A/N: I can't believe it! Some people actually reviewed this story! O_O I'd
like to say that I'm eternally grateful...? I thought this story wouldn't
host any reviews and just put it up for kicks...Oh well. Again, I'd like to
give my thanks to Shandethe Sanders, Yukito-sama and Xtreme Person for the
reviews! I love to write, and maybe this piece of crap is worthwhile after
all ^_^ I just hope I can make you happy with the first chapter! Well, if
you think you can bear with me and my babbling, cheers, and enjoy! :)
Disclaimer: I don't own POTO, Gaston Leroux does. And the musical belongs to the Really Useful Group, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Cameron Mackintosh. The lyrics used here are the original ones off the soundtrack, written by Charles Hart. The rest, mostly the new characters, belong to me. Have fun! :D
CHAPTER ONE: Moonlit Platform
(Paris Opera House, 1882)
"We are all here?" Mademoiselle Meg Giry peeked through the top of her reading glasses to check the horde of young ballerinas dancing up and down on their toes nervously in their frilly white tutus and slippers and chattering idly while waiting for her to lead them all, twenty or so little girls, onto the stage.
"Let's see...Ampoule...Montreau...Ruban..." She now realized who of the secluded group was missing, and tilted her spectacles with her fingers to sternly peer at her ballet class.
"Soujeré! Where is Soujeré?"
As if in response, two seconds later a figure came running swiftly but rather clumsily considering the delicate quality of the pearly lace-trimmed slippers, to land less than gracefully about a foot apart from the strict mistress. The ballerinas could not contain their snickers.
"Estoy bien, Signorita Giry," squeaked a light, drawling voice.
Mademoiselle Giry, only faintly surprised with the intrusion, looked down to see the twenty-first girl, only about fourteen years old or so, relatively short and still amazingly immaculate in her tutu, and featured with jet-black hair, silvery ice-blue eyes and a perpetually cocky smile. She sighed and rolled her eyes.
"This isn't Spain, you know." The giggles of the other teenagers tittered in the background. "Where have you been?"
"The bathroom, Sig-Mademoiselle," she corrected herself, playing with the French word in a thoughtful manner, the hint of Spanish accent still dwelling in her amused tone. "I got lost in the back and couldn't find my way. It was only when I heard you calling that I knew where I was."
"You were playing a prank," accused the lady in a more suggestive way than angry.
The girl only donned a would-be innocent grin, much to the delight of her colleagues, who guffawed generously.
Mademoiselle Giry now looked wholly exasperated. "For your information, L'Ange Soujeré, we have just redone and finished practicing the chorus. Since you have not been here to take note of the changes, I have to ask you to stay behind for the opening song."
"Si, that's quite all right," she replied honestly. "I don't like singing anyway."
"Nothing at all like her mother," another ballerina, Montreau, remarked. The others sniggered, and the scoundrel, unaffected, only shrugged.
"Children, that's quite enough," their teacher announced, miffed but now also filled with the humorous thoughts of one of the Paris Opera House's most famous prima donnas, and her daughter who proved that dancing was her set passion. She turned to face the Soujeré girl now, and thought of an instruction for her to do something useful.
"Now, while we commence the first act with the song, you go find that new girl-we know she's somewhere around here. It'll have to be her solo-Madame Bela is ill, I'm afraid-and she's our only hope. I have faith in her-I know she's ready-and Maria," she acknowledged Soujeré, who brightened considerably when she heard her fist name, "I have faith in you."
The other ballerinas, who all knew a good amount of the 'new girl's capabilities, were aroused from another trance of exchange and beamed at both of them.
The rascal teen, though not knowing anything about the newcomer, nodded enthusiastically. "Nothing to it, Mademoiselle, I'd really love to meet her."
