Disclaimer: Once again, all of these wonderful characters do not belong to me... Unfortunately.
Author's Note: Yet another non-songfic. Not E/C either. Why read it you ask? Because it boasts major Erik angst. Set on a supposed to be happy day, a bitter Erik reflects and thinks. Quite short, but I really do like this one... He hasn't met Christine yet and he is around the age of 18 or 20.
And Many More
I despise this wretched day.
Angered and frustrated, I slammed my fingers onto random black and white ivory keys of the pipe organ, creating an awful dissaray of disjointed chords and emitting a loud agonized wail of the intrument. Trying to vent my frustration though unable to bear the horrid sound of the of the notes together and hating to torture the organ, I wrenched my hands away, killing the pained screech and whirling violently around on the swiveling bench, fuming.
It isn't fair. It just isn't fair.
Raising myself roughly and quickly, I kicked the wooden seat backward, the stiff legs scraping fiercely across the floor, echoing and reverberating around the high, rocky ceiling,I seized my tentative sheets of music and flung them bitterly away. The helpless parchment fluttered away having been thrown with such force, sliding gracefully to the stone ground despite such a rough rejection.
I began to stride purposefully back and forth across the room, pacing furiously, fists clenched, teeth gritted, and eyebrows furrowed, my emerald eyes flashing.
Why does this day have to exist? Why must it live while it kills me with the awful knowledge that it brings? For it is the truth. Plain, simple, and painful. Truth. Stating what is real. Stating what I don't want to see. Contradicting what I have made real for myself. Truth. As painful as can be alie, but with a lie, it is blissful up until the truth; so sometimes lies serve us better and are kinder than is truth.
This day only reinforces the honesty of what I know. It only resurfaces the thoughts of what I am, what I've come to be, what I'll always be, and what I've always been. This day, rejoiced for all else who celebrates it, only in the reverse for me. Curse the day of my birth...
... "Today is your Birthday, Erik," said my mother coldly, her blank, emotionless stare fixed ahead, averting her gaze from me.
I fidgeted nervously in my seat across from her at the table. Her voice, usually clouded by anger or frustration, was surprisingly calm and it disconcerted me slightly. Afraid to disturb her placid mood, I chose to remain silent, intertwining my pale fingers uncomfortably.
"You don't know what that is, do you?" she asked, still in her cool, almost distracted tone.
I shook my head slowly, for fear of upsetting my mask perhced upon my face, knowing very well that if anything, the sight of my entire face would flare her temper, choosing to still not use my voice.
"Answer me, boy," she snapped, showing a breach in her collected demeanor, her restrained persona obviously forced.
Realizing she wouldn't have been able to see my negative response as her eyes were directed away from me, I mumbled a tentative, "No," glancing up curiously.
"A Birthday, Erik," she began, regaining the nonchalant look and tone she'd adopted earlier, "is the day you were born. People celebrate it and receive gifts and such in celebration," all told in a flat manner.
Nevertheless, my interest was sparked and I let my hopes up again. Sitting up straighter and looking at my mother, hoping to possibly ctach her gaze, I considered the thought that she perhaps had decided to love me at last.
"Today is my Birthday?" I inquired, the word feeling bizarre rolling off my tongue, the syllables rusty and unused. "Are... we going to celebrate it? Am I... to get presents?" My excitement perking up, a smile began to form on my lips.
"No, Erik," she affirmed, her simple sentence extinguishing my candle of brief happiness. A cold breeze blowing across my hopeful, foolish heart.
My face fell swiftly and tears began to well in my eyes, the salty orbs pricking teasingly at the base of my iris', "W-Why not?" I questionned, dissapointed and heartbroken, my voice wavering under the painful truth that for a moment, I thought that she'd perhaps loved me...
Her face sealed up, her features stony and harsh. Her eyebrows furrowed and her mouth was set into a grom line.
"Because I don't care, Erik."
Her words forever etched in my memory echoed teasingly in my head, repeating that sentence that chipped away at my heart but that I knew to be true.
Nobody cared. Not a soul on the entire face of this earth knew of my existence, let alone felt anything toward me. I was alone. Completely alone in every sense of the damned word. Why should they care? They had no reason to spare any affection on my part. What had I done to deserve anyone's love? For I have been born unworthy of all who are blessed with the privilege of the sun's warmth welcoming their entire face. I have been deemed too lowly a creature to dwell amongst those who know not the crushing pain of eternal solitude and who never shall have to. I am different.
I was a mistake, am an imperfection, will always be a flaw.
The day I was born is the day I wish I had never come to be. To me, it was just another day that meant another year gone. Another year alone. Another year that brought me closer to death. Another year unloved...
My rage metamorphose into pain, my intrinsic turmoil switching my mood at it's own pace, uncaring. My anger transformed into tears, hot, burning tears of hate and and rejection, of longing and jealousy... every human emotion to have ever existed had been experienced and tested upon my heart...
... All those except love.
Falling to my knees, I surrendered to a momentary weakness, my resolve dissolving, my pride crumbling...
Was it so crazy a thought that I wanted someone to care?
Throughout the nights beneath the Opera House, melodies of lush, grand scale; tunes of heart-wrenching, poingant sound; or songs of agonized, tortured notes usually floated up throughout the building. Snaking their way through walls, permeating through the musty air, echoing across the corridors, and sometimes drifting to the stage and through the audience, barely more than a whisper. Music from a certain subterranian abode by an unknown lake somehow broke free from it's prison and roamed about the expectant halls and rooms of the world above.
But tonight, a different song was carried throughout the grand edifice. This one not carried via an instrument but through means of an angelic voice, weighed an drenched down by that torment that kept the ethereal yet tainted being to this world.
The Angel sang... but it could be no angel; for Angels knew not of sadness...
"Happy Birthday to me... Happy Birthday to me... Happy Birthday, dear Erik... Happy Birthday to me..."
But the lyrics were lost to darkness, for not a soul heard, not cared.
A/N: Hope you liked. I really do feel for him.. I love his character... I just love Erik. Poor guy... Please do review! They mean ever so much to me! Constructive criticism, anything! Would love to hear from you!