A/N: Trigger warning:this chapter contains disturbing content. Please read at your own discretion.

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Seven Hours

The woman. She tore him open like a scream ripping through the soundlessness of the bland night sky, breaching and disrupting his dreamlike state; the crack of a whip, the pounding of thunder. She peered down through the brass edges of the skylight, mesmerized by the light that poured out from the deep and dark underworld where the dead walked and even lived; his very own circle of hell.

She exposed him with a single look, tearing the wallpaper from his mind that kept memories from flooding in and destroying him, emptying him…and as he sat half turned around upon the piano bench, he desperately wished he had ignored the sense that someone watched him from above – but he did not fight the urge that commanded him, one of his many misery inducing masters; the stabbing and lingering shadow of paranoia.

Intrusive thoughts lived in tiny cycles within his mind; they were now his friends, for they always followed him, surrounding him. They lived in the mere whisper of silence, flicking forked tongues out of cracked lips, slithering out of their hidden groves the minute his mind faded into the oblivion of sobriety.

Yet he savored every piece of each cycle – he loved them! But they had forced his hand, they had made him love them; he hadn't wanted to, he had tried to resist their darkness that grew longer and wider each night, sprouting legs and arms and faces. He did not ever think of their faces: he was so very frightened by them. For they were twisted; the shadows of demons that had lived, taunting him from a distant shore with the swift jerk of a rope.

They had put it around his neck, around his wrists and legs. They kicked him and cut him with serrated blades, lacerating his flesh until it became bloodied; inhuman.

Until he became inhuman.

The night had ultimately led him into a sedated and slurry state; a perfect balance of pills and liquor that numbed his senses, hushing the cycles of thought for at least seven hours.

Seven hours. He could do the immaculate arithmetic, calculating the milligrams of sedatives alongside bountiful rivers of whiskey. These seven hours were his Eden, his freedom from scenes that played endlessly in his mind; it gave him a disgusting wave of hope, each time.

He always ended up in the same place when his heart climbed into a stupor of blurry ecstasy; his piano, the only thing that could transcribe the demonic visions that haunted him, that made him different from everyone else. But this night he had written something new, something so evil and heinous that his fingers seemed to burn as he thundered upon the keys. The song was privately improvised, but as he descended further into its horrid and melancholy refrains, his heart wished for someone to hear it – someone that might truly listen, who might truly be able to see.

Three sedatives a day. Three a day will fix it, oh you'll see! It calms the mind, Mr. Vanderbilt. You see, anyone can be healed, but you must allow it to take place. You must allow it to be so.

Erik had snickered as the doctor re-sewed the side of his mouth, sneering into the old mans' face while pulling against the string of the sutures. He had taken the pills gleefully like a child, cracking the most pretentious smile that he could possibly muster.

The doctor had shaken his head at him, warning that even a small smile could rip the stitches all over again.

If only the doctor could see the worms that lived inside of his mind – but of course, it was nothing that a powerful sedative could not dissipate!

The sedatives were a delightful additive to his cocktails of cocaine and bourbon. They worked like bees edging along a hive, all apart of a bigger system that was infinitely greater than its' tiniest parts. The queen bee commanded them, allowing them to live for her, to thrive for her. And they worked without care, with reckless abandon and with a self-sacrificial sense of purpose!

He had obeyed the shameless doctor in his own twisted way; he had undone the ancient latch that held the skylight windows together. His father had begged for him to see the doctor, so Erik decided to humor his façade of a parental figure – he had done all that had been asked! The pills had been emptied into his cup; not three, but five – and he allowed the night air to whisper against his neck as he slipped slowly into the madness of his music. God, how his father detested his piano playing – his father had wanted a war hero, one with medals and scars and blood! Oh, how he had gotten his dreadful wish. How he had made Erik his own little pawn, sacrificing him while sipping wine from a throne of gold!

The first night in the penthouse had started out wonderfully. He was completely moved into what was suitable enough for a prince; the tallest room in the noblest castle. So high up and unbothered that he could perhaps disappear into its disgustingly flowered wallpaper; he could disintegrate deep into this penthouse for weeks, even! Benders could become longer and flow as magnificent as a river, and no one….no one would be able to see who he had truly become.

Wicked. He had become cruel. He had formed into those faces that cut up his skin, finally surrendering to their laughter and jarred language – their very own faithful servant!