Quite taken back by her reliability, Mademoiselle Giry smiled. "You come out right after the dear's solo, so you better get her fast. Hurry girls, six minutes!"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
It took Maria Soujeré's fast feet only about five minutes to scour a fourth of the dressing rooms, none containing the substitute, anxiety already reaching past her eyebrows. True, it would have been great if something preposterous happened onstage tonight, like a frog croak taking over Madame Bela's voice (she recalled an incident like this with queer fondness, because no one really liked Bela much), but this was the opening night of the renovated Opera House, the exhibition of songs and dances that were popular long before her time. Even she, the most mischievous and conniving member of the company, didn't want to wreck it.
Her face now held a puzzled, calculating expression as she stopped a couple of meters away from the last one, the white door, paint peeling, standing nearest to a dead end.
A good deal of the company's hands, particularly with the backdrop and animal props, were foreign-they were immigrants from Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark and even Spain, her mother's native country. But it was amazing how wise Kurt van Lieden, the head groom as well as the strongest and perhaps the eldest stagehand though not that old, knew the Opera House from top to its secret and endless bottom.
She now recalled a legend he had narrated to her and the other ballet girls. That old dressing room used to belong to the most popular, innocent and angelic singer in the Opera about twenty years ago. It was also rumored to be haunted by the ghost of a phantom genius who took over her voice and controlled it to produce the most unearthly melodies ever heard in heaven and hell. It gave her the creeps.
But all the same, she lifted one shoulder in a halfhearted shrug and opened the door.
She suspected the young woman inside to be who she was looking for. The very beautiful lady, only looking a few years older than herself, with the palest milk-white skin, almost platinum-blond hair and crystal blue eyes, was sitting in perfect poise on the old vintage chair, staring in a very concentrated way in the mirror and practicing her scales.
"Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti-Do..."
She was greatly astounded by the older girl's almost heavenly soprano voice, and very sure that this was prissy old Madame Bela's replacement. No one else, not even the prima donna herself, could reach notes so high in such a perfect manner, and now she was already contemplating on a complaint that this singer should be the Opera's lead.
"Oy, excuse me," she called, making sure the scale routine had been run through. "I really don't mean to interrupt, but I have to inquire if you're Madame Bela Poncheaux's replacement."
"I know you mean no harm," the latter answered sweetly in a cheerfully honest voice, accompanied with a reassuring smile. "And yes, I am the substitute. Is the show about to start?"
"Aye," Soujeré nodded. "They'll finish with that stupid 'Arbousier' number in about seven minutes or the like."
"All right," the other conceded. "I was about to look for Mademoiselle Giry anyway." Her somewhat blank face furrowed in a questioning expression. "But I don't believe we have met before. May I have your name, if it doesn't bother you?"
"Uh, sure, not at all." The younger girl was baffled by her colleague's politeness, and now a little ashamed of her blunt etiquette. "It's Maria Soujeré, but I'd feel more at ease if you called me by my nickname, Rio."
"Rio," she repeated dreamily. "That's a wonderful name, quite full of meaning-you must be of foreign descent...isn't 'rio' the Spanish word for 'river?' How fast it flows, how cool its water feels, how clear blue it looks under the reflecting sun..."
"Ei, that's great!" Rio cheered, grinning. "You should be a writer or something!"
At this comment, the stranger felt ashamed. "I sincerely apologize-I didn't mean for myself to drift away like that. I promise I shan't do it again."
"Eh, I didn't have a problem," Rio confirmed, both eyebrows ascended.
"My name's Christine de Chagny," she added as an afterthought.
"And your name rings a bell-uh, sounds familiar, I mean. Can't really put my finger on where I've heard that before."
"I understand," Christine replied shyly.
"Well, anyways..." Rio looked to the dry, red-carpeted floor and shuffled her slipper-clad feet. "If you'd like to come onstage..."
"Oh!" she exclaimed in mild surprise. "Yes, yes, we'd better come then. I assume you're a ballet dancer in the company? They've been with Monsieur van Lieden long enough to find someone lost in the Opera."
"Si, Kurt is always with Madame Giry."
