The Awakening and the Dark

Christine's unconsciousness eventually slipped into exhausted sleep. And during the time that she slept, Erik remained unaccounted for. Where had he gone? To continue to vent his rage elsewhere? To maim and murder Raoul as he had threatened? No...Not that he did not desire it. Oh, such desire! But all that really mattered was Christine. It was Christine who had knifed him so brutally...Shown him that there really was no trusting—No hope for truth in this, what was left for him. So what difference did it make? He let her sleep.

When Christine did awaken, hours later, she saw the darkness first. And she did not understand. This was not the darkness of night...No, her slowly wakening coherence sensed that much. It was an unnatural darkness. A darkness that was too dark. Or perhaps too natural. A voice of heavenly beauty and simultaneous hellish anger penetrated her memory:

No one can escape eternity.

It was a voice she was so accustomed to hearing within her mind, that, for a moment she stirred almost in hope. But with the darkness, the silence pressed around her and she knew it was only her memory that spoke.

Eternity...

Death and eternity.

This was the eternal darkness of death!

But she knew she was not dead. She moved and felt the sides of the coffin. And she remembered. The shooting pain in her head was exquisite with each small shift of her body. A body that was stiff. And a chest that ached. The consequence of her shattering sobs and endless screams was this pain. Screams and sobs that had been consequence of fear and hysteria...Yes...And that terror...All that horror, the consequence of...what?

She suddenly became aware that there was a ring on her finger. Betrayal? She could not know how or why she realized this, but it was there. Deception? She could feel it. Shame? And with the slightest curl of her hand and brush of her thumb, she felt the sharp corners of the ruby...The stone rightfully red.

So broken, she felt! She wanted to give way to crying...But she could not. The aching was too sharp. Even her smallest whimpers resulted in gasps of pain. Gasps that resulted in tears. Tears to pain to tears to pain to tears...

And so she lied. And she knew. She knew what it was like to live and be dead. And there was nothing to do...But give way to eternity.

During this time, Erik was unaware that she was awake.

Time slipped past...Slowly, it seemed, though Christine had no way to mark it. Sometimes she could hear her heartbeat...But then the throbbing in her head would overpower it. So this is how she would spend eternity. The saints singing mourning hymns to her own internal metronome. But...She was not dead! And somehow, she knew this. Through even the darkness of death, she could sense it! She would not let herself be lost! It took time...Seemingly endless time...But she gathered the strength...And drew her breath...And screamed!

Upon hearing the scream from the other room, Erik marked it with approbation. Never had he heard such a scream more fitting to be coming from within a locked coffin. The wail of a ghoul from the grave calling to the corpses to come to her aid. Well there was only one corpse in this tomb. Erik would come.

Inside the coffin, the air was close and the oxygen was thin. Christine had to choke through a few breaths before she could take in enough to scream again. And as she struggled to allow a breath into her trembling and aching chest for a third cry, she began to understand that there would indeed be a limited number to these gasps. So be it. If she could not escape eternity, then eternity must not have her quietly.

She managed to unwork her hands from where they were trapped and pushed up on the lid of the box that covered her. The sounds of her frantic beating fists mixed with those of her cries were loud enough within her confine that she could not hear Erik enter the room. And she did not hear him unclip the latches on the lid, remaining completely unaware of any change until suddenly the lid above her actually yielded to her efforts. Oh, it was the smallest of lifts and the cover immediately settled back into place, but the abrupt effect surprised her and she stopped moving.

And then he was inside the coffin with her. Not in body—But in voice and presence:

"Welcome back to the world of the living, Christine."

Her breaths were heavy...Each one creating new pain in her very lungs. But he could not stop her! She had moved it! Her weak limbs began to push against the heavy lid again with fresh assurance, using all the strength that remained!

The lid rose! And slid!—But oh! So very little before it fell again, and her voice cracked with frustrated sobs.

Erik's presence remained. "Come now, is that the best you can do?"

Christine gasped for air. She felt weaker and weaker as each breath became more and more shallow. But she managed the power to cry between gasps, "Erik...Erik, please...!"

Erik answered with torturous indolence, "Please what, Christine?"

