Disclaimer: I do not own POTO, or No One Would Listen, from ALW'S POTO, which should never have been cut from the film!
Wow! I didn't think that everyone would like the karaoke scene so much! I love Bohemian Rhapsody and I thought it was perfect for the four of them to perform to.
Anyway, thank you for reviewing! Makes me happy! Here's the next chapter!
Erik awoke the next morning to an overcast day, dim light from the cloudy sky shinning in through the blinds of the window. He felt a slight headache developing from sleeping too long and decided it was time to start the day.
The black alarm on his nightstand read 9 o'clock as he sat up, stretched his arms a little, swung his legs from underneath the bed coverings, and stood up. He absentmindedly placed his hand on the nightstand and felt the mask he had left there the night before. He picked it up and frowned at how well it served its purpose, that being to hide what made him different and brought him closer to being exactly like everyone else.
'Not today,' he thought to himself, setting it back down to its original position.
Erik had slept in the clothes he had worn the day before and quickly decided to change that. He showered and changed into his normal black as it would be appropriate that day.
He unlocked and opened the door to his tidy room, doubling back to pick up his guitar case. As he made for the door again, he glanced back at his room, still only partially lit from the weak rays of sunlight, and noticed the only things visible being the display case of masks he owned. They caught the rays of light, gleaming menacingly in the darkness, as if to in force his father's wish of wearing them. Erik turned his back on them and closed the door, still intent on his decision to go without a mask.
He walked noiselessly down the long, dark hall way, decorated by nothing but the occasional golden framed mirror, which reminded him exactly why his father in forced the masks. Erik kept his gaze straight ahead, trying not to look out of the corner of his eyes and turned left at the end of the hall to climb down the stairs.
Not feeling particularly hungry, he walked past the kitchen to the front door, grabbing his coat from the coat closet on the way and setting down the guitar case. Without even bothering to check if anyone was there, he knew there wouldn't be, he pulled on his coat, unlocked the door, picked up the guitar case, and made sure the hood of his coat was pulled over his face before opening the door to the outside world.
The sun had become a little brighter than before, but Erik paid no heed to this as he exited the house and locked the door again, checking to make sure the door was secure. He then descended the few grey, stone steps that led from the front door to the sidewalk, turning left to the side of the house.
This is where Erik kept a little garden of red, white, and black rose bushes; safe from Mr. Destler's destroying hands. When he was about 10, he planted his first rose bush in the backyard, and dedicated almost all of his time caring for it, as he was home schooled and didn't really have anyone to talk to, besides his stuffy tutors. When it had finally brought forth new blooms of red roses, his father noticed it and immediately ran out to the backyard with an axe, splintering the bush into pieces and tearing the perfect flowers to shreds. Erik watched from his bedroom window in agony, horrified that his father could be capable of destroying something so beautiful. Before he could even begin to be upset, his father bolted into the house and stomped up the stairs. He listened in silent fear as Mr. Destler pounded heavily down the hallway, in time with Erik's heart beat and wrenched open the bed room door, dropping the axe and grabbing Erik by the scruff of his collar.
'"I never want to see another rose bush again! What right do you have to care for them as she did?"'
Erik assumed that the "she" his father was talking about was his mother, whom he had never met as she died during childbirth.
He snapped back to reality as a car drove swiftly by and examined the white rose bush. Erik found one he deemed to be perfect and broke its stem from the bush, careful not to cut his fingers and brought the single rose closer to inspect it. It truly was a picture of perfection, the white petals opened to their fullest extent, no signs of withering evident or brown spots blemishing the surface from the insects that survived the insecticide.
Erik inhaled the intoxicating scent, closing his eyes and remembering the deal he had struck with his father. He could grow roses at the side of the house, but only there, with no mention of their existence. Erik thought the demands to be a little silly, but didn't say anything or disobey. There was probably a reason, as there is for everything else, and it obviously had something to do with his mother, who his father never spoken about.
He turned suddenly to face the street and walked back across the yard to the sidewalk, still clutching the rose in one hand and the guitar case in the other. Once on the sidewalk, Erik turned to the right and put his head down and pulled the hood even farther down. No one else was around, except for the occasional car passing by, but he didn't want to take any chances of startling anyone, as they would probably gossip about it and sooner or later his father would hear that he had not been wearing a mask and would become angry. Besides, he had some where to go that day…
A strong wind had started during his journey and Erik chanced a glimpse at the sky. The sun that had barely begun to peak out from behind the clouds was now completely blocked from view by powerful, dark grey storm clouds. Erik could hear the wind violently rustling the new leaves on the trees as he opened a neat, black metal fence that stood in his path, guitar case and rose still in hand. He knew where he was going, as he visited this place often, and weaved in and out of the gravestones, some elaborate, and some plain.
