A/n: Here's the latest. I think I got it here quicker than last time, didn't make you wait as long.
Please review! Its going to start getting good from here on in, so cookies and engouragement go along way! XD
Okies, time to end the latest cliffie:
11: Reality hits-
"Miscarriage?"
"Yes monsieur--"
"Erik."
"Yes Monsieur Erik," the doctor, a small white-haired man with a heavy German accent began with distaste after being barked at. "She has lost quite a lot of blood during the ordeal. If she had have been seen earlier…" he trailed off under Erik's fierce stare and attempted in vain to avert his eyes from the curious porcelain mask which was now facing him.
Erik, very aware of the staring each time he looked away, suddenly advanced on the little man who cowered back against the wall nearby and ripped off his mask, bringing the ragged flesh within an inch of the doctor's face.
"You say you're a doctor," he roared into the quivering form before him, "Surely you must be accustomed to such horrors!" Erik drew back and replaced his mask, all the while watching the paled, frightened doctor with such disgust that if it was directed at a rose, it would've withered in seconds.
Erik went back to pacing up and down the private quarters corridor as he had been doing for quite some time before his latest outburst, going over everything in his mind.
She had been carrying his child, now she was sick, perhaps dying because she had lost it.
It's all your fault, a voice in his mind began, if you hadn't have gone and forced yourself upon her she'd never be in this predicament. Erik turned sharply and slammed his fists into the hard stone wall of the corridor.
"That's not true! She consented! She knew the risks!" Erik shouted into the silence, drawing the attention of the curious doctor, who stared at him like he was a lunatic, which he supposed he was in the sense of the word. Suddenly without warning, his mind started up again, questioning and answering so fast that he almost lost track.
Did she consent? What with your inescapable seduction techniques it would have been quite impossible for her not to. You would've twisted her words somehow.
That's a lie, she told me to take her! It was by her own will!
Fine, she may have consented, but what if she didn't know the risks?
Of course she would, she's not stupid.
You don't know that, and let's face it; she can be quite vague at times.
Still, every maiden knows, don't they learn from stories they hear from friends, mothers, aunts?
What would you know? You've barely grasped human contact and you are trying to get me to believe that you know how women learn about conception. Wait, how do you know?
Ah! Of course! Books! They read books. They must. That's how I know, I read some medical journals I stole from a party of patrons who happened to be doctors.
And just how would she get her hands on a medical journal?
Oh I don't know!
No, you don't.
Why am I talking to you?
Why are you talking to yourself is the question…
Erik snapped out of his schizophrenia onslaught and shook his head, the reality of the situation dropping like an anvil on his shoulders. Alyssa is dying.
Cursing silently he paced in a small circle, ran a hand through his tousled black locks and returned his worried gaze to the doctor who was eyeing him almost amusedly. Suddenly Erik charged forward, a decision made in his mind. He had to see her, now.
"Where is she?" he shouted at the doctor, who jumped slightly and ran in front of Erik to block the passage down the long hallway. Fuelled by rage, Erik picked up the little man by his collar and hissed the three words into his face.
"Where is she?"
"Her-room…room-thir-teen…" the doctor spluttered as Erik's grip on his neck was tightened. Receiving the answer, Erik dumped the winded doctor like a rag-doll on the ground and stormed to the door marked 13, only to hear the wheezing man following him quickly and to once again block his path.
Erik, now enraged beyond comprehension, raised his fist to strike the doctor, who stood his ground with his hands on each side of the door frame and rasped, "I am warning you once monsieur, you will not like what you see…"
He trailed off as Erik lowered his fist and shoved him out of the way, before turning the knob and slowly entering Alyssa's room, only to be greeted with a sight that made him physically sick.
Piles of bloodied sheets lay strewn around the relatively small room, with two buckets in the darkened corner filled to the brim with water and sullied rags.
A maid was on hands and knees before him scrubbing hard to remove a dark stain that could only be blood from the off-white carpet, and another bustled past with an armload of linen, no doubt carrying the same appearance as the rest he'd seen.
The air was heavy with the coppery tang and as he passed his eyes around the room, he felt the unmistakable burn of bile rising in his throat.
Taking a faltering step forward, turned his horror-stricken gaze to Alyssa, lying atop fresh white sheets surrounded by a muslin curtain, her ghostly visage almost as pale as the comforter she slept upon.
A small choked sob escaped his lips as he approached the bed, his eyes never leaving her face, set with a surreal, peaceful smile which made his heart stop. He felt his chest constrict as he reached out to gingerly stroke her cheek, immediately recoiling as his quivering fingers touched the cool, deathly surface of her skin, and he began backing away, his tears burning a path down his exposed cheek.
