Echoes of the Opera
By Good Lady Grace
Chapter 1
Family and Death
Adelaide was born seventeen years ago on October 31st. Her father was The Phantom of the Opera aka Erik.
Her mother was Christine Daae.
Adelaide was a smart child. She learned magic tricks and the art of escape from her father. She had also inherited a combination of her parents' voices. Her voice was more beautiful than a choir of one thousand angels and Erik made sure it stayed that way. However, Adelaide had inherited something from her father. Her eyes, they were yellow with pupils that were slits like a cat's. However, everything else about the child was beautiful. She had her father's sleek, black hair and her mother's fair complexion. She was petite and slim, using these features for slinking about the rafters of the Opera Populaire with her father. It had been a wonderful life for the family, until Adelaide's tenth birthday.
She, Christine, and Erik had been simply doing their evening activities: Erik was playing the organ, Christine was sewing, and Adelaide was playing with her new doll. All of the sudden, Meg had come dashing in screaming: "CHRISTINE! ERIK! THEY'RE COMING BACK! THEY'RE COMING FOR YOU!". Christine looked wildly to Erik, "You killed another, didn't you". Erik hung his head. Christine's eyes narrowed in fury. "No, Mama, the mean man had found me!" said little Adelaide. "Papa saved me". Christine looked to Erik who nodded. "Then we must hurry", she said. Erik rose quickly from the organ. "Meg, take Adelaide with you" he said pushing his ten year old daughter toward Meg. "But Papa…" said Adelaide, not really knowing what was going on. "Go with Aunt Meg, le petite" said Christine, her voice steady. Adelaide nodded and grabbed Meg's hand. Meg ran out of the sanctuary and up the passage to Christine's old room. Erik grabbed a goblet and smashed one of the mirrors. It opened to reveal a passage way. "Go", he said pushing Christine toward it. "It will close after us, they will never follow". Christine nodded. The mob was very close now, they would enter the sanctuary soon. "Christine, we must go, please!", said Erik nervously. Christine was about to enter the passage when the mob burst in on the sanctuary. Erik made a move to pull Christine to the passage, but then something happened that Erik wished above all things he could change.
Christine pushed Erik into the passageway and stepped away from the passage. "NO!" shouted Erik as he fell to the ground, but the mirror sealed behind him. He saw his wife turning to face the approaching crowd, then nothing. He flung himself against the mirror, trying desperately to break through, but no use. Tears streaming down his face, he pressed his ear to the wall. He heard shouts, Christine's voice, a roar of rage, a scream, then silence. "No.." whispered Erik. "NO!". He used all of his strength to rip a slab of rock from the wall. It sliced open his hands and blood poured from the wounds. He threw it several times against the wall before the wall shattered. He ran through. His home was completely destroyed. Shreds of fabric littered the floor, the organ was dented, candles lay flattened on the ground and floating in the blackness on the lake, sheets of music lay ripped and mud covered on the cave floor. Lying in the center of all this destruction was Christine. She was white as snow, her hair fanned out about her like a dark halo. Her white dress was stained with red. There were bullet marks on her chest. Her mouth was opened wide in a silent scream that would echo through the eternity of time.
Sobs racked Erik's body as he fell to the ground beside his wife. "Christine…" he sobbed. "What have I done to you…what have I done?". Christine's blood soaked his cloak and stained his shirt as he held her body to his for one last time. Then, still sobbing, he lifted her up and carried her over to the sofa. Gently placing her down, he kissed her frozen mouth before crumbling down to the floor. He buried his face in his arms as his crying bounced off the walls and reverberated back to him like a requiem of his misery. He had lost everything. The woman he loved lay dead on the sofa next to him. She was his only love, the only one who could make his music soar. Without her, he was nothing. Without her, he was a failure. Without her, he was a monster.
He lifted his head to the ceiling, silently praying that he could just die and join his wife, die and forget about his pain. But there was something holding him back from this. What? What was left for him now?
After many moments it came to him. There was someone else he loved, someone else who could make his music soar. There was someone else who could make him something, someone else who could make him successful, someone else who could make him human. Someone who Christine had given him, someone who she had left to comfort him.
Adelaide, his daughter.
Wiping the tears from his eyes, he covered Christine with a sheet and walked as steadily as he could up the passage way. He entered the room that used to be his wife's. Inside, he found Meg clutching a trembling Adelaide. "Papa!" she squealed as she dashed to him. Erik scooped her up in his arms and held her tightly, tears streaming down his face again. "Papa…why are you crying", asked little Adelaide. "Why…why is their red on your shirt…Papa?". Silently, Erik motioned for Meg to follow him and carried his daughter back down to the ruined sanctuary. Meg's hand flew to her mouth as she saw the sanctuary. "Erik…" she said sadly. "That is nothing" stuttered Erik. He walked slowly over to the sofa and lifted the sheet off Christine. Meg screamed terribly and fell beside the body of her best friend. "No, Christine, no please God, no!" she shrieked, crying uncontrollably. Adelaide walked slowly over to the sofa. "Mama…?" she said softly, shaking her mother's body. "Mama?". Adelaide turned to face her father, small tears welling up in her eyes. "Papa, why isn't Mama answering?" asked the small, raven haired child. Erik knelt down and held Adelaide's shoulders. "Mama's gone now" he whispered. Adelaide, now understanding, threw herself at her mother's body. "Mama! Mama! Please, please Mama, wake up! Wake up!". Adelaide shook Christine's body. When she realized that her mother was really gone, she flung her small arms around her father's neck. "Oh, Papa…papa", she sobbed.
One week later, Erik, Meg, and Adelaide stood beside an old tombstone that read Daae. Next to it was a freshly dug one.
It read
CHRISTINE DAAE
BELOVED WIFE, MOTHER, AND FRIEND
MAY HER MUSIC LIVE ON
Adelaide wiped her small, yellow eyes and placed two bouquets of roses on the ground, one at her mother's grave, one at her grand fathers. Then she took her father's leather hand in one of her small ones, took Auntie Meg's slender, white hand in the other and the three of them turned away from the woman that had meant so much to them and walked to the dark foreboding doors of the Opera Populaire in silence
I was almost in tears when I finished writing this. I didn't know I could be so depressing
Phantom Phorever
Your obedient phriend,
Good Lady Grace