Sorry, I can't write a lot. So here's Chapter Thirteen:


Showtime

Meg looked at her reflection and Christine looked at her from behind. "Are we sure we know what we're doing? Messing with the Phantom's wishes?"

Christine shrugged at Meg's question. "It's not up to us to decide. André, the principal and the Mayor wanted Carlotta, they got her."

"Yeah, but at what price?"

Christine often wondered the same thing. It had been three weeks since the letter had arrived and ever since there had been two more telling them the same thing as the first. And now the play was just a couple of minutes away and a lot of their peers wondered if they were doing the right thing.

They certainly didn't want anything like that freak fire that had started years ago. A lot of them had approached Madame Giry and asked her if she thought she was doing the right thing. She would respond that she wasn't but it was out of her hands.

Meg was going to be one of the Pink Ladies and now she had her hair in a fifties hair do. Christine was going to play one of the ladies too, only she didn't sing at all. She only spoke two times.

But she wasn't one to argue, as long as they had the play out of the way and the Mayor enjoyed it, she was happy.

But the more she thought about tonight, the more she dreaded it. In fact, she wanted to take off her silly wig and walk out. It wasn't like people were depending on her or anything.

"He doesn't say anything he doesn't mean."

Christine sighed. "I know."

"Pink Ladies, two minutes!" They heard someone say.

Meg let out a long breath.

"Showtime," Christine said to her.

They walked out next to the stage on the sides and waited for their cue.

The bouncy fifties music blared from the orchestra below, the music all too familiar.

Meg and Christine plastered their smiles on and ran out on stage to meet Carlotta halfway. Carlotta fixed her blond wig and looked at herself in her compact.

Audiences never made Christine nervous, so now, she felt comfortable. She knew what she had to do, she remembered everything that Madame Giry had said about her performance and the things that she needed to fix.

"So, Sandy!' Meg said excitedly. "Tell us all about your summer!"

Carlotta looked at the catwalk as if thinking. "I don't know if I should tell you!"

God, Christine thought, she makes a good friend acting but other than that, she's hopeless.

She could hear the guys on the other side of the stage saying the same thing. "Come on, Danny," Billy said. "You have to tell us if you got any action this summer!"

"Go on, Sandy!" Margaret said as they other Pink Ladies giggled. "Tell us!"

"Well," Carlotta said looking at the audience.

"All right," George, playing Danny said. Then he began to sing.

"Summer lovin' had me a blast."

"Summer loving happened so fast."

"I met a girl crazy for me."

"Met a boy as cute as can be!"

"Summer days driftin' away, to uh-oh those summer nights!"

The Pink Ladies and the T Birds joined in on the singing, not to mention the audience. "Oh well, oh well, oh well, oh- Tell me more, Tell me more, did you get very far? Tell me more, tell me more, like does he have a car?"

"Uh-huh, uh-huh."

Then Carlotta's solo came up and the audience stopped singing. "It turned colder - that's where it ends."

"So I told we'd still be friends." George continued singing just like John Travolta.

"Then we made our true love vow."

"Wonder what she's doing now."

They sang in unison their back turned to each other just like Madame Giry had said. "Summer dreams, ripped at the seams, but oh, those summer ni- aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!" Carlotta and George's duet was cut short by Carlotta screaming.

The next couple of seconds were complete chaos. It started with a very loud thumping over the stage at the catwalk that no one heard over the orchestra and the singing. When the thumping stopped something fell from the catwalk.

Christine looked up and saw what it was.

It was Joseph.

Joseph was hanging in the middle of the stage by a rope.

Christine looked up and saw something that made her blood freeze in her veins. Joseph was indeed hanging by the rope tied around the bars of the catwalk. The rope was being tied on by Erik. Her Angel, her mentor, the phantom.

He killed Joseph, he hung Joseph by the neck. Joseph's limp body was hanging by the neck on the rope whose end was in the hands of the Phantom.

He was there. The white porcelain mask gave him away in the darkness. She could see the rope in his hands. He did it. He killed Joseph because Madame Giry didn't give her the lead. Correction, because André and the principal didn't want to give her the lead just as the Phantom had asked.

Her Angel of Music had killed Joseph, one of her friends.

She had the falling sensation she sometimes got on roller coasters. Things started to make sense. Her Angel was none other than the Phantom of the Auditorium. He had deceived her. Used her.

She felt as if she couldn't breathe, she looked around searching for an escape and when she couldn't find one, she ran backstage. She could still hear the horrible cries from the audience and the crying from some of the cast.

As soon as she took off, she heard Raoul call her. "Christine!"But she didn't turn back to him, she continued forth through the crowd of students, taking off her wig and Pink Ladies jacket, leaving her only in jeans and white shirt.

When a person wouldn't move, she pushed him out of the way and ran forward until she came to a steel winding staircase. She climbed them, not looking back. She continued up the stairs until she saw a door.

She pushed the door open and was instantly met with the warmth of the outside. But that didn't stop her, she continued forward until she reached the end of the roof, where she could see the view of almost the entire town. She hadn't realized she had made it outside, on the roof. She saw all the air condition vents and the steam that poured out of them.

Her tears then flowed freely as she fell to her knees.

How could this happen? Joseph. Why Joseph? Joseph was a good guy, he didn't do anything wrong. Joseph was always making sure that everything was running smoothly for them in the plays. How could he just be murdered?

He was murdered by her Angel. The Angel that said that it was all right to embrace the darkness. He said that there was nothing wrong with that.

But there was, he had shown it to her without meaning to. She knew that he hadn't meant for her to see what he had done. She wiped her tears from her cheeks but they wouldn't stop.

"Christine?"


Update soon: Chapter Fourteen: All I Ask Of You