Determined to get there on time, the Christine girl stood up from her chair, but Rio was confused to see her glance around the room, a look of despair on her face.
"How do I do this...mon Dieu, I'm so useless..."
"Useless?" Now Rio was downright skeptical. "How can you be useless?"
"I just am," Christine said neutrally. "Why the Opera House wanted to bestow such honor on a person like me, I have no clue whatsoever..."
"I heard your voice," Rio interrupted. "You're the most talented and gifted person I've ever heard, mil times better than snooty old Madame Bela. And look, you're beautiful."
A long pause echoed through the room before Christine asked, as a genuine question, "Am I?"
"Yes!" Rio affirmed, truly addle-headed this time. "Look at yourself in the mirror, tell me what you see."
Christine followed the order and turned to face the aged vanity mirror, but the capitulated expression remained.
"Nothing."
"Nothing? Honestly..."
"Honestly."
It took a few more seconds to let the perplexed girl come to her conclusion- a very awkward one that she didn't want to ask. She fidgeted with her fingers uncomfortably and shifted a shortened lock of her raven-black hair away from her cold blue-gray eyes before popping her query.
"You mean...you really can't...can you?"
"No." Christine shook her head.
And she realized that Christine de Chagny was blind.
"They're almost done-only a few minutes more before our solos."
Rio excitedly pulled Christine's hand nearer to the curtain, doing her best to peek in front. Both were in full costume, having changed inside the dressing room: Christine as Elissa from Hannibal, and Rio as Ariadne from a recently written Opera called Bête.
"Can you see past the curtain-the audience, I mean?"
"Si." She gently pulled the curtain away and drummed her fingers up and down as a greeting directed to Louve, another rather skinny ballerina still entranced in her part, even though 'Arbousier' was nearly over.
"Please tell me who you see seated in the boxes."
"All right. Box one-this old rich-looking couple, Swedish maybe."
"My mother was from Sweden, I remember."
"Really? What happened to your mother?"
"She died when I was fourteen."
"Oh, that's horrible!" Rio whispered. "I shouldn't have brought up the topic."
"'Tis quite fine," Christine smiled ruefully. "I was not able to see her suffer, but I felt it when she was finally at peace."
"Oh. Well, I'm fourteen," she added uselessly. "Right-Box Two...Santissimo mierda, my mother!" she almost screeched, and half the ballet girls, now concentrating on the number's finale, turned their eyes and smirked when they discovered who had uttered the vehement remark. "Oh, and uh...my father...allô, Papa..."
At this, Christine smiled in amusement. "That's exactly who I am looking for-my father."
"Si? All right, I'm looking-Box Three is empty, Kurt always said it was jinxed...and some people are occupying Box Four, this chap with red hair and white ends and another not-so-old-looking man with silver hair; they must be the managers, they're wearing very expensive-like evening clothes...Oh, and Box Five is occupied, middle-aged man who seems quite wealthy as well..."
"Middle-aged man?" Christine repeated curiously. "What does he look like?"
"Dark hair, slicked back. Quite handsome for someone who's about forty years old or so."
"That's what I think my father looks like!" Christine cried happily. "Before I lost my vision when I was eleven and before he left after my mother died...I haven't seen the dear man for three years..."
"And you should go out and impress him," Rio grinned. "It looks like he's waiting for someone to come out on stage and make him proud."
"I can hear the crowd...'Arbousier' is already over..."
"Go on then. I heard you sing your C-scale earlier. Make me think you can do better."
Christine grinned at her new friend, unaware that she was facing the correct direction. "How many steps do I have to take to make it onstage?"
"Ten long ones and you'll be directly facing the people."
"Thanks so much for finding me."
"No problem. And you'll do great, I know it," Rio promised.
True to the ballerina's word, Christine's voice echoed magnificently through the Opera House. She couldn't see herself illuminated on the erected platform, but she could hear her heart speaking through her. And she was totally entranced in the music.
"We never said
Our love was evergreen
Or as unchanging as the sea
But if you can you still remember
Stop and think of me."
