Okay mostly the same as the last chapter hence why it is earlier than I originally thought but there is still important things in the middle that I would like if you all read. You don't have too though, enough of it is similar that when you set into the next chapter you can figure it out.

WARNING:

The FADA (Fanfiction Addiction Detection Agency) has come to the conclusion that this story can be highly addicting. The Author cannot be held responsible for drops in the reader's grades due to new chapters. Large doeses of Requiem can lead to dependence. The Author is not responsible for withdrawal symptoms which can occur when author fails to update speedily enough.

The Opera was doing better. Not that the Opera had ever done poorly but still. The shows sold out more and more often. Aside from box five of course. Seeing Chrstine's desperation Raoul had bought the box for his permanent use though he never actually occupied it. The couple had by now secluded themselves in a distant land and were supposedly happy. It put a dent in my mother and my's income but there was little I could do about it so I did not waste time mourning the loss of her meager wages won only through Erik's kindness. I also did not tell Christine the damage she was doing to my family. She acted out of kindness and without the knowledge that misery and happiness work together and only with one can you have the other.

Besides, I didn't think Erik would visit the Opera as much anymore with or without the box. I knew now that he was worried for my mother and I no matter what she had done to betray him and I was impressed with how kind he really was. Because hxCe was kind, I could tell, he was just confused and lost most of the time.

I had little time for thinking about such things at the moment though, I, along with the other ballerinas, was in the small changing room we were allotted by those who built the Opera. Everyone was crowding around the few mirrors we had and busy with their own agenda. Little Jammes and I were arranged in the corner, each of us lacing the other up. My perfect slippers care of Erik were on and lacing up my legs, the perfect fabric felt like water against my legs if it felt like anything at all. Jammes had her own slippers slung around her neck but her skirt was on where I only had the small tights we wore under such flowing skirts. The skirt I was meant to wear was on the floor beside me. Currently Jammes was tying the corest I wore over a white kerchief shirt. Mine was more intricate than hers as she was just a background dancer, it was a deep blue color with black designs.

It was tight of course but it wasn't as though I would be unable to breathe and I supposed that with it on even Mistress Ana could not say I was hunching over while I danced. As Jammes tightened the laces she gushed about how pretty I was and I could only look at her with a silly smile on my face and thank her.

We gathered just off stage, waiting for the ballet which was fast approaching and I peered around shoulders and past a sea of necks and a forest of the other ballerinas. I watched the Opera, loving the story every time I watched it unfold before me.

Dismissingly Tristan sighed and began to speak, almost daring Carlotta/Isolde. "If Morold meant so much to you, then take up again the sword and guide it carefully and firmly so that you don't let it drop!" He wrenched his sword free of the scabbard and thrust it at her almost as though it were a whole ceremony of its own. A knight offering his Queen his sword, he would fall on it for her. But their charade was missing something. Tristan would sit still and he would die with peace. Isolde had to kill him though. He would not fall on his sword he was too proud. Should she want him dead, she had to kill him herself.

Carlotta/Isolde looked at the sword and then tossed her head, continuing their dance of words in her own way. "How poorly I would be providing for your master; what would King Marke say if I were to slay his best vassal, the one who secured for him his crown and kingdom, the most loyal of all his men? Does what he owes you seem so insignificant to you, you who bring the Irishwoman to him as his bride?" She pressed on and Tristan stood still, taking it in and trying to seem uneffected. "Don't you think he would reproach me if I killed the wooer, the one who so faithfully delivers to him

the collateral guaranteeing the security of the truce? Keep your sword! When I wielded it once before, as revenge writhed within my breast, as your measuring gaze stole my image for itself, whether I would do as a bride for Lord Marke: The sword I then let it sink. Now let us drink the draught of conciliation." Of course the audience and Isolde thought that it was a poison that would kill Tristan.

I watched with the audience breathlessly. We watched as time passed and still they stood challenging the other. Finally she brought the cup to him holding it out. I knew the back of the play. I knew that in that cup there was nothing at all and I knew the story of these two soon-to-be lovers and that it wasn't a poison at all. But still when Isolde began to speak I held my breath and wondered if this time Tristan would agree. If this time Isolde would change her mind.

