A/N: Mega news! I won an art contest for the cover of a magazine. Or is it a catalog? I can never remember the difference. Oh, so I won a $100 gift certificate! Yay! And this chapter is sure up in a hurry... I think I just want to finish the story. I already have it all typed up... It's only two more chapters after this one. Sorry if you all were hoping for it to be longer :(

Regarding this weird new hit thing FanFiction got... Wonders of the Past already has ninety-two. Some of those are probably me, lookingto make sure it posted properly, but still... Wow...

No quote, sorry. I've misplaced my notebook with all of them in it. Grrrr! But maybe in the next chapter...?

And finally, I don't own story, characters, etc. of Phantom of the Opera. (Ah, and this might be confusing in the begining, but pleasejust try to follow along withme.)

I looked around the meadow. It was beautiful, the grass bent slightly in the wind, and flowers of every color off-set the glowing green of the grass. Suddenly the most beautiful sound in the world came to my ears. It was so beautiful that it made me immediately decide that it was not of this world at all. I strode through the long grass until I came to the top of the hill. I glanced down the gentle slope of the other side, and there she was. My angel, singing in the most beautiful voice.

She was dancing as well, seeming to be one with the wind, her movements to flowing and graceful to describe. Every so often she would bend and pick a flower to add to her bouquet. I longed to call out to her, but I was afraid of disturbing the beauty of the picture she created. Instead I merely watched, entranced.

Suddenly the picture was broken, though not by me. A great dark chasm opened in the green grass. My angel turned toward it in surprise and fear. There burst out of it a chariot, drawn by black horses and driven by a man who seemed cloaked in shadow. I ran down the hill, calling, telling my angel to run, but it was too late. The chariot raced toward her, and she turned with a cry and fled, her flowers scattering in the wind. Then he was upon her.

She was scooped into the chariot as the horses reared and turned, ready to race back to the crack in the earth. I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. A man, running along the crest of the hill towards me. The driver of the chariot saw him too. The horses charged, and he desperately tried to outrun them, but they were to fast. He turned with a scream and was struck down by the driver. It was in that instant when the driver gave a laugh of triumph, and my angel gave a cry of despair, that I saw that the man who had been killed was Buquet... And the driver... The driver was me!

"NO!"

The phantom awoke with a strangled cry. He looked around, breathing wildly. His home, his sanctuary. He let his hands rest on the keys of the organ on which he had fallen asleep. A dream... It had all been a dream.

"That's not what happened," he growled, desperate to re-assure himself. "I wasn't the evil, I wasn't!"

You killed...

"For her, I killed for her." The phantom said, putting his head in his hands. "Buquet was-"

A threat? His inner voice finished for him.

"It's all that girl's fault!" He snarled, bringing his fist down on the top of the organ. "If she hadn't been telling such ridiculous stories!" He stood and stalked over to his desk. "I want her out. Now!" He said as he grabbed paper for a letter. "I want her gone by mid-day!" Immediately after he had finished his letter, the phantom went to deliver it.

When he had, and was back in his lair, he sat down at his organ. He began to play, a sad tune, but visions of himself riding down Christine, Buquet's terrified face, Christine's shriek... They filled his mind, his eyes. He slammed his hands down on the organ's keys, creating a painfully jarring mixture of notes that echoed around like Christine's cry, before fading out of existence.

He closed his eyes and tried to shut out the memories of the dream, but they still came, mocking him. Go away, he thought, just go away...

You can no more get rid of them than you can me.

The phantom groaned and then pushed himself to his feet. He walked over to his small pantry and opened the door. He pushed some food aside and then grabbed one of the bottles from the back. It was old and covered in dust. He blew the dust off and then grabbed the cork, pulling it out by hand. He raised the bottle and gulped some down. The alcohol was strong, very strong. He felt it taking effect immediately.

"No!" he cried, and hurled the bottle across the room, where it smashed against the wall. "I won't do this," he said, struggling to his feet, with the aid of the table. "I won't become some common drunk, letting alcohol solve my problems by drinking until I don't remember them. I'm above that! I-"

He sank back to his knees, the world spinning. He managed to crawl over to his organ, and he tried to use it to pull himself up onto the bench. He grabbed it, and hit several keys. He laughed. It sounded so funny! And to think - the opera ghost, drunk.

