"I don't understand why Aaron can't practice with us." Rio complained. She was wearing a white veil, as a way to remind her fellow actresses of who she was supposed to be. "I can't just keep kissing air!"
Boston rolled her eyes and mumbled something acidic under her breath. Her own prop was the leather mask designed for Aaron's face. Unfortunately, his face was much bigger than hers, so it was incredibly uncomfortable and was making her rather irritable.
"I heard that!"
"No you didn't."
"You're right, I didn't. But I will next time!"
"Shut up!" Their companion, Jess, almost screamed, then rapidly switched into character. "Free her! Do what you like, only free her!" She sang, sounding more like a transsexual Carlotta than an actual Raoul.
"Your lover makes a passionate plea!" Boston hissed obediently, wondering momentarily why they were practicing one of Rio's scenes as opposed to one with Meg or La Carlotta in it. Or maybe Meg and Christine, or Christine and La Carlotta.
She shook her head and focused back on the situation at hand.
"Please, Raoul, it's useless..." Rio said, once again surprising her friends with her ability to act so easily. Her face went from displaying petty anger to pleading sorrow.
"I love her! Does that mean nothing? I love her! Show some compassion!" Jess sang. Boston almost laughed at her difficulty with Raoul's tenor part.
"The world showed no compassion to me!" Boston snarled enthusiastically, getting into the part of her friends' fictional obsession.
"Christine, Christine... Let me see her!" Jess continued, a little too cheerfully.
"Be my guest, sir..." The tall alto grinned and mimed turning a crank.
"Hello?" It was the other, less impressive Eric (with a C). He was the 'Raoul' to be used in the production. He was tall, blond, and rather disgustingly dashing. His voice was suitable for Raoul: strong, deep enough, but not quite like the phantom's. His lack of brains, however, balanced off his good voice and looks.
"Eric!" Rio whined, crossing her arms and pouting. "We were actually getting into it!"
"Is Jess really a good tenor?" He went on, ignoring his costar.
"For your information, yes." Jess sniffed. "I'm as good a tenor as you are, monsieur."
"I find that hard to believe..."
Boston shook her head. Eric was the epitome of a spoiled actor. It was all the three actresses could do to endure his presence on stage, let alone during rehearsals almost every day.
"You know what?" She said, standing up. "I think I'll go find Brianne and see if she has anything else for us to do."
Her companions grinned thankfully, but Eric touched Rio's shoulder.
"Can I borrow you?" He asked, giving a smile that would have been charming if not for the lack of thought in his eyes.
"Oh, sure." Boston shrugged, holding back a malicious cackle too obviously. "She's a little too small to do any heavy lifting. God knows Brio enjoys heaping that on us."
Rio gave her a death glare as she went with Eric to practice what ever scene he'd come up with. Chances were, Eric was doing his best to 'woo' Rio. Unfortunately for him, Rio was the type of person who went for someone less arrogant and… well, Raoul-like.
"Oh, that was good..." Jess rubbed her heads together, chuckling a little like a mad scientist.
"Yes, I know... I'm wonderful..." Boston paused and glanced down one of the long-unused hallways of the opera house. This one, she knew, led to the dusty, grimy, dormitories. The things hadn't been used in God knew how long, and those particular hallways were rarely used but for storage. The Opera Populaire wasn't quite the splendid thing it once was: the productions were smaller and less often now. It didn't house its actors and actresses and didn't have a ballet anymore.
Jess sighed. "I wish you'd stop going down there. You're going to get lost, you know. And there really is a lake. You're going to fall in it and die."
"Because I can't swim?" Boston raised an eyebrow. She had not explored very far as yet. She always found herself remembering something else she had to do once past the main hallway.
"Wouldn't put it past you." La Carlotta muttered. Boston slapped the taller woman and, more out of spite than actual curiosity, turned down the corridor to the long-used portions of the place.
"That's it." Jess followed her, throwing up her arms. "I suppose I'll just die with you."
Boston smiled to herself and made a right, vowing to remember every turn they made just to make sure they didn't actually get lost. Maybe I should've brought some breadcrumbs. She thought, a little amused by the image of Jess trailing bread crumbs behind her and singing gaily.
The thought of getting lost in a haunted old opera house was more exciting then frightening, anyway.
The silence lasted only about three paces.
"It's over now, the music of the niiiiiiiiiiight!" Jess wailed in a weirdly soprano version of Erik's voice.
