Oh noes! I'm behind my quota (quotum?) for an average of at least a thousand words per chapter! That may be because of the really short filler chapter, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to try to catch up. So here you go--several scenes, just to make this long. w00t.

You know, despite my statement in the first chapter of "I don't expect to update often", I think I'm doing pretty well timewise. I'm so proud of myself...this one is posted just a day after the last one! (And was actually finished within an hour of posting the last one, but it was also four AM and I wanted to get to bed.)

Step away from the mask, and nobody gets forced to sing. Er, and other scenes.

Christine woke up the next morning, unsure of what had happened. Then...she remembered! "Let's see...I remember...there was mist, swirling mist upon a vast glassy lake...there were candles all around--we'd better get the fire marshall in here soon. Um...I was in a boat...and on a horse...oh, yeah! And a dude who bored me into sleep."

Erik overheard and muttered, "I could bore you in other ways that would wake you up but wear you out, my dear." A voice from above said, "Erik, watch it. I don't want to up the rating to mature." Erik scowled and apologized.

Christine did not notice this author intrusion in the least. Her attention focused solely on Erik. He'd seemed so gorgeous last night when he was singing, but come to think of it, his hair was a bit gray. And his face? His face was--well, actually, she had no idea. It was covered by a mask. And not a half mask, either, because they only did that in the musical to make it easier for the actors to sing. The mask covered his whole face. She mused: "I wonder if he's secretly sexy underneath that mask, and he's just hiding his face to protect himself from women?" So, of course, being the smart soprano she is, she asked.

"Well, why don't you just find out for yourself?" was Erik's reply. Hesitantly, she slipped her fingers under the mask and pulled it off. Before she could catch a glimpse of his face, however, he stood up and put a conveniently located paper bag over his head.

A random Persian guy popped out from behind the organ. "Did you take off his mask?"

Christine, floored, responded, "Well, yes...er..."

Erik's beautiful baritone voice came out, muffled, from under the paper bag. "I'm not coming out!"

The Persian, henceforth known as Nadir (thank you, Susan Kay), sighed. "Look what you've done. Now I've got to get him to the fish tank and sing." From among the other ridiculously random things Erik owned, Nadir pulled out a fish tank and stepped in it. "Child of the wilderness," he warbled, "born into emptiness, learn to be lonely, learn to find your way in darkness..."

Erik turned away from Christine, took the bag off his head, and put his mask back on, Nadir sighed and, before walking away, warned her, "Now don't take off his mask again. Please."

Erik turned back to Christine and beamed, although it was hard to see the smile under the mask. "Now, what was it you wanted?"

Christine was taken aback once again. "Oh, well, uh..." She pointed to his face.

The masked man sighed. "Everyone wants to know what's under the mask, but no one ever has the guts to look. See, if you really want to know, why don't you just take off the mask and look?"

Christine hesitated. "Well, you put a bag over your head the last time I took off your mask--" She took it off again, and of course, over his head the bag went once more.

Nadir came back in, looking furious. "I did ask!"

Mme Giry came in at this point. "Did somebody take off the Phantom's mask?"

Nadir gestured to Christine. "Twice!" he responded unbelievingly. Mme Giry rolled her eyes and shouted up towards the "ceiling" of the lair. In other words, the floor of the opera house. "Hey, everyone! Someone took off Erik's mask--twice!" She joined the Persian in the fish tank and sang the same weird song as before. Christine registered at the back of her mind that it was so not nineteenth century.

"Who will be there for you? Comfort and care for you? Learn to be lonely! Learn to be your one companion..."

"It's not working!" Nadir realized. "We need more!"

The entire opera chorus somehow managed to find its way into the lair, Carlotta (for some reason having prematurely returned) leading. Carlotta's voice stuck out as loudly as usual, but for once, it wasn't quite as horrid. Although that may be because she took her normal range down a few octaves and sang in some entirely different style. "Never dream out in the world there are arms to hold you...you've always known your heart was on its own..."

Fortunately, Erik took the bag off his head at this point as Nadir, Mme Giry, and the chorus exited, breathing sighs of relief and glaring at Christine. ("Now don't do it again!" hissed Mme Giry to the poor girl.) He looked cheerfully at Christine. "Did that satisfy your curiosity?"

By this point, Christine was very confused. She'd been taken out from her dressing room through a mirror down to some very damp place with a lake, an organ, and a billion candles, not to mention that she'd passed some very creepy arms holding even more candles. She'd fallen asleep to the beautiful but boring voice of the masked man who currently stood in front of her with a paper bag in his hands. And now, as it turned out, this guy was completely crazy, and she never wanted to have anything to do with him again. And she still hadn't seen his face. What was worse, she realized, was that the aforementioned guy had been spying on her quite creepily through the aforementioned mirror.