The second he reached the door, he tore his gaze from the fallen angel before him and ran. He ran back to the safety of his world of unending night, to the comfort of the concert grand, to the emotionless stone walls of the place where he could punish himself for the heinous crime he had committed.
Once over the threshold of the lair, he slammed the heavy cellar door with all his strength and ran to the portcullis, pulling the lever to shut the world out. Howling with anguish he shut his stinging eyes and stumbled to his desk, collapsing upon it sending papers and manuscripts fluttering to the ground, his hate, regret, and rage burning a hole through his heart.
He opened his eyes slowly, still sobbing brokenly as the sound of something shattering could be heard. Looking down, he saw his mask in pieces on the stone floor where it had fallen from his tear-stained face and pushed himself of the desk, slowly turning towards the one uncovered mirror in the lair, the one Alyssa used to use.
He stood, his chest heaving with sobs of torture, staring at his hated reflection with such rage that for a brief second, it scared even himself, until he couldn't stand any more and cried out into the stone catacombs, before lunging at the desk again and tearing the drawer open.
There, just as he left it, lay his beautiful morphine, accompanied by the black silk tie and syringe. He hastily grabbed the glass-encased amphetamine and filled the syringe to overdose levels, before tying the black silk painfully tight around his bicep and waited. Due to his clean state for so long, it didn't take much time for athick vein to appear, and without thinking twice, jammed the needle into his arm and swiftly pushed the plunger, feeling the effect almost instantly due to his rapid heart rate sending it quickly into his tortured being.
Tossing the glass syringe to the ground, he turned his glazed eyes to the large lake that ran through the grotto and unaware of the sound of shattering glass behind him or the soft click of a door being open, charged headlong at the smooth water's surface and plunged in, feeling elation swell within him as the first lungful of icy water entered his body.
--A few minutes earlier--
Antoinette Giry pulled the solid mahogany door to her office to and locked it before beginning to make her way towards the private dorms to check on her now bedridden star pupil. As she walked, the gentle clicks of her shoes and cane the only sounds to be heard, she reflected on the absurdity of the recent happenings.
No doubt Erik had seduced the little harlot on the night of her performance, and had been sleeping with her ever since, it had been all just a matter of time really. Giry allowed herself a snigger at Alyssa's stupidity, "She was supposed to be the wanton know-it-all," Giry muttered, "look where it got her!"
Reaching the door that led to her destination, she shook her head and reached out to turn the handle, but stopped suddenly as she heard shouting in the other room.
"Where is she!"
Giry gasped as she realized it was Erik and placed her ear to the wooden door, trying to hear the rest of the conversation. It went quiet for a few seconds, then she heard whoever was in there with him mumble something before a small thump and the sound of a door being thrown open could be heard. Then silence.
Giry resisted the temptation to open the door she was behind and pressed closer to it instead, but all she heard was the echoing hum of nothingness. She patiently waited for a few more minutes, before growing tired and reaching for the door handle once more.
As she turned it, the thumping of dress shoes being run down the wooden hallway could be heard, before a resounding slam of, no doubt, the cellar door. There was only one person who both wore dress shoes and entered the cellar door, and with a start, Giry flew through the door she had been hiding behind and tore after him, the fact that she had never heard him move about his Academy, let alone run like a lunatic worrying her immensely.
As she made her way down into the depths of unending night, the sound of broken sobs could be heard in the distance, and each time they reached her ears, a pang shot through her heart, and she found herself on the verge of tears for him as she reached the third cellar.
Still running, she made her way down the many flights of stairs in almost complete darkness, and when she stopped on the third flight to regain her breath, the sound of a heavy door being slammed reverberated through the darkness. This was enough to keep her going and she ran on, reaching the fourth cellar and continuing down until finally she came upon the large, metal plated door that led out into the underground lake.
She fell against it gasping for breath and tried to listen in the gloom for her anguished friend, but the door was too thick to hear anything through, and she let out a small worried sigh and leaned back against the door, deciding on her actions.
Suddenly a painful cry reached her ears and she whirled around to face the door again, took a deep breath an turned the large metal handle, opening the door just in time to see an unmasked Erik toss something made of glass to the floor, and run headlong into the lake, immediately disappearing from sight beneath the murky waters.
"No Erik!" Giry cried as she rushed through the door and stood on the stone bank of the lake, watching in horror as only bubbles rose to the surface. Without thinking, she quickly ridded herself of her skirts and bodice and, in just her corset and undergarments, dove into the icy water after him.
She had always been a strong swimmer, but the freezing depths of the lake were making it exceedingly difficult, as pain like a thousand knives engulfed her body and made it hard for her to move. She swam down further and further, flailing her arms and legs to keep them from freezing and just incase she felt him floating nearby, as she was swimming blindly and was beginning to have strong hopeless thoughts of never finding him.