Erik's eyes were still fixed on the ground, examining every blade of grass, until he knew he was standing in front of what he had come for. His eyes slowly left the ground to read the simple inscription,
Grace Destler
1967-1987
That was it. That was all he knew about her. Her name, age when she died, how she died, and that she had grown roses. He probably wouldn't even know where her grave was if he hadn't stumbled across it by accident on one of his long walks a few years earlier.
Erik sighed and bent down to lay the single white rose at the foot of her grave. Since he had found her grave, he had taken to bringing a rose, a white rose, to it when the blooms were perfect. Even though he had never known her, she deserved only the best.
He sat down on the soft grass, setting his guitar case beside him, and stared at the name on the grave stone. Grace Destler…
Erik put his head in his hands and felt the side of his face that was usually covered with a mask. He traced the lines of distorted flesh as he thought back to the one thing his father had really told him about his mother. The reason she died and why he was so insistent on the mask.
"'She died giving you life,"' he had said turning away and choking back a sob, "'you're the reason she's dead. There were complications. The doctors still don't know what caused any of it. But I know it's because no one as beautiful as her could ever bring something as hideous as you into the world."'
After that, his father gave him his first mask, a sterile, white medical mask, and told him he was to cover his face with it at all times so whenever he was around Erik, even if that was very seldom, he wouldn't be reminded that in exchange for his beloved wife's life, he got Erik and his disfigurement.
That was when Erik was five, and shortly after saw his father much less than before. For those five years it had only been his father, his nurse, and him, his father always locked in his library for hours, sometimes days, drowning in his own self pity and misery. Suddenly, Mr. Destler went back to his old life as a successful attorney, rarely speaking to Erik and never talking about his wife.
Erik's days were filled with hours upon hours of studying with the best tutors money could buy along with anything else that he believed would make Erik content. All this did, however, was to shape Erik into an extremely quiet child with low self-esteem, but who was also very mature and able to take care of himself. At age 8, his nurse, who had been with him since birth and had inspired his early love for music, confronted Mr. Destler and demanded he let Erik try to have a normal life.
"'Let him go to school like normal children! Let him have friends like normal children! Slowly depriving him of all human happiness won't ease your own pain!"'
Erik's nurse was immediately fired after that and he lost the closest thing to a mother he had ever had.
That was when he discovered The Phantom of the Opera. A few weeks after she had been let go, Erik, now unsupervised, finally dared to enter his father's private sanctuary, the library.
His father had left him a brief note on the kitchen table explaining that he was going out of town for two weeks and that he was on his own, save for the day a maid came to clean and his current tutor came to give him a lesson. But that wasn't today, so he had the house completely to himself, longer than usual.
When he first opened the door with a shaky hand, he couldn't see a thing as there was no window in the room. Erik blindly ran his hand up and down the wall to find the light switch, and when he did, was rewarded with the most magnificent sight he had ever beheld.
The light switch illuminated an elaborate brass chandelier, which gave light to a huge room, the walls completely covered with shelves upon shelves of books, save for a large, intricately carved, granite fire place on the far right wall. The center of the room was filled with elegant, brown leather sofas and arm chairs and a handsome, oak table with a single book on its surface. Erik timidly moved towards the table, silently closing the door, picked up the book, and glanced at the title.
The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux.
Intrigued, Erik opened the book to a random page, his eyes immediately catching the words Erik and Mask.
Erik looked up from the book and stared straight ahead at the rows of books, but his mind was else where.
'What does it mean?'
He turned the book back to the beginning, sat down in an arm chair, and at once was plunged into the world of the Opera Ghost, or Erik, who he learned was also badly deformed.
Erik finished the book several hours later. His eyes strained from reading for so long, and his stomach growled with hunger, but he neither noticed nor cared.
For once in his life, he didn't feel alone. This book had shown him that he wasn't. He finally had someone to relate to in this lonely existence, even if that person had been maddened by love and died from a broken heart.
Even though it wasn't much, it was pretty much all he had.
During the passing years, Erik became even better at music than he was before, inspired by the Opera Ghost, and spent most of his time practicing the piano and developing his voice.
