Gods-girl2004: :bow: Thank you very much
Princess Persephone: Clever you . You think I could write a phanphic without the master himself? XD
>.>
I Despise Raoul: Three words... I love you. I am humbled by your presence in my reviews column, I love your work :grovel: Teach me your awesome ways!
letthedreamdescend: :grin: I certainly hope so, thanks!
Erik was weak from hiding. What little food he had to survive on was now gone and the final refuge he took was no doubt a fatal choice.
They had returned many times, to check that he had not come back to his lair. Smashing his creations and stealing many of the smaller unnoticeable items in his home, which were of any worth.
It had been two years since Christine abandoned him, and Erik had gone into his solitude convinced that he would soon die of a broken heart.
But alas, the healing power of death never came to him, and the Phantom continued his days in the lair with little disturbance from the outside world.
Out of fury, Erik had torn apart the inside of his organ a few months after the wretched Christine abandoned him... It was simply a shell now, as was he.
Scattered parts lay about the lair, more recognisable as part of the damage done by the mob rather than disbanded parts of a great instrument.
The burnt shell of the Opera Populaire was finally to be torn down. No one dared rebuild the opera house; stories of it being cursed or haunted chased away those who had the money to buy the property, or fund it to be rebuilt.
The cellars were no excuse either; the tales of the catacombs under the old opera house were feared worst. The architects were convinced that the opera house's foundations were not stable enough to have a second theatre built on top of the original, as the story of a lake at the base of the ruin was widely told.
They had come to investigate before the final decision was made... If there were no lake, perhaps the foundations could be salvaged for what was to be built above?
As the opera ghost no longer stalked the upper levels, he had no idea they would ever return to his home; Erik assumed they had no reason to.
He no longer lit candles, there was no point for light to exist in his world now, and it only gave him pain. He no longer wore the mask either, the little blonde Giry girl who, in her innocence, had kept it.
So, as they entered the deepest level of the abyss in which the phantom had immersed himself, Erik was forced to hide out of fear for the outside world, which had crushed him so many times in the past.
As light slowly crept into the lair, the sound of many sloshing footsteps echoed through the catacomb. Erik blinked; it had been a very long time since he had used his sight for anything.
In an attempt at a quick hiding place, Erik took the last stale crusts of bread he had (mostly to keep the intruders from recognising any signs of his existence down there), and crawled into the body of the organ, closing the mesh panel behind him.
He could not remember anything from there; it would be almost a week before he stirred again. The phantom's bodyhad almost gone into a state of hibernation, one of which he thought he would not awaken from.
...THUD!
Erik's eyes slowly opened. He was physically exhausted, weak from deprivation of both food and water. He hadn't felt this terrible since his life with the gypsies, who had starved him into submission when he first began to travel with them.
'What was that noise?' Erik wondered 'Were the outsiders not gone yet?'
His unconscious state, which lasted just under a week, felt like only a few hours, and it had been only a few hours as far as he knew.
Erik would wait a while before venturing out of his hiding place; just a little while longer to be sure.