Erik planned on his most recent encounter with a lovely and delicate blonde to be a part of his activities – one out of his seven precious hours. He wanted to dismantle her at the core, to pull her perfect curls and fuck the ever-living shit out of her tight cunt – but she rang him with a lighthearted excuse. He didn't mind; he dropped the phone off the hook once she had gently offered reschedule. In fact, it actually pleased him further to cut her soft voice off mid-sentence. She could fuck herself, for all he cared. He hadn't intended to even say a word to her. She was dispensable, simply another body that wandered aimlessly through the Upper East Side. There were plenty more that he could reel in relentlessly – and they would fall all over themselves while standing behind his double doors, waiting for him to let them in, already wet between the legs. They wanted to be fucked by him. They all begged for it.

Her absence gave way to a full seven hours; for he was already drowning himself in liquor. Erik stumbled around the great expanse of the flat, not bothering to unbox any of the things his father had sent over. They weren't his, not anymore. He wasn't himself – he was someone different, someone greater, created by the dismantling of his psyche. The only essential was his piano; a gift from his late mother from years ago. Of course, he had changed its skin by scribbling notes all up and down its sturdy legs in golden paint; it was angelic, oh, how it lived and breathed! How could he not write his thoughts out onto something so lavish, something so expensive and smooth that was born out of love? And now she lay buried somewhere, but he did not know where, nor did he mind. His thoughts always whispered to him that he was already dead along with her – he had died almost two years ago when the rope became a part of his skin!

The clock showed six hours remaining, and he laughed at the wondrous time he might have. The bourbon no longer burnt his throat, so he poured more down just to keep his delicate lucid dreaming continuous. That was what life was made of, wasn't it? Nightmares strung together into a long and endless story; a story that didn't matter, a story that no longer made any sense.

The night air was pleasant against the sweat soaked shirt on his back. He'd torn the front of it open, releasing his scars out onto the dust of the black and white keys. Black and white, white and black…they were all the same, to him. Each note used to mean something in particular, but now he found with a chilling delight that they meant nothing – nothing without his mind becoming a slippery haze, a labyrinth to which he willingly gave his spirit to, again and again, over and over…

The clock showed five hours left. Fury now leaked into his bloodstream, the greatest high he had been waiting for! He would destroy the things that lay settled in the boxes, he would tear down the ugly and fruitful roses that covered the radiant majesty of the walls! He would, he told himself that he would… perhaps tomorrow, when he could see without the delicious cloud of blinding rage.

But there was a scream that had ripped through everything – a feeling, a constriction across the seams of his throat. Someone watched, he could feel it…but it did not seem malevolent, it did not seem cruel. His mind had repeated in cycles that it had been God, that maybe the end for him was nearer than it was further. So he halted the thundering of the piano, turning to see if he was to be redeemed by an entity that did not seem to exist. God would not let a man live that had been left to die; God would not allow a man to become inhuman. If he even existed at all, he simply would not allow it!

But it was not God.

It was a misty illusion of a woman, with hair that grew wild around a heart shaped face. He would have spoken if the air hadn't become so still; he would have snapped at her and screamed at her, this wistful angel that had crawled into his dark little world.

But she was broken; horribly and utterly shattered…with such helplessness in her deep brown eyes that it almost made him weep. She was a mirror in the opening of the ceiling, and he could see himself within her, rocking back and forth in a cellar that let in not a single strand of light.

She was misery.

It seemed like forever. Thoughts pulled nervously inside of him, entangling his heart into binds that were suffocating. He blinked to clear the redness that perhaps made him look like a demon – but perhaps she, the woman, did not care.

There were no tears that dribbled down her pale face; only wide eyes that engulfed him like a great storm. Erik stared until he could look at her no longer, now terrified that someone had uncovered his secret; that he too, was torn into shreds beyond anyone's repair. He could not sit here twisted around like this, his head swimming with things to possibly do or say…so he tore his eyes from hers because they had discovered too much – they had seen the monsters that roamed and ruled the world in his head.

Her face – it was a stain of blood on a white medic sheet, pulled over a disembodied soldier that screamed his mother's name. Erik stumbled away from the opening, away from the vulnerability that this woman, whoever she was – had shared with him…

A mirror.

The clock showed three hours.

He swallowed the rest of the bottle within the next couple of minutes, not even realizing he had thrown its empty contents at the wall until he heard a distant shatter. Erik smiled to himself as he thought of the mess it might make – he would destroy this entire place tonight. He ached to – his thoughts begged him to do it!

Fruitful impressions of tearing all of the hideous wallpaper down gave forth to a sensuous prickle down the wake of his spine; he threw his head back and laughed, thinking of all the space he would have to write upon. He would scribble on the walls like he had upon the piano; he would take its virginity and make it ugly to match how he felt inside…to imitate those yellow maggots that squirmed inside of his shuddering heart.