So you must, of course, forgive Christine for breaking down at this point and sobbing, "SOMEONE GET ME AWAY FROM HIM! I WANT MY MOMMY!"

Erik sighed, rolling his eyes. "See? It's always like this. One look at my face, and everyone always goes nuts and hates me. It's not like I can help it! I was born like this..."

Christine looked at him incredulously. "Save your life story for later," she told him bitterly (a comment of which he took note: "I'll wait until I've kidnapped her properly!"). "Right now, I just want to be taken back to my mommy." She sniffled.

"Okay, okay," Erik muttered. "Although might I remind you, your mother died years ago." Christine sniffled even more loudly. "I'll just hand you over to Mme Giry."

"Fine by me," Christine choked out through her tears. She glared at him suddenly. "But if you spy on me through that mirror again, I'll superglue that bag to your head."

Ooh! I've got a joke! Why did the author put random centered text in the middle of a chapter?

Answer: TO GET TO THE NEXT SCENE! ...I didn't say it was funny.

Meg Giry was furious. Raoul de Chagny had managed to flout every single one of her very clear instructions. He didn't stay with Christine; he didn't protect her from musically talented stalkers. He hadn't even succeeded in keeping her from singing: Meg had distinctly heard a soprano voice hitting a high E in a part that...was glossed over. (Don't you love passive voice? Keeps one from apportioning blame.)

And even worse, when Meg herself was forced to sing some pop song when she and the rest of the chorus had been mysteriously transported to some dark and dank place under the opera house, she'd caught her mother--her own mother!--in a fish tank with a man who most certainly was not Meg's father. Unless someone's done some slash that we didn't know about. (Either way, the person Mme Giry claimed was Meg's father had died years ago.)

The dancer, disgusted, kicked the unconscious body of the Vicomte out of the doorway and entered Christine's dressing room herself. The first thing she noticed, of course, was that the mirror was slightly open. She was about to shut it to keep out annoying breezes when she realized--dude. Mirror. Not window. Mirror. In other words...wtf?

Of course, she had to investigate. Someone had to do all the work, what with incompetent Vicomtes not being able to follow orders and with Christine's surrogate mother off singing in fish tanks with strange men. And of course, the someone was she.

Meg slid the mirror open further and ventured inside. It was not a pretty sight; obviously, the creep who'd been spying on Christine didn't bother decorating or cleaning up...or keeping the place warm and dry, either. He didn't even destroy the pests in there, as Meg discovered quickly, almost stepping on a rat. Both ballerina and rodent squealed and ran: the rat towards the light, and Meg towards the lake.

She slowed and stopped before she hit the water. Across the lake, she could see Erik's lair--but there was no one there. Sighing, she was about to turn back when...

DUN DUN DUN! (Scary music.) A head of fire zoomed towards her. It had no body, just the fire. Meg shrieked and ran for it; the head pursued her. She wasn't going to make it...it was catching up...when suddenly, the author suffered a fatal heart att--

Okay, so that was complete BS. The head of fire was from Gaston Leroux, but that guy was crazy. No, what really happened was that Meg ignored the rat after the initial shock. She walked a bit further when suddenly, her mother grabbed her by the shoulder and led her the heck out of there. "Come on," Mme Giry grumbled. "I've already got my sort-of daughter down there. I don't need my real daughter there too."

Roses are red, grass is green, I'm shutting up now, so here's the next scene.

Joseph Buquet, the stagehand whose small part in the first scene (besides the prologue) was entirely cut out, found a bunch of random chorus and ballet girls while in search for a larger part. He had sat them all down in various chairs, other than one whom he'd pretty much just draped over his arm, and he was now showing them placards.

"How to recognize different types of ghosts from quite a long way away," he announced to the girls. He held up a picture of a face, and the girls screamed. He had ugly yellow skin and no nose. "The 'Phantom'," he explained. He showed them another placard: this one was a man wearing a mask and holding what looked like a noose. "The 'Phantom'," he said again. In the next one, the masked man was strangling some guy with long hair with the noose; the long-haired guy had a thought bubble saying "Damn! I should have kept my hand at the level of my eyes!"

"The 'Phantom'," Buquet said.

Mme Giry noticed this and was annoyed by the mayhem it caused. She did some quick sketching of her own on a piece of paper and thrust it in front of Buquet. It crudely showed the masked man zapping an ugly stick figure labeled "Buquet", who was running around on fire, with his eyes.

"The 'Phantom'," Mme Giry hinted quite strongly to a stagehand who, fortunately, took the hint.