Christine."
She looked down and was quiet for a moment. She sighed. "You're right," she murmured. "I didn't ask you. I knew you'd never let it happen. And this was our only chance, and I - But I was just going to say that it's going to be okay. It's all going to be okay. You've done what I want now. Thank you. I'll take it from here. It's okay."
He took a seat on the cold ground, still cradling her. Her head rested against his chest and nuzzled up against his chin. Her breath was warm against his neck. "Do you want anything of me?" he softly asked. His anger dwindled.
"I just need to relax again. So that I can go back to sleep and find it. Um. You could help me relax. You could…sing."
"What do you want me to sing?"
The corner of her lip twitched upward. "Something happy?"
He gave a low chuckle. "Oh, darling. I have never sung something happy, and I do not have it in me now."
"Then whatever you want."
His hand stroked her hair, and he sang. Her eyes closed. Every so often, he touched her pulse. And waited.
Without the creature inside him, Erik's voice was even more beautiful. Unrestrained and smoother. Freer. Eventually, he would understand that her choice had been the right one. It was really the only one. If she hadn't made it, he wouldn't be with her right now.
She faded in his arms.
It felt like she slept for a very long time. With no dreams or memories. Just darkness and nothingness. An absence of herself.
Her eyes opened. Confused, she squinted under bright lights. She was lying in a small bed with a drab grey comforter draped over body. Surrounded by off-white walls and a few cheap pieces of furniture, a nightstand and a desk.
Her stomach turned. Flashes of the past.
"We don't know what's wrong with her. We'll start her on some medication, see how she reacts."
"I don't want to stay here, Dad. I don't want to come back."
"They'll help you get better, sweetheart. It's only temporary. I promise."
She moved the blanket and looked down. She wore a flimsy green nightshirt. A white paper bracelet was wrapped around her wrist. "No," she whispered. "Please no."
Erik had betrayed her! He'd refused to listen to her again! He'd taken her to an institution while she slept, hoping the creature would find a new victim there! How could he?! How dare he!
She clutched her head and cried.