Chapter 4- Stranger Than You Dreamt It

A/N: TMOTN: cool! Hurry up with the outline for your story- I would love to read it!

Bumble0Bee- interesting, but not quite

CloudxinxCrimson- you always make me laugh! thanx for your reviews!

Merinna- I read your review, and know that I do sort of agree with you on Raoul. I do think that he was a nice guy, if slow as you said, (except for the whole deal with him taking Christine away from Erik and all.) Also know that I have no intention of making him villianous, I just feel as though his inevitable fop-ism can be exploited humorous purposes. But he won't be evil, I don't think.

Daroga Daae- you read my mind. That is frightening. (you'll see why later;)


The first thing that Christine felt was a sharp, stabbing pain in the back of her head. She tried to reach up to touch the wound- whatever it was- but realized that her hands were bound together tightly by a coarse rope. The air around her smelled dank and stagnant, as though it hadn't been breathed in for many decades. She heard the slow, steady dripping of water from somewhere close by. Where am I? She thought fervently, though she kept her eyes closed. The scent of the air and the sound of the water reminded her of Erik's, but there was a feeling of cold foreboding that she had never felt during her time in his labyrinth. Suddenly, a thousand whispers erupted around her; voices that she could not discern whether men or women were speaking. They were not speaking a language that she understood either; the words fell into a repeating pattern as her mind placed them together; they were chanting...

And then... there was silence.

"She'sss awake..." came a husky whisper, though it sounded slightly feminine.

A presence moved closer to her, and Christine felt someone- or something- touch her shoulder. The contact sent a shockwave of cold surging through her; similar to being thrown into a pool of ice water. She gasped, but refused to open her eyes. There was more cold laughter.

"Open your eyes, little dove," a deep, silky male voice said. "It will be worse for you if you don't."

Praying that this was all a nightmare, Christine slowly pried her frightened eyes open.

When they focused on the creatures before her, Christine opened her mouth and let out a shrill, petrified scream.

They were dead! she thought in disgust. Their faces, their hands, their bodies... they were all corpses!

They were clothed in exotic garb; the ones that Christine took to be women wore long, flowing multicolored skirts and the men wore long tunics and headbands.

The skeletons saw Christine's look of horror and laughed again at her.

Christine felt her head spinning- the creatures were swirling around her wildly so that she couldn't focus, their laughter was like the worst music in the world, taunting her and depleting her sanity.

"Who are you!" she screamed suddenly.

The whole room went pitch black, and the laughter ceased.

"What are you?" Christine whispered, sliding back on the stone floor.

A pair of glowing red eyes suddenly turned on her in the dark, piercing eyes that she knew were dead.

"What are we, you ask, my dear?" the eyes seemed to say to her, in that same voice so low that it seemed to reach a new scale that no human voice could ever attempt. "Are you certain that you want to know?"

Christine recoiled, unsure what her answer should be. A large part of her didn't want to know anything at all.

Nonetheless, the voice continued. "We are the Undead Ones. We have no souls, and no hope of redemption in this life. This is our domain; under the streets of Paris."

The words struck a familiar chord with Christine. It was strikingly similar to another story she had heard. Erik had said that he was an 'Angel in Hell'. And like these things, he lived beneath the mortal world... But he wasn't one of these, she thought. He couldn't be. He was different… he was alive.

The eyes laughed softly. "No, my dear, Erik is not one of us," he said silkily.

Christine could not suppress a gasp. This thing could read her mind!

"But he could have been," the voice went on darkly. "Had he not escaped, he would have been damned, too."

"Escaped?" Christine whispered.

"Of course, my little dove. We were once gypsies."

"I don't understand," Christine said. She had never heard of Erik's past; she knew only that it had obviously been filled with sorrow. The story that her fiancé had heard from Madame Giry had never reached Christine's ears- Raoul had thought that it might cause Christine to pity Erik further, and in doing so, she might choose Erik over himself.

"You have not heard the tale yet?" He chuckled, but in a way that made Christine's soul tremble. "Then you should be educated..."

More of the spiteful laughter rang out, coming from several voices at once. A thick, glowing white fog began to encompass Christine as she was thrown from her world, and into the darkness of Erik's past.

It was night... she was standing outside what looked to be a large carnival.

She felt very small, and looking at her hands, Christine realized that she was no longer a young woman, but a young girl of no more than ten.

There were bonfires burning inside the gates of the fairgrounds, and she followed several other excited children inside.

There were gypsies all around- tall and slender and clad in exotic outfits. Some had crystal balls; some had some other kind of devilry. There were several tents set up, but in the center of the fairground was a large, circus-like tent, large enough to hold a crowd of people. A fat gypsy man was standing outside of the tent, beckoning the children and other folk forward. Over his head, Christine saw a sign that read, to her horror, "The Devil's Child".

"Come," the gypsy said in a deep voice. "Come... come inside... Come and see the Devil's Child!"

He swept the curtain aside, and Christine followed the line inside. In the rafters above, a monkey chirped in what seemed a cynical way to Christine.

In the center of the circus tent was a cage. Christine's legs began to tremble as she moved closer. She heard the other children scream with naive delight as they looked upon the figure in the cage.

It was a young boy, gaunt and skinny, who looked more like a corpse than a boy. And his face... half of it was perfect, and boyish. But the other half looked very familiar to Christine. This was Erik, as a child.

The boy looked frightened beyond description as he cowered in a corner of the cage, trying to keep one hand over his face. His whole body was shaking violently. The crowd around Christine jeered and laughed at the boy, taunting him to show his face. Then, Christine watched with horror as another gypsy entered the cage, with a large whip in hand. He slashed it out, striking Erik across the shoulder. He let out a small cry of pain, but didn't move.