If it were possible, Christine was certain the darkness was growing blacker. It seemed as if what she attempted to breathe was not even air anymore but some thick black velvet that choked and suffocated her. "Please...Let me out...Open the lid..."

Again, he drew out his response, "If I let you out, what will you do in exchange?"

Christine took a moment to answer as she coughed weakly. "Anything...Anything, Erik..."

"Are you lying to me?" The question was asked almost too simply.

Christine felt a strange, soft sensation spreading through her body towards her brain. It reminded her of the dull, white feeling that comes just as one is about to faint...Only this feeling was black...Very black. Her words sounded far away to her, "Please...Please...I can't breathe, Erik..."

"Answer me." His voice cut through the haze like light that did not exist.

"No..." she answered, only barely hearing herself. "No, I'm not lying..."

His voice abruptly slipped back out into the universe beyond the walls of the coffin. "Good."

Christine could only hear as the lid slid back with a glide of effortless ease. Polished wood against polished wood. The darkness remained. The wash of cool air against her face and into her lungs whispered to her senses in lovely deep breaths that she was no longer enclosed, but her eyes only told the same black story they had seen since she had awoken.

Her hands, weak and trembling, felt for the sides of the box. She felt that the lid had not been completely removed, but it was enough. She climbed out completely very quickly despite her lightheadedness, but could not keep from stumbling in the dark as she tried to dismount the platform. She reached out and for a moment felt in vain for something to support her, but then gave up the effort and relied only on herself. She took another moment to even her breath and then addressed the dark, which had been strangely patient through all this:

"Erik...Where is the door...I want...I want to go to my room..."

His voice floated out to her from somewhere in that dark. "Are you so sure there is a door, Christine?"

She had to sit down. Even the floor would suit her at this moment. Her head was swimming. "Erik...Stop this...Please stop it...I'll do anything you wish, if you only let me out..."

His voice came from directly behind her. "Why do you want to get out so badly? This is just a room...A room like any other room. Four walls, a ceiling, a floor..."

She turned quickly and looked in the direction of his voice, but all was lost in the blackness. "I can't see...I can't see anything..." Searching for him was hopeless. She was trapped...Just as trapped. "It's still dark...It's like I'm still in the coffin. Please, Erik!"

"Life is a coffin, Christine."

She did not want to hear him speak this way! Not when she couldn't see him! Not when she knew the tricks his voice could play. "Please, Erik...Put on a light; at least put on a light..."

It was almost as if the air around her sighed as his voice came again, "What is the difference, Christine? To blind men, the entire world is blacker than this. Why is seeing so important to you?"

Christine fought back the tears in her useless eyes. "Blind men are used to it, Erik, and they do not have a choice!"

"Neither do you, it seems. How do you know that you have not gone blind now?"

"Because...Because, I..." Erik's point had been made. Trembling heavily, she pressed her hands over her eyes and did not speak to him again. Useless for seeing, but fully functional for crying, her eyes overflowed with burning tears. Her sobs were soft and the half-senseless pleas for help choked under her breath: "...Raoul...Father..."

Erik heard. But though his words were not comforting, nor did his voice rise, "No one can hear you anymore, Christine...As blind as you are to the world, the world is deaf to you."

So then there was nothing. She had lost...Lost...She burst through and cried out to him in dreadful agony, "Then I want you to put me back into that coffin, Erik!" She moaned in defeat, "If I am so apart from the world now..."

"You are apart from the world, Christine." He paused only briefly and then, for the first time, his words were almost tender... "But do not forget that you are not alone."

But Christine shook her head and covered her face in her hands. Her small voice escaped between her fingers. "I feel as though I am alone...That I am all alone..."

Erik clenched his jaw in a moment of silent resistance against the sting of the insinuation of her words, and then said coldly, "I am sure you do."

She continued quietly, speaking to herself as if she had not heard him, "You left me...You left me all alone...All alone in the coffin..."

His sharp laugh clipped through her whisper. "Would you rather I had joined you?"

The question startled Christine into attention. She was fairly shocked by his words, but despite their sarcastic touch, she actually gave them a few moments' flushed and silent consideration...And then she answered...So incredibly softly:

"Much more than being alone."