She changed direction, praying that she would find him soon as her lungs were beginning to burn from want of oxygen, and she didn't know how much longer her body could take.
Suddenly her right forearm connected with something soft that floated away, and she immediately lashed her arm out in search of it. Sure enough she felt it again and grabbed onto what she guessed was a wrist, then moved her hand to a bicep which had something curious tied tightly around it, and finally a torso, which she held onto for dear life and kicked hard to the surface.
She opened her eyes and saw a light flickering above causing her heart to leap, we're almost there. Twisting her hand into the fabric of her unconscious friend's shirt to ignore the searing pain in her lungs and giving a final powerful kick, their heads broke the waters surface and at last, Giry gasped for air and instinctively pushed Erik's face above the water before swimming them back to shore.
Using the last ounces of strength left in her weary body, she heaved him out of the icy depths and onto the stone bank, before climbing out herself and collapsing onto him, her chest heaving. Once her breathing was restored, she checked for his pulse and breathing and, finding nothing, immediately began trying to resuscitate him.
She tilted his head back before moving down and tearing his shirt open, exposing his perfectly sculpted chest and midsection. Antoinette felt her heart flutter as she drew a line down his collar bone with her left hand, and from the base of his ribs to his sternum with her right so they came together at a common point, over his heart.
She inwardly slapped herself for feeling such things at a time like this as she made a small mark on his chest with her nail so she wouldn't forget the placing, before clamping his nose with her thumb and forefinger and pressing her lips to his, filling his lungs with her breath.
She rose and fell again, exhaling into his open mouth, feeling the same shudder each time their lips connected. After four repeats, she pressed the palm of her right hand to the back of her left, entwined her fingers and pulled them back, before placing the heel of her joined hands onto the mark on his chest and pushed down rhythmically in time with her counting.
"One, two, three, four, five…"
She felt his chest begin to deflate and pushed on.
"Six, seven, eight, nine, ten…"
He lay unmoving still, his face set in a serine trance-like state, unawares of everything going on around him.
"Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen…"
She stopped pumping and moved back to his mouth, once again clamping his nose and breathing for him. Each of the four times she came up to breathe, her eyes went to the unmasked side of his face, a spectacle she had never seen before.
Even after their many long years of friendship after she saved him, he had never allowed her to look upon the so called 'horrors' under the white mask. Gazing at it now, she wasn't filled with hate or disgust, just pity, pity for the man who could've had everything his heart desired.
To Antoinette, it wasn't anywhere near ashorrible as what she had heard. It was definitely noticeable, the slightly red, twisted flesh littered with raised welts spanning from his right ear to his nose, then from just above his hairline down to the right side of his lips, but didn't exactly fit the description of the so-called 'death's head'.
Quickly realizing that she was getting side-tracked, Antoinette resumed her place over his chest and began pumping again, counting to fifteen before moving to his mouth once more.
Suddenly, on her second breath, he began to cough violently and she immediately rolled him onto his side, letting his expel the water from his lungs. Once he had stopped coughing and his breathing had settled, she rolled him onto his back again and he opened his eyes glazed to her, staring in disbelief.
"Y-you!" he stuttered, reaching up to catch her upper arm in a vice-like grip.
"H-how…d-dare…you! I'm s-supposed… to b-be…dead!"
He was shuddering violently now, his face contorted in rage, and Giry winced as the grip on her arm tightened.
"I'm s-sup-posed to…be w-with…A-alyssa!" he managed to get out before tears began to cascade down his cheeks as he passed out again, his arm falling from Antoinette's to rest beside him.
She stared down at him in shock, unable to move. She had just saved his life, putting her life on the line in the process, and he didn't even have the decency to thank her.
She checked his vital signs once more and inspecting the glass vial he had thrown before trying to drown himself, decided he was in a drug induced coma and got up and gathered her clothing before storming out of the lair, not caring whether he died or not.
---------
A/n: OOH Giry to the rescue! Go you old bat! Nah thats mean... XD
I hope I got the rescusitation things right, I was too lazy to research...
I really liked writing this chapter, and Erik's suicide attempt sorta came out of the blue. I was sitting there, typing away, when suddenly I said "Yes! Overdose and jump into the lake!" My twin sister just stared at me strangely and backedaway, saying "Uh Eric...I think its time you had a really good sleep..." LOL
She's an avid POTO hater...curse her soul...
Shout out to mon ange, Erin, for without you this chapter probably wouldn't have been. You have a beautiful, though very active imagination... I still love you though!
Thats all from me till next time-
Eric