Christine stood at the expansive window, not noticing the grey bleakness of the day as her mind danced and whirled around memories recently past and still painful. She regretted not a moment, she loved Raoul, but still she wondered what life would have been like with him. Him. Erik. His passion, his brilliance, his innate sensuality that had drawn her to him like a moth to flame, before she realized it. She had thought him an angel, her Angel of Music, thinking that she could be drawn in like that so soon after her father's death only by a creature of Heaven. She sighed, and turned away. Oh, how wrong she had been.
His darkness had captivated her, offering her some measure of solace as she inwardly screamed and cried for her loss. Only after he'd visited had she slept soundly, unplagued by the nightmares that chased her through her unconscious mind. His music, as she had grown older and realized, was brilliant. A raging inferno of undeserved pain, a well of cool peace, the contentment of requited love, all of those he had written. All of those he had written for her. And what had she done for him? Saved him? Loved him? No.
She had broken him.
His soul had been in her hands that night. That night when Hell had walked the earth, choosing to appear in a dark grotto below a place of culture and art. That night when she had taken his soul, and shattered it, handing it back to him without apology. His crystallized hatred and pain had frightened her, so unlike her precious Angel, that she had chosen Raoul. She'd doubted her choice the moment she kissed him, feeling his tears on her cheeks and his desperation on her tongue. Still, she had stood on her choice. She had returned to the unblemished surface tarnished on her very soul. She'd tried, God above knew she had, to be a good and dutiful wife, a loving mother to the heirs she'd borne without protest.
Always, though, she had carried the memories and the secret realization she had come to during, as cliché as it sounded, her wedding. If she'd had to make the choice over again, she would have chosen Erik without protest. Nay, she'd have chosen Erik without contest. Her life had been sweet, loving, loyal, and unutterably boring since that night, which left her with a question.
Was it better to have passion and uncertainty than loyalty and boredom? Now, she could answer it. With her years of experience, she knew which answer she preferred. She knew, far too late.
A.N.
Okay, this can be a one-shot dramatic angsty piece, or I can write it. If you choose the latter, I already have the ending chosen, so you might actually be able to count on a story…
It's up to you guys. If you do decide on a longer story, or I decide on a longer story, then consider this the prologue.