The woman, the woman. Had she even been real? He cleared off the mirrored coffee table with a swipe of his arm, grinning widely at the crash of contents to the floor. Every smile he gave to the empty air pulled angrily at the stitches on the side of his mouth, but to him it was amusing, enjoyable! Yes, let them rip open again! Let the doctor shriek at his inhumanly wide smile that the Germans had given him! Stitch it up again, fix it again, again! Only so he could keep smiling and ripping, over and over, over and over…

The last three hours of his obscurity were shrouded in moving shapes and darkness. Erik stumbled to the floor on the way back from some corner of the apartment, smashing his head on the edge of the coffee table. He felt a warm liquid trickle down the side of his face, but his eyelids could no longer stay open, and the cocaine was in little vials on the other side of the flat…too distant for the desperate clawing of his hands…

You know that I love you. I will always love you, Erik.

"Mama…" he murmured, shaking his head as the warmth dribbled into his eyes. "Where are you? I want to see you…Mama…"

A voice in the distance called out to him, an angel, singing…

Oh my love, they will rise! Oh my love…oh my love!

"Mama…don't leave me all alone," he whimpered, dragging his hand through a pile of glass on the floor. "Don't leave me in darkness…"

Three hours, or was it now two?

He was moaning and crying uncontrollably, rolling around in shimmering glass. Blood pooled upon the wooden floor; he could smell its familiar iron sting that now rotted away at the perfumed air…once, he reached up blindly to touch his mask, but it was gone, flung off into the emptiness of the pitch black night. His mind roiled with the thought of being without it…and at the same time, disgusted that he even had made it, and wore it, and was afraid of it, yet worshipped its feel upon his skin…

Erik. Open your eyes.

"Mama…?"

A deafening and sharp rap at his beloved double doors echoed in the midst of lonely and loathsome dreams where he now lived…it was a distant sound, but it could not be real…for he was still dreaming, he wanted to keep dreaming…was it not the final hour?

The sounds grew more repetitive, refusing to stop, denying his need for his mother, for the slither of unconscious dreaming…

Open your eyes, love.

Her voice was in the room somehow; if she was here he would find her, he would bring her back, he would love her forever…

His eyes shot open with a racing heart just as the cruelty of sobriety rushed in; the thoughts were back in their loops as if they'd never left, and his head throbbed so badly he could barely see…

The knocking had turned into slamming, now.

"Erik! Open this fucking door…I know you're in there, the doorman saw you go in last night! I swear to God, I will break this damn thing down, I don't give a fuck how much you paid for the place…Erik!"

Erik blinked his eyes, staring up at the vaulted ceiling. He knew the masculine voice, but his head was still swimming with the smog of sedatives and liquor from his precious seven hours.

The woman in the skylight.

The voice of his mother.

The pounding on the door continued. "I will kick down this fucking door! Erik, goddamn it! Open…the fucking…door!"

Erik groaned audibly. "What the fuck do you want?" he rasped, slowly sitting up in the shambles of his frenzied temper. "Just get the doorman to open it, imbecile…"

"Oh, I'm so happy to hear you're alive," the muffled voice answered, dripping with sarcasm. "Get your lazy ass up and open this door! Don't make me tell father what the hell you've been doing."

"Oh? And what exactly might you tell him? You don't have a fucking clue," Erik retorted, rolling onto his side while scanning the floor for his mask.

The voice sighed heavily behind the door. "I'm your brother, not some insolent idiot off the street. I'm the one who buys your damn alcohol! Now open this door. We have to meet father tonight."

"Give me…a moment," Erik responded gruffly, rubbing at the dull pain on the side of his forehead. He pulled himself to his feet, clearing the floor of broken bottles and shreds of wallpaper with his foot as he made his way to the door. He unlocked three golden locks that lined the inner part of the left door, then swiftly opened it just enough to push his face through.

"What the hell is so important that you feel the need to come banging upon my door so early in the goddamn morning?" Erik snapped, giving his younger brother a nice full view of his scarred up, unmasked face. He was pleased at the effect, as the youthful face of his handsome brother crinkled in shock. His brother shook his head, eyeing Erik through the crack in the door with his mouth in a thin line. "Erik…what the hell happened to your head?"

Erik turned away from the door, leaving it open for his brother to follow. "I fell," he answered curtly, settling himself onto the velvet black couch that stood near to the mirrored coffee table. His brother edged through the door nimbly, quickly shutting it behind him. "My God, what the hell…" he remarked as he looked around the apartment. "Have you been taking your medication?"

"Yes, Bruce, I've been fucking taking it. Why, you need some for yourself?" he snickered, snatching a cigarette from a stray pack that lay on the floor. He stared at Bruce coldly, pushing blood-encrusted pieces of hair out of his face. "Give me a light," he commanded lazily.