"Jess, I know you can't stand silence, but it's very ironic how you're singing that, and it's kind of freaking me out." Boston mumbled as she poked her head around another corner, jumping at the sight of a cobweb in front of her.
"How is it ironic?" Jess reached out and pulled it down with a piece of a set lying nearby.
"Well, it is over now. The music of the night, I mean." Boston shivered and rubbed her arms a little frantically, suddenly cold. "It's been over for a hundred years or so, no? Plus it makes me sad to think of the poor phantom all alone there at the end."
Boston, at the urging of Rio, was a well-read 'Phantom of the Opera' fan. She sincerely believed that Erik had existed, as Gaston Leroux insisted, and it saddened her to think of his demise.
"Yes, well, he's dead now." The soprano shrugged carelessly.
Boston gasped. "How can you say that!"
"Well, if he's dead, he's not sad anymore."
"So? If he was alive, he'd at least have a chance for happiness."
"I just realized something." Jess stopped. "We have neither a flashlight nor any breadcrumbs. Getting lost could be a serious problem, you know."
"Well, we just won't go underground." Boston replied, ignoring her ironic mention of breadcrumbs. "Grimy they may be, but most of those rooms have windows."
"So? It's still pretty dark..."
"You're afraid of the dark, aren't you?"
"Me? No! I love me some music of the night. I'm just worried about my physical safety, that's all. How long do you think it will be before one of us falls over?"
"Not long." Even as she said it Boston stubbed her toe on a loose floorboard. "Oh look, stairs!" She clapped her hands happily: winding before her was a set of stone steps leading up to the top floors. It looked very medieval with niches in the walls for candles.
"And if we use any stairs, we will go up." Jess said firmly. "We're not going down underneath here, okay? It's a miracle I can believe this part of the theater is safe."
She shuddered, consumed by her obsession with physical safety. Jess, along with her reputation of being a little off her rocker, had a reputation as a germ-hater and paranoid health freak.
"You're right. It could fall down on us at any moment."
"Don't say that, duckling." The older of the two clucked at her, while her companion rolled her eyes.
She shrugged and started up the stairs. "Suit yourself. I want to see whether or not that chapel's still there."
"Chapel?" Jess followed her, despite her worried expression. "As in the one Christine goes to? The one where she's ensnared by the mysterious genius' spell?"
"Mmm... yes." Boston paused and raised an eyebrow. "You're not afraid of the mysterious genius, are you?"
"I'm not afraid of him." She said delicately. "Not him, just his malicious remains. I mean, either he's haunting the place or his bones are in some corner. I don't want to run across those."
"They already found them."
"They did?" Jess stopped, furrowing her brow.
Boston turned to face her. "Yeah. Haven't you read Leroux? In the prologue, he said they found his corpse in the lower levels."
"How did he know it was his?" The woman narrowed her eyes.
She sighed. "Because it was on the wrong side of the opera. Oh, never mind. Ah ha!" Boston declared. "I was right, you were wrong! It's still here!"
"Wow." Jess stood in the middle of the circular little chapel. "It looks like it hasn't been touched in... a hundred years."
"I'm surprised they didn't loot the place. Wasn't there an auction for all the stuff? A lot of auctions, actually." Boston frowned at the stand full of unlit candles.
"True. But this is a chapel. Maybe it's protected or something." Jess pulled her lighter out of her pocket.
"Why were you complaining about the lack of flashlights?" The other adventurer asked. "Why not use your lighter?" She paused. "Why do you even have a lighter?"
"Just in case..." The soprano bent over and lit one of the taller candles.
The alto shivered and watched the flame flicker at her. When was the last time one of the candles was lit? She thought.
"Do you hear that?" She said suddenly.
"Hear what?" Jess was still staring at the flame, looking a bit hypnotized.
Boston could have sworn she heard a thump of some sort. It had been coming from the other side of the wall.
"Let's go back, shall we?" She murmured, twitching frantically.
"Hmm?"
"I said, let's go back. Brio's probably worried. And Rio's probably been raped or something."
Jess shook herself out of her reverie. "You're right. Let's see if we can find that way again."
Her companion took one last look around the room before following her. "Do you think there might be someone else back here?" She asked.
"I doubt it." Jess snorted. "Who would be as insane as us?"
"Yeah... I guess so. It must have been a rat or a bird..." She added to herself thoughtfully.
"Hmm?"
"Nothing."
The two left the flame flickering, lonely in the dark, unused chapel.
(A/N Sorry 'bout the delay there... my internet's been down for a week and my computer decided it hates me. So, normally, I'll write a little faster than this.)