"Come on, boy!" the gypsy roared at him, lashing out with the whip once more. Erik stood, and removed the hand that hid his face. The crowd screamed and laughed in a frightful hysteria at the freak before them.

Christine felt tears stinging her eyes. The gypsies began moving people out of the tent, letting more in. Erik would try to recoil away from the crowds, only to be beaten into action once more.

As the time wore on, Christine's cheeks were soaked with her tears, and she continued to cry. In this dream-conjured world, no one seemed to notice her at all.

Finally, the last customers were gone, and the tent emptied, save for Erik, Christine, and the gypsy who Christine took to be Erik's keeper.

The gypsy entered the cage, still holding the whip.

Erik's cries filled the tent as the man began to beat him. Christine covered her mouth with her hands, suppressing the screams that threatened to come forth.

Erik was now lying on the floor of the cage, hands gripping the cage bars as though they could somehow save him. He was squeezing them so tightly that his knuckles turned white and his fingers shook with effort. The lashings started again.

Erik's cries became too much.

"Erik!" Christine cried. "Good God, stop! Erik! Erik!" She ran forward to the cage, but neither the gypsy nor Erik so much as looked at her. They couldn't see her, and she was powerless to stop it.

Finally, after several more agonizing minutes, the gypsy left the cage, locking it, and pocketing the key.

Erik remained lying almost lifelessly on the cage floor.

Christine came up and gripped the bars, looking on the poor boy before her with tear-stained eyes.

She gasped when she saw his back- raw and bleeding from being whipped. Beneath the blood, she saw other long, thin scars that cut across his scrawny back.

"Oh, Erik," she whispered. Everything was now making sense to her. With a life like this, it was no wonder Erik had chosen to live alone and feared to show his face. No wonder he wore a mask. And she- Christine- had been the only love he had ever known in his life...

And I betrayed him, Christine thought. All he wanted was my love, and I denied him that. It wasn't his fault... the murders... the obsession. He never knew... he never knew right from wrong...

Christine rested her forehead against the bar, crying hard. What had she done, by leaving him? How could she have ever been so blind?

Through her sobs, she almost didn't realize Erik stir in the cage.

Almost.

She raised her head and found herself face to face with his piercing green eyes, the eyes that still haunted her when she closed her eyes. For an instant, it was as though he could see her. He blinked, as though afraid he was seeing a mirage.

"It's me, Erik," Christine said. "It's Christine... your angel! Don't you see me!" she cried as she saw his gaze settle on something behind her. She was invisible to him. The mist swirled up again, and Christine felt herself being pulled away from the cage.

"Erik!" Christine screamed, before she was hurled back into the unforgiving darkness of the Hell that she couldn't escape.

"Now you know, Christine Daae," the spectral being hissed, red eyes flashing. "That was the life that Erik lived. He belonged to us, until the day he escaped..."

"How?" Christine breathed.

"Would you like to see?"

"Y-yes..."

More fog engulfed her. This time, Christine felt as though she was watching the scene from above.

It was very dark; the tent was illuminated only by a few torches. The large gypsy opened the cage but dropped the keys as the door swung open. As he stooped down to pick them up, Erik shot out of the cage with an inhuman quickness.

His keeper swore loudly and lunged out, just barely managing to catch the small boy, wrestling him to the ground. He was far larger than Erik, but the boy fought viciously. Finally, Christine saw Erik pull something from his captor's back pocket... a long knife. Clumsily, Erik slid the knife into the gypsy's back. The man howled in pain, and rolled off of Erik, leaving him free to scramble off the floor. The sound of hurried footsteps sounded suddenly, and Christine knew that the other gypsies had been alerted.
She saw Erik look around wildly, then run as fast as he could from the tent.

A tall female gypsy entered the tent and ran to the man on the ground, who still had the knife lodged in his back, blood pouring out onto the ground.

She swore loudly in the gypsy language, seeing that the man was dead. She said something to the others, then stood up and raised both of her hands toward the sky, chanting words that Christine didn't understand.

Her words faded out as the memory ended.

The voice didn't speak again, and there was silence for several minutes until Christine asked timidly, "Why have you brought me here? What does any of this have to do with me?"

The voice laughed softly again. "You will see, in time, that befriending Erik was your worst mistake, Christine Daae. Now you won't ever be free, you see. Erik, like us, is cursed."

"But you said that he wasn't one of you..." Christine argued, confused.

"No... he is not. He is under a different curse... one that will make both he and you suffer. You see, Christine, when a gypsy is murdered, his loved ones will seek vengeance for the one who murdered him. The woman you saw cursed him as he fled into the night. Her curse was simple: that should Erik ever experience one moment of true happiness, of true love, he would be forced to see his love suffer eternally in the world of the undead." His voice took on an excited tone. "And here you are... the only person to have ever loved a monster... and you, like him Christine Daae, are damned for all time!"

A sickening light filled the room, casting dark shadows on the wall as the gypsies around her began to circle her once more in their strange pagan dance, singing, chanting and laughing... laughing... laughing...


A/N: well, that was my longest chapter yet! So what do you think? Creepy? Weird? Are you thinking that I may have lost my mind? It will only get stranger, my friends, so do prepare yourselves. Next chapter, we'll hear from the one and only Erik again!

Also: I took some serious creative liscence on the whole thing about Erik's past and the whole 'undead gypsy' thing. Its all the workings of my twisted mind! so REVIEW!