Bruce began to pace in front of where Erik reclined, clasping his hands behind his back impatiently. "I don't have a light, and maybe you could get your own damn light if you didn't destroy half of this fucking place!" He shouted, grinding his heel into a small pile of broken glass. Erik shrugged, leaning over the edge of the couch to search for a lighter. Instead, his hand brushed against the smooth leather of his mask, and he seized it from the floor. He turned it over in his hands once, running a thumb along the surface, then hurled it in Bruce's direction.

"Give that to father, tell him I'm…indisposed."

Bruce kicked at the mask that had fluttered to the floor. "You aren't indisposed, you're a fucking drunk…Don't ask me to get your precious cocaine anymore, by the way…"

"Oh brother, you wouldn't do that to me, would you?" Erik crooned, running a finger along his stiches. "I know you love it just as much…well, perhaps not as much…but you indulge, just as I. Why, I thought it was a bond that we shared!" he exclaimed, cracking a wide smile at Bruce.

"Stop doing that, your stitches will rip again. God, not like you'd even care," Bruce scoffed, shoving his hands into the pockets of his slacks. "Look, I was worried about you. I know you don't want to show up tonight, but…there will be a lot of directors at the Opera House. And I know you've been…or so you say, 'working' on your music…I thought this might be the perfect opportunity – "

"I changed my mind," Erik interrupted nonchalantly, twirling the cigarette in his hand.

Bruce narrowed his eyes, running a hand through his neatly slicked hair. "If this is about the mask – "

"What the fuck do you know about my mask? You want me to show up like this?" Erik growled, shooting to sit up straight from where he reclined on the couch.

Bruce blinked at his brother, clenching his jaw tightly. "I never said…you know what? Never mind. I don't care how you show up. Just clean yourself up, my God. You look like you took part in a murder."

Erik laid back into the couch, his anger changing rapidly back into indifference. "Perhaps I did," he chuckled, pulling a dried piece of blood from a strand of his hair.

"You're sick," Bruce retorted, shaking his head again. "Look, I know you're angry. I understand, you didn't want to be disturbed. But your phone was off the hook, I tried calling last night. Otherwise I wouldn't have shown up here. But thank God I did, otherwise you'd still be passed out in your own damn blood."

"Perhaps that's what I wanted," Erik said lightly, flicking the bit of dried blood off his finger.

"Brother, please. Please get yourself together, just for tonight. Bring some of your sheet music, I promise I won't overstep…but please, just be there. And don't be late."

"If I promise, will you leave me the fuck alone?" Erik continued to twirl the cigarette in his hand, seeming to be more interested in it than his brother's presence. He was so good at being cold, so phenomenal at making another feel as if they didn't exist.

Bruce sighed, defeated. "Of course, if that's what you want. And remember," he spoke as he walked toward the double doors, pausing before pushing the left side open. "Do not be late. Father will be moody if you show up last minute."

"Yes, yes of course brother," Erik murmured as the door shut quietly, dropping the cigarette from his hand. "Whatever father wants," he said softly, surveying the wreckage around him. The shards of glass, the elegant decanters that were now in tiny pieces, and the shreds of rose patterned wallpaper he had clawed off with his fingernails.

He reached up to touch his face, not even daring to look in the mirror. There were dried rivers of tear tracks stained upon his face…and he distantly remembered a sound that had bitten into his spirit in the deep of the night.

They will rise, my love…

A woman had seen him through the ceiling, with eyes that had died long ago, just as he had…had she been simply an illusion of his drug induced seven hours? Or did she live and breathe…had she walked across the rooftop and looked down at him, not simply gazing, but seeing…truly seeing the tiny drop of tenderness in the pit of his own darkness; the bud that he kept in his own tortured void so that it would not grow?

His paranoia and demoralized state had left him horrified by the bud that remained, by the shadows that whispered its differences and doubts into the night. And even though his neck lay bare, he could still feel the pull of its rope…he could still feel its sting.

Yet a small flower still begged to bloom within him…even though he could still see the man that held the opposite end…snapping it like a whip, sniggering with wide, yellowed eyes…

There would be no more love. There would be something infinitely crueler; a God that let him live, that now willed him to survive in a world where everyone around him sipped wine and smiled, finding intricate patterns and fancies within a stranger, seeking love behind closed eyes.

But his mother had loved flowers. She would bring one for him every morning, and kiss him sweetly upon the cheek. Why had she planted a bloom within him that was still so tender, so unwilling to die?

She would whisper to him each morning, running cool fingers down the side of his face.

"Erik my love…

Open your eyes."

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A/N: To my readers and lurkers, thank you. You keep my passion alive. Any feedback, thoughts, etc. are always so very appreciated and close to my heart.