Chapter VIII- Silence Before the Storm
Erik heard the yelling of the crowd below him. "Hang him! Hang him!" The words stung and he would have clutched his heart if his hands weren't tied together at the wrists with rope. He felt rather then saw the rope. He felt rather then saw the chain shackles around his ankles.
One very old crone in the front was cackling at him, pointing her knotted walking stick at him and yelling at the child by her side. "This is what you get when you disobey God's law! This is what your punishment is for being wicked!"
Erik wasn't wicked. He knew he wasn't… Meg had said time and time again he wasn't, and he believed her. He wanted to believe her. But who could decide who was wicked and evil? No human being, that's for sure.
"Up you go!" The executioner said, pushing Erik up the last stairs he would ever climb. The ones up the gallows. Erik saw Meg's face dart towards him through the crowd. He was relieved to see her, but at the same time, he wasn't. He didn't want her to see this.
Meg was yelling something, but he couldn't hear over the crowd. She held out her hand, and he held out his two, but the gap was too far.
They couldn't reach each other.
The executioner put the noose around his neck and roughly pushed him onto the platform, the little piece of wood separating him from life and death. "Any last words?" he said, amused.
"Yes," Erik said. "I'm not sorry."
The platform collapsed and Erik felt no more.
Erik yelled and looked around. Where was he? What the hell was that? He breathed in and out, trying to think of where he was. He heard a soft moan and he saw Meg, in his shirt, lying next to him in bed- her head on his shoulder…
He was in his own bed, in his own house.
It was a dream. Oh, thank God.
Was that how he would die?
No, it couldn't be… was it a premonition?
A Premonition on how he was to die… How morbid. He hugged a sleeping Meg close to him. As usual, she calmed him… even when she wasn't conscious, she still calmed him. He would think things over rationally in the morning.
It was the day for the defense, and Meg was tying his cravat for Erik. His hands were trembling badly, and he simply couldn't have done it without her. He was too tall for her small body- he had to bend down just a bit so that she could reach the back of his neck.
Erik first complained that Meg had tied it too tight, so he ripped the tie apart and they set at it again. The next time was too loose, and Meg snapped that if he was going to complain, he might as well just not have a cravat at all.
Erik, after a few minutes of angry silence from both ends, finally (half heartedly) apologized.
"I'm nervous," he said, after a little bit of probing on Meg's part. She wanted to roll her eyes. Of course he was nervous. So was she. But was she snapping at him? No, she certainly wasn't! Okay, well, maybe a little. But they both knew that they didn't mean it.
Meg asked Erik if he would help button up the back of her dress. It had gone too far up her back for her to do it unaided, and they had dismissed Caressa and Jean Paul for the day (Caressa normally helped Meg get dressed in the morning), so the task fell on Erik's shoulders.
Meg moved her blonde hair away from her neck, so it wouldn't get caught. She could feel Erik's hands move up, securing each button until the dress was secure on its own, then the last button, the one on the back of the throat. He finished buttoning her up, but before she could let go of her hair, he kissed the back of her neck, between the beginning of the dress and her hairline. Meg blushed slightly.
He wrapped his arms around her, pressing Meg against him. He remembered his dream. He couldn't die like that, he couldn't! If he had to die, he would die on his own terms, and nobody else's. If he were convicted, he would find away to escape. He had done it before, hadn't he?
Well, the only reason he didn't escape from prison was Meg. If he had gone missing, Meg would have thought he abandoned her. She would have gone back to the Opera Populaire, and the stagehands, the cruel ballet girls, and one manager that managed to elude Erik's wrath. They would all laugh at her, and say that Erik had found another woman, that he had run away with her instead. Meg wouldn't believe it at first, but doubt would plague her, and eventually she would believe.
He couldn't do that. He just couldn't. He would rather take torture than that.
He felt Meg's little hands on top of his, wrapped around her stomach. She murmured something to him, but he wasn't listening much. Erik rested his forehead on the origin of her shoulder.
He would make that dream become just a dream, not anything else. Erik had thought that it had been a prophecy, but he had free will, damn it, and he would use it. Right to the last drop.
AN- Okay, sorry that it took so long to update... but, thank God, Peter Pan is now over... and I can now concentrate on this baby right here. And... IT WAS GREAT! (for all you people who were wondering how Peter Pan went)
Love you guys.
Review me, do!