The rise of the internet had eventually swept the world and Erik was finally able to reach out to and explore things he never knew existed. He also discovered, to his delight that The Phantom of the Opera had not fallen from human knowledge and was very popular, inspiring others to write more books and Andrew Lloyd Webber to create a musical. He quickly ordered a recording of the musical and instantly loved it. Even though a few things were different, it Erik felt it captured the essence of Leroux's novel, but succeed in making it something that had a life of its own.
Erik devoured all of the pictures of the show and was especially inspired by Erik who was called simply the Phantom in the show. He admired his dark and mysterious manner and the fact that in this version, only half of his face was distorted, and seemed he could relate to him even more. Erik ordered a replica of the half mask and waited anxiously for the day that he could throw away the tacky medical mask for good, in favor of paying homage to the Opera Ghost. That day arrived and Erik was very happy with the results. His father didn't really care as long as wore a mask.
At 14, when tutors couldn't teach him anything more, his father finally enrolled him at the local high school. There were, of course, rules that had to be broken for Erik, as masks usually weren't allowed in school, but when given the right amount of money, the school officials can be pretty lenient.
High school was a major shock for Erik, who had barely been out in public before, and was now surrounded by screaming teenagers all day. Sure he had a television and internet access, but nothing could prepare him for this. Slowly but surely, Erik discovered that he wasn't the only person who liked the kind of music and books and movies that he did and began, for the first time in his life, to make friends. There had been a few questions and remarks about the mask, someone of them rather rude, but Erik simply shrugged them off and walked away.
Then, during his sophomore year, he saw her for the first time.
Erik was just exiting the school through the door he normally did one warm autumn day, when he was momentarily blinded by the bright sun and shielded the light from his eyes with his arm. When he had recovered proper vision, his grey eyes caught the gleam of long golden blond hair of a girl sitting on patch on grass, surrounded by a group of people. Erik held his breath as the girl turned to the side, giving him a view of her profile.
She was exactly how he had imagined Christine Daae, the Opera Ghost's unrequited love to be. He felt his heart race as she turned around, almost looking at him, her blond hair falling over her shoulders and blue eyes twinkling in the sunlight. Erik began to walk over to her, but stopped abruptly as the boy sitting beside her pulled her to him and kissed her. Erik felt his heart plummet to his stomach as he saw her smile at the boy in adoration and kiss him back.
He quickly hurried his pace and walked away, not daring to look back at the happy couple.
As much as he believed it could never be and tried to just forget about her, Erik found it increasingly difficult as he began to notice her around school more and more. He finally settled with learning all he could about her without stalking her. Just a question here and there to the few friends he had made, never to the same one as not to be suspicious. When he first discovered her name was Christine Day, he thought it had to be a joke at first, but then when it proved to be true, was even more interested in asking about her.
By some amazing turn of events, she was finally free of Raoul, who he had found out was named by a grandmother that believed in family traditions, and he could at last really get to know her and try to develop a relationship with her. She had changed from the girl he had first became infatuated with, but by that point he was smitten by the person she was on the inside more than on the outside.
Erik lifted his head from his hands and touched the inscription on his mother's grave. As his slender fingers lightly traced the elegant script of the name and date, he sighed once more, wishing that he could have just one memory of his mother.
He had carefully laid his guitar case beside him when he first reached her grave and now opened it and pulled out an exquisite acoustic guitar. It had belonged to his nurse until just before she had left, when she had given it to him in hopes that he would remember her and continue to rejoice in one thing his father could never deny him of. His music.
Erik now leaned against his mother's grave stone, fingers on the strings of the guitar, poised to play, and followed the wish of the one mother he had happy memories of.
No one would listen
No one but her
Heard as the outcast hears.
Shamed into solitude
Shunned by the multitude
I learned to listen
In my dark, my heart heard music.
I longed to teach the world
Rise up and reach the world
No one would listen
I alone could feel the music
Then at last, a voice in the gloom
Seemed to cry "I hear you;
I hear your fears,
Your torment and your tears."
She saw my loneliness
Shared in my emptiness
No one would listen
No one but her
Heard as the outcast hears
No one would listen
No one but her
Heard as the outcast hears...
Erik remained at his mother's grave until night fall, the inspiration for this song, originally his loving nurse, unknown to him. He tried to recall images of her, but couldn't as all he could think of was Christine.
This chapter was very difficult to write. I can't tell you how many hours have slipped by as I was writing this. Well, please review and tell me what you think! Love and Peace! Kupo!
Iris Knotwise: Where are you!