"You hear the shouts?" Isolde/Carlotta asked as the stagehands in the rafters shouted like lines of the crew in the distance, making it sound as though it were coming from elsewhere on a ship rather than just backstage. "We have reached the destination. In a short while we shall stand (with faint scorn) before King Marke. As you escort me, would you not think it nice that you should be able to say to him something like this: "My Lord and uncle, have a look at her: a more good-natured woman you'll never find. Her betrothed I once killed, I sent her home his head; The wound that

his weapon made in me, why, she kindly healed it. My life was in her hands: she spared it,

the lovely girl, and her country's humiliation and shame, she threw that into the bargain, too,

to become your partner in marriage. As sweet thanks for such generous gifts I was offered a draught of conciliation, which she graciously prepared for me to expiate all guilt."

Soon it was revealed that the meddelsome maid had switched the poison to be a love potion. Isolde woke from the spell as Marke drew near and she realized that she was bound at the heart to Tristian and suddenly she wanted death for herself all the more. She fainted away and Tristain spoke. "O rapture rich in malice! O bliss inspired by guile!"

The ballet between Sorelli and her leading man came then, the two twisting and twining in a dance of love between Tristan and Isolde. After that Brangaene came in, mourning what she had done with a solo dance of her own. Tristan and Isolde stood to the side, shrowded in darkness and a hint of light, holding tighly as though it was only the strenght of the other that held them up. In the background the girls danced and before the audience I threw my soul into the dance.

Even though this was not the first performance I felt giddy and light. For tonight I was only second to La Sorille and nothing could bring me down out of heaven with that fact in my head. There was no compaire to the feeling of the lights focusing on one so plain as me and the knowledge that people were seeing me dance, not a line of ballerinas.

On these nights I was something special.

After dancing I did not bother going to the Dancer's Lounge, instead I sneaked away and towards the mirrored room, looking for Erik though I could not have told you why.

On my way there I took pause, hearing little Jammes's voice through the thin wall between her and I.

"It is not fair Maman! I dance better than she does, perfect, exactly as Mistress Ana says!" Jammes shouted. I don't know what compelled me to stop but I did, I moved closer even. I had to agree with her though, she danced much better than Sorille. She had no passion though. When she danced she danced like a little character in a music box, following a set path with perfection, it was boring. She was not anything more than a doll prancing across the stage following directions.

You needed passion to dance. You had to be the character. Feel what your character felt. It was my downfall, I felt too much and I tried to change things. That was why I always envied Jammes, I wanted part of that talent, that ability to remember such perfect and complex manuvers just as I was supposed to do. If I could keep the dancing the same and still express my emotion maybe one day, despite that I was much too plain and much too short I could become a Prima Ballerina.

"Mon Petite she cannot be perfect all the time. One day everyone will realize that she's nothing special, a step above a streetrat in fact, and you will get the attention you deserve." I was surprised at that but I supposed a mother would do that, give her child too much credit. Jammes had talent and she could be better than Sorille if she had passion but that didn't mean that Sorille was nothing at all, she was the most skilled dancer I had ever seen to be sure. In addition Sorille was well-to-do. I had never been there but I was certain that the rent she paid on her apartment in a month could feed my mother and I for a year.

"Even though she thinks all the other girls are against her she still dances. I put glass in her shoes and she only tries harder!" Jammes broke off to sob for a moment and I felt all the air driven from my lungs as though I had just fallen several stories. "So I slash up her only pair of shoes, I thought that would stop her Maman! Not even her precious Baron could get her a new pair of slippers over-night! But Maman! She got a new pair! Better than mine even!' Jammes was sobbing theatrically as she shouted at her mother and I was leaning heavily on the wall, breathing erratically and trying to find my footing as my world crashed down around me.

"We can get you new slippers cherie." Her mother's soft voice rippled through the rushing sound that was filling my whole being. As deaf as I felt I was going I still jumped when I heard the little ballerina scream angrily.