But it all happened so strangely fast. One minute, she was there in the darkness as Elissa, only feeling what she could of her surroundings. Suddenly the brightest light she's ever seen in her life erupted before her very sightless eyes, a flash of the purest blinding white. She couldn't tell if it was from heaven or hell.
She didn't care about the loud cheers and shouts of 'Encore!' from the hungry operagoers. The only thing that mattered now was the beam, and it was now clearing before her in a rush of silvery mist...
And she was truly held captive now. It was surely a vision, something that had clapped into her imagination and bound her while her thoughts held in the song, but then...how, why did it seem so real...?
Whatever vision it was now, it was clear as day in front of her, eyes hosting perfect vision on the scene. She stood in the dimness of a moonlit platform that rooted her to the center, and she took notice of candles and candelabras everywhere, the waxy scent mixing with the stifling fog-sheeted air. And smothering the place was the strangest music coming from some kind of deathlike organ and echoing with the voices of what seemed to be fallen angels. She could hear it, torturing her soul and setting afire...
"He's there, the Phantom of the Opera..."
And right there, standing there before her and clothed in nocturnal black, was an unearthly figure-a man, in a demented idea of evening clothes worn at the Opera, cape and hat, covering his face and shadow.
She felt her heart chill when he smiled at her-a grotesque, ghostly smile reserved for the horror that lay deep in someone's heart in secret. He walked hauntingly around her, keeping the skull-like grin in place, taking off the cap to reveal slicked-back hair combed flat on his head, like the charming murderer who always talked before he killed, and revealing his face, covered entirely in a mask-a fearful white one, glowing eerily in the hellish light.
And she heard a voice, high-pitched and scary, penetrating the thick cloud of darkness and cold brume that covered them totally. It struck her heart with mental lightning and dread when she discovered that the nightmarish voice, the bittersweet melody of a night angel, was hers.
And she couldn't swallow back the strange music that had imprisoned her to scream, scream in deep consternation as the man sinisterly removed the mask to show her the terror that lay within...
"In sleep he sang to me
In dreams he came
That voice which calls to me
And speaks my name
And do I dream again
For now I find
The Phantom of the Opera is there...
Inside my mind..."
Inside my mind...
Disclaimer: I don't own POTO, Gaston Leroux does. And the musical belongs to the Really Useful Group, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Cameron Mackintosh. The lyrics used here are the original ones off the soundtrack, written by Charles Hart. The rest, mostly the new characters, belong to me. Have fun! :D
CHAPTER ONE: Moonlit Platform
(Paris Opera House, 1882)
"We are all here?" Mademoiselle Meg Giry peeked through the top of her reading glasses to check the horde of young ballerinas dancing up and down on their toes nervously in their frilly white tutus and slippers and chattering idly while waiting for her to lead them all, twenty or so little girls, onto the stage.
"Let's see...Ampoule...Montreau...Ruban..." She now realized who of the secluded group was missing, and tilted her spectacles with her fingers to sternly peer at her ballet class.
"Soujeré! Where is Soujeré?"
As if in response, two seconds later a figure came running swiftly but rather clumsily considering the delicate quality of the pearly lace-trimmed slippers, to land less than gracefully about a foot apart from the strict mistress. The ballerinas could not contain their snickers.
"Estoy bien, Signorita Giry," squeaked a light, drawling voice.
Mademoiselle Giry, only faintly surprised with the intrusion, looked down to see the twenty-first girl, only about fourteen years old or so, relatively short and still amazingly immaculate in her tutu, and featured with jet-black hair, silvery ice-blue eyes and a perpetually cocky smile. She sighed and rolled her eyes.
"This isn't Spain, you know." The giggles of the other teenagers tittered in the background. "Where have you been?"
"The bathroom, Sig-Mademoiselle," she corrected herself, playing with the French word in a thoughtful manner, the hint of Spanish accent still dwelling in her amused tone. "I got lost in the back and couldn't find my way. It was only when I heard you calling that I knew where I was."
