C/N- An AU Leroux Story. My darkest piece, well, ever.
Hester frowned slightly, blue eyes scanning the half-lit cluttered living room. Where is that music coming from? Not the TV, placed square in the middle of the white wall. Her mother had taken her iPod, stating she needed to connect with her family. That sparked the most recent argument.
"Hester, you keep your nose stuck in a book and never come out to talk!" Her mother admonished shortly, temper frayed. The seventeen year old raised an eyebrow.
"Ma, why should I? No one takes interest in what I say, anyway!" It was the truth. Hester stopped stating her opinion at seven, realizing it never made a difference.
"Of course I do, Hessy!" The words were forced, and only undermined the teenager's point. Hester hated that nickname, and had since second grade.
"You never even liked me! You told me that I don't know how many times!" Actually, she knew, but she didn't want to divert what had simmered for years. Seventy-two times would take to long to list.
"When?" The auburn-haired woman asked, sure that the blonde girl, tiny for her age due to her dislike for food, would not have a response.
"When you dumped me on the corner of dad's place and told me you never wanted to see me again." Hester's tone was as icy as the wintry rain outside. Her mother glared at her. The petite girl glared back at the tall woman ,but remained curled in a normally cozy position on the battered mud brown couch.
Hester stopped and smiled, letting the faint tune reaching her ears. It must have been a neighbor, the thin apartment walls allowing the heavenly tunes to drift through.
"Hester! What are you doing?" Her mother scowled at her. The girl twirled around gracelessly, tangling her legs.
"I was listening to the music the neighbors are playing." The calm, even tone was all the girl allowed herself to focus on.
"What music?" Hester realized that the music ended when her mother had spoken.
"Never mind…"
The next night, Hester was home alone, her mother working late. She sat curled on the tiny couch, eating the steaming Domino's pizza lying on the old, second-hand coffee table between sections of Year of Secret Assignments.
Singing started to fill the room, a heavenly tenor seeming to emanate from everywhere. Hester tried to jump up, only to fall face first in the moon-pale wood of the coffee table. Dazed, she struggled to stand up.
A strong, thin arm grabbed her gently, allowing the concussed girl to lean against a skeletal body. She turned slightly to look at the stranger. Hester blinked several times at the full black silk mask covering the man's face, before the singing dulled her senses.
"Christine…" the voice said hopefully. Hester frowned, about to correct the man, but never got the chance as darkness surrounded her.
Six months after Christine Daae married the Compte de Chagny, an entire aria of screams filled the basements of the Palais Garnier, answered by a magnificent tenor's siren song.
Several of the stagehands and firemen down there, and a ballet student on a dare, were found senseless the next morning, pleading for the angel who sang to once more raise his voice to song.
For the song of the siren is not nearly as terrible as the deathly silence that follows.