"I don't want new slippers! I want to dance in Megan Giry's place and I want her to never dance again! Its not fair that she pretends to be my friend only to take what should have been my position in the Opera!"

I could listen to no more after that and stumbled away from my perch against the wall. Jammes was my best friend. There was no way that she would do those terrible things to me and so I could not grasp what I had just heard. Jammes had been more upset about my slippers being slashed, Jammes had worried over my foot and warned me that it was Sorille had a vendette against me, driving the other rats to do such a thing to me.

But you never told Jammes about the glass.

She must have heard the other girls gossiping. I assured myself as I walked like a man in a dream to the rock I knew would move aside, would allow me into Erik's land of shadows.

That's foolish and you know it Megan. You think you're such an adult then understand that she hates you. She slashed your slippers.

No, she was more upset than I. She was crying.

You yourself admitted she was often theatrical about being upset, it is how she gets attention.

She is a better dancer than I.

Then why do you have a part better than hers?

I could take the voices of reason no longer and as I dropped into the room below the rock I covered my ears and shouted at myself to stop. Jammes would do no such thing to me and I knew it! As though my mind were still disagreeing with my my foot throbbed gently. I didn't realize until I looked up and caught the eyes of my reflection that I was crying. My face was red and tears were streaming quietly down my face in twin trails. "She wouldn't." I assured myself aloud, as though that would make it more real.

I didn't want to show Erik myself when I looked like this but as I turned around to find the tree and climb out and rush home I realized I wasn't in the mirrored room any longer. I was in a dark jungle of a forest. I had never seen a jungle before but I had heard the word and in seeing this place I was now in I knew what it was. I shook my head and reminded myself that it was just an illusion and I rushed to the only real tree in the room, only to slam into a pane of glass. I fell backwards and landed hard against the ground, yelping as pain shot through my body.

Now there were two horrible truths in my life that I did not wish to face. I was lost in the illusion of the torture chamberthis was slightly more difficult to ignore as I knew there was no way I could be in such a massive forestand the other that Jammes was not the friend she had pretended to be for so long. For an indeterminate amount of time I sat huddled against the corner made by two mirrors pressing against eachother, trying to do anything I could to assure myself that I was in a room, not and endless forest.

When I could cry no more I started to look around getting lost in the illusion once more. Until my eyes came to rest upon the smear of blood on the mirror. That was right. A mirror. Glass. Not a forest. I touched my forehead and found the cold blood drying already. That was the secret! I could mark the mirrors, keeping my mind assured that that was all they were, and then I could find the real tree when my mind was free.

If I could find the real tree I could find my way out of here easily.

At least one of my problems had been solved and this encouraged me, filled me with a sort of strenght of the spirit. I pressed my hand to my bleeding forehead and then slammed my hand against a patch of sky. It did not go through but stopped and the force reverberated through my arm. Mirror! Now there was a smudge of blood there, I moved to the next and mimicked the action. Soon enough I had marked all the mirrors and I moved along the floor, my hands finally finding the tree that I could circle. This was the real tree. For a moment I stood there, my hands pressed to the "trunk" and smiled like a madwoman. I could see myself in the mirrors. My hair was tangled from the fit I had thrown and it had fallen partially out of the bun it had been in. My forehead was caked with dried blood and a small mark was still bleeding lightly. My eyes were shimmering with tears still and I was grinning. I looked mad.

Without thinking I climbed the tree and pressed the button that movied the rock and climbed out into the real world once more. For several moments I huddled by the rock and while my legs would not work my mind was running wild. I was a simple girl and I knew it, but I had gotten used to that long ago and I knew how to approach serious issues. First I decided to tackle a realization which had struck me as I scrambled free of that horrible illusion. Erik was not a monster but his mind was a twisted place to be, no sane man could have created that room. I paused and thought that no, a sane but brilliant man could have made that. What made me worry was that people had been in that room, people had died in that room. I had survived only because Erik had explained to me how it worked when I expressed confusion.

He seemedI had come to realize in the few weeks we had been talkingto take it as an insult when people could not understand his genius. When I remembered that the