"You were playing a prank," accused the lady in a more suggestive way than angry.
The girl only donned a would-be innocent grin, much to the delight of her colleagues, who guffawed generously.
Mademoiselle Giry now looked wholly exasperated. "For your information, L'Ange Soujeré, we have just redone and finished practicing the chorus. Since you have not been here to take note of the changes, I have to ask you to stay behind for the opening song."
"Si, that's quite all right," she replied honestly. "I don't like singing anyway."
"Nothing at all like her mother," another ballerina, Montreau, remarked. The others sniggered, and the scoundrel, unaffected, only shrugged.
"Children, that's quite enough," their teacher announced, miffed but now also filled with the humorous thoughts of one of the Paris Opera House's most famous prima donnas, and her daughter who proved that dancing was her set passion. She turned to face the Soujeré girl now, and thought of an instruction for her to do something useful.
"Now, while we commence the first act with the song, you go find that new girl-we know she's somewhere around here. It'll have to be her solo-Madame Bela is ill, I'm afraid-and she's our only hope. I have faith in her-I know she's ready-and Maria," she acknowledged Soujeré, who brightened considerably when she heard her fist name, "I have faith in you."
The other ballerinas, who all knew a good amount of the 'new girl's capabilities, were aroused from another trance of exchange and beamed at both of them.
The rascal teen, though not knowing anything about the newcomer, nodded enthusiastically. "Nothing to it, Mademoiselle, I'd really love to meet her."
Quite taken back by her reliability, Mademoiselle Giry smiled. "You come out right after the dear's solo, so you better get her fast. Hurry girls, six minutes!"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
It took Maria Soujeré's fast feet only about five minutes to scour a fourth of the dressing rooms, none containing the substitute, anxiety already reaching past her eyebrows. True, it would have been great if something preposterous happened onstage tonight, like a frog croak taking over Madame Bela's voice (she recalled an incident like this with queer fondness, because no one really liked Bela much), but this was the opening night of the renovated Opera House, the exhibition of songs and dances that were popular long before her time. Even she, the most mischievous and conniving member of the company, didn't want to wreck it.
Her face now held a puzzled, calculating expression as she stopped a couple of meters away from the last one, the white door, paint peeling, standing nearest to a dead end.
A good deal of the company's hands, particularly with the backdrop and animal props, were foreign-they were immigrants from Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark and even Spain, her mother's native country. But it was amazing how wise Kurt van Lieden, the head groom as well as the strongest and perhaps the eldest stagehand though not that old, knew the Opera House from top to its secret and endless bottom.
She now recalled a legend he had narrated to her and the other ballet girls. That old dressing room used to belong to the most popular, innocent and angelic singer in the Opera about twenty years ago. It was also rumored to be haunted by the ghost of a phantom genius who took over her voice and controlled it to produce the most unearthly melodies ever heard in heaven and hell. It gave her the creeps.
But all the same, she lifted one shoulder in a halfhearted shrug and opened the door.
She suspected the young woman inside to be who she was looking for. The very beautiful lady, only looking a few years older than herself, with the palest milk-white skin, almost platinum-blond hair and crystal blue eyes, was sitting in perfect poise on the old vintage chair, staring in a very concentrated way in the mirror and practicing her scales.
"Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti-Do..."
She was greatly astounded by the older girl's almost heavenly soprano voice, and very sure that this was prissy old Madame Bela's replacement. No one else, not even the prima donna herself, could reach notes so high in such a perfect manner, and now she was already contemplating on a complaint that this singer should be the Opera's lead.
"Oy, excuse me," she called, making sure the scale routine had been run through. "I really don't mean to interrupt, but I have to inquire if you're Madame Bela Poncheaux's replacement."
"I know you mean no harm," the latter answered sweetly in a cheerfully honest voice, accompanied with a reassuring smile. "And yes, I am the substitute. Is the show about to start?"