"I'm not drunk," he assured himself. "I'm not, really, I," he seemed to be having a hard time making his mouth do what he wanted to. "I love you, Christine," he said, "I love you, and do you know what? I really love you!" He slumped over onto the organ, trying to control himself, but when he heard the notes, he started laughing again. Joy, this joy... He needed to share it. He staggered over to the get that led to the way out.

But how odd, he couldn't find how to open it. He pushed at the lever, but the gate refused to go up. "Oh, well," he said as he tottered back to the pantry, "I have more. I can share it with you here, Christine. Eh? Eh?" He reached out and fumbled with the door of the pantry. After opening it, he grabbed out the other bottle.

After some difficulty, he finally just smashed the neck of the bottle, since he couldn't seem to remember how you were supposed to take the bottom off. As he raised the bottle to his lips, a small part of his still sober self objected. But the phantom ignored it, and drank almost the entire bottle before he passed out.

The next morning found the opera ghost in a very sorry state. He had managed to drag himself to the edge of the lake, and he knelt there, retching. With a groan, the phantom tried to remember what had happened. He remembered drinking from one bottle, but he had found two, one smashed, and one mostly empty. But the one that had smashed had been quite full, judging from the large amount of spilled alcohol around it.

Still, he thought, one bottle was quite enough... He got unsteadily to his feet, but lost his balance and fell into the lake. That succeeded in sobering him up rather quickly. He pulled himself out of the lake and stumbled over to a chair. Sinking into it, he tried to remember more, but only got fragments of feelings, mostly hysterical joy. He shook his head.

This was bad. He hadn't turned to alcohol since... A long while before he had met Christine, at least. What if it happened again? He didn't want to go back to that... Dependency. With a sigh, he started to try and clean up the mess he had made while he had been drunk. He examined his organ carefully, testing each key, checking the surface for any damage, but he found none, save a stain on several of the keys, which he carefully cleaned off. He glanced at his hands, and found that they were cut.

Picking up the bottle which was still relatively in one piece, he examined it and found that the jagged edge from where the neck had been broken off had blood on it also. With a snarl of annoyance, he threw the bottle against the wall, where the other one had smashed. He watched as the small amount of remaining liquid seeped away. He then carefully checked to see if any of his paper had been used. He found that there was one sheet missing.

He remembered that it had been used to write a note, ordering that girl, Kat, out of his opera house. That was good, at least he hadn't done any composing while drunk. The phantom vividly remembered once, after he had been drunk, finding a stack of paper that he had written music on. When he had tried to play it, it had been to horrible to describe. It had been excellent music, but the feelings it inspired... He had actually used some of it in Don Juan. A watered down version, of course. Not even he himself had been able to stand it while sober.

When Andre entered the room, the first thing he saw was the letter, lying on the floor. He immediately went to find Firmin, and then showed it to him. Firmin bravely opened it, and was shocked at what it said.

I want that girl, that Kat, out of my opera house NOW! She will be out of here by mid-day.

O.G.

"He seems to have abandoned false politeness all together!" Andre exploded. Firmin nodded wildly in agreement.

"But what are we going to do?" He cried. "She and the others are here by the Vicomte's special request, we can't just kick her out, the Vicomte would be outraged! Who knows what he might do!"

"But we can't just ignore this! Who knows what this blasted opera ghost will do?"

"And this Kat is also a friend of Christine Daae's! We'd risk angering our Prima Donna as well as our sole patron!"

"But Christine Daae isn't Carlotta,"

"Exactly!"

Andre somewhat failed to get the point, but he kept on. "P-perhaps we should talk to the Vicomte about this?" He suggested.

"No!" Firmin hissed. "We can't do that, who knows what will happen? More deaths, probably!"

"But, Firmin, he could be watching us right now, he could even now be going off to cause some great disaster!" The two men looked around, their eyes wide with paranoia.

"We'll... We'll discuss this later, Firmin," Andre said. "I, er, have an errand. Something outside the opera house. I'll be back... Around... Late, probably!" With that he practically ran out the door. Firmin followed, muttering something about an errand as well.

Yes, yes, get out so that any falling chandeliers don't hit you... Ya see, Andre and Firmin are smarter than they look...

I have never been drunk. I've never drunk more than a sip or two of wine, beer, and other alchoholic stuff. (at a time, that is) The closest I've gotten was a fever of 105 degrees F, which is supposedly really really high. I went sort of insane, and I started laughing hystericly at things that weren't even funny. I remember trying to controll it, thinking, "All right, stop laughing, there's nothing funny!"But I couldn't. So I put that in.

Yeah, now that I re-read it, I don't think it's that great. Did you?