"Aye," Soujeré nodded. "They'll finish with that stupid 'Arbousier' number in about seven minutes or the like."
"All right," the other conceded. "I was about to look for Mademoiselle Giry anyway." Her somewhat blank face furrowed in a questioning expression. "But I don't believe we have met before. May I have your name, if it doesn't bother you?"
"Uh, sure, not at all." The younger girl was baffled by her colleague's politeness, and now a little ashamed of her blunt etiquette. "It's Maria Soujeré, but I'd feel more at ease if you called me by my nickname, Rio."
"Rio," she repeated dreamily. "That's a wonderful name, quite full of meaning-you must be of foreign descent...isn't 'rio' the Spanish word for 'river?' How fast it flows, how cool its water feels, how clear blue it looks under the reflecting sun..."
"Ei, that's great!" Rio cheered, grinning. "You should be a writer or something!"
At this comment, the stranger felt ashamed. "I sincerely apologize-I didn't mean for myself to drift away like that. I promise I shan't do it again."
"Eh, I didn't have a problem," Rio confirmed, both eyebrows ascended.
"My name's Christine de Chagny," she added as an afterthought.
"And your name rings a bell-uh, sounds familiar, I mean. Can't really put my finger on where I've heard that before."
"I understand," Christine replied shyly.
"Well, anyways..." Rio looked to the dry, red-carpeted floor and shuffled her slipper-clad feet. "If you'd like to come onstage..."
"Oh!" she exclaimed in mild surprise. "Yes, yes, we'd better come then. I assume you're a ballet dancer in the company? They've been with Monsieur van Lieden long enough to find someone lost in the Opera."
"Si, Kurt is always with Madame Giry."
Determined to get there on time, the Christine girl stood up from her chair, but Rio was confused to see her glance around the room, a look of despair on her face.
"How do I do this...mon Dieu, I'm so useless..."
"Useless?" Now Rio was downright skeptical. "How can you be useless?"
"I just am," Christine said neutrally. "Why the Opera House wanted to bestow such honor on a person like me, I have no clue whatsoever..."
"I heard your voice," Rio interrupted. "You're the most talented and gifted person I've ever heard, mil times better than snooty old Madame Bela. And look, you're beautiful."
A long pause echoed through the room before Christine asked, as a genuine question, "Am I?"
"Yes!" Rio affirmed, truly addle-headed this time. "Look at yourself in the mirror, tell me what you see."
Christine followed the order and turned to face the aged vanity mirror, but the capitulated expression remained.
"Nothing."
"Nothing? Honestly..."
"Honestly."
It took a few more seconds to let the perplexed girl come to her conclusion- a very awkward one that she didn't want to ask. She fidgeted with her fingers uncomfortably and shifted a shortened lock of her raven-black hair away from her cold blue-gray eyes before popping her query.
"You mean...you really can't...can you?"
"No." Christine shook her head.
And she realized that Christine de Chagny was blind.
"They're almost done-only a few minutes more before our solos."
Rio excitedly pulled Christine's hand nearer to the curtain, doing her best to peek in front. Both were in full costume, having changed inside the dressing room: Christine as Elissa from Hannibal, and Rio as Ariadne from a recently written Opera called Bête.
"Can you see past the curtain-the audience, I mean?"
"Si." She gently pulled the curtain away and drummed her fingers up and down as a greeting directed to Louve, another rather skinny ballerina still entranced in her part, even though 'Arbousier' was nearly over.
"Please tell me who you see seated in the boxes."
"All right. Box one-this old rich-looking couple, Swedish maybe."
"My mother was from Sweden, I remember."
"Really? What happened to your mother?"
"She died when I was fourteen."
"Oh, that's horrible!" Rio whispered. "I shouldn't have brought up the topic."
"'Tis quite fine," Christine smiled ruefully. "I was not able to see her suffer, but I felt it when she was finally at peace."
"Oh. Well, I'm fourteen," she added uselessly. "Right-Box Two...Santissimo mierda, my mother!" she almost screeched, and half the ballet girls, now concentrating on the number's finale, turned their eyes and smirked when they discovered who had uttered the vehement remark. "Oh, and uh...my father...allô, Papa..."
At this, Christine smiled in amusement. "That's exactly who I am looking for-my father."
"Si? All right, I'm looking-Box Three is empty, Kurt always said it was jinxed...and some people are occupying Box Four, this chap with red hair and white ends and another not-so-old-looking man with silver hair; they must be the managers, they're wearing very expensive-like evening clothes...Oh, and Box Five is occupied, middle-aged man who seems quite wealthy as well..."
"Middle-aged man?" Christine repeated curiously. "What does he look like?"
"Dark hair, slicked back. Quite handsome for someone who's about forty years old or so."
"That's what I think my father looks like!" Christine cried happily. "Before I lost my vision when I was eleven and before he left after my mother died...I haven't seen the dear man for three years..."
"And you should go out and impress him," Rio grinned. "It looks like he's waiting for someone to come out on stage and make him proud."
"I can hear the crowd...'Arbousier' is already over..."
"Go on then. I heard you sing your C-scale earlier. Make me think you can do better."
Christine grinned at her new friend, unaware that she was facing the correct direction. "How many steps do I have to take to make it onstage?"
"Ten long ones and you'll be directly facing the people."
"Thanks so much for finding me."
"No problem. And you'll do great, I know it," Rio promised.
True to the ballerina's word, Christine's voice echoed magnificently through the Opera House. She couldn't see herself illuminated on the erected platform, but she could hear her heart speaking through her. And she was totally entranced in the music.
"We never said
Our love was evergreen
Or as unchanging as the sea
But if you can you still remember
Stop and think of me."
But it all happened so strangely fast. One minute, she was there in the darkness as Elissa, only feeling what she could of her surroundings. Suddenly the brightest light she's ever seen in her life erupted before her very sightless eyes, a flash of the purest blinding white. She couldn't tell if it was from heaven or hell.
She didn't care about the loud cheers and shouts of 'Encore!' from the hungry operagoers. The only thing that mattered now was the beam, and it was now clearing before her in a rush of silvery mist...
And she was truly held captive now. It was surely a vision, something that had clapped into her imagination and bound her while her thoughts held in the song, but then...how, why did it seem so real...?
Whatever vision it was now, it was clear as day in front of her, eyes hosting perfect vision on the scene. She stood in the dimness of a moonlit platform that rooted her to the center, and she took notice of candles and candelabras everywhere, the waxy scent mixing with the stifling fog-sheeted air. And smothering the place was the strangest music coming from some kind of deathlike organ and echoing with the voices of what seemed to be fallen angels. She could hear it, torturing her soul and setting afire...
"He's there, the Phantom of the Opera..."
And right there, standing there before her and clothed in nocturnal black, was an unearthly figure-a man, in a demented idea of evening clothes worn at the Opera, cape and hat, covering his face and shadow.
She felt her heart chill when he smiled at her-a grotesque, ghostly smile reserved for the horror that lay deep in someone's heart in secret. He walked hauntingly around her, keeping the skull-like grin in place, taking off the cap to reveal slicked-back hair combed flat on his head, like the charming murderer who always talked before he killed, and revealing his face, covered entirely in a mask-a fearful white one, glowing eerily in the hellish light.
And she heard a voice, high-pitched and scary, penetrating the thick cloud of darkness and cold brume that covered them totally. It struck her heart with mental lightning and dread when she discovered that the nightmarish voice, the bittersweet melody of a night angel, was hers.
And she couldn't swallow back the strange music that had imprisoned her to scream, scream in deep consternation as the man sinisterly removed the mask to show her the terror that lay within...
"In sleep he sang to me
In dreams he came
That voice which calls to me
And speaks my name
And do I dream again
For now I find
The Phantom of the Opera is there...
Inside my mind..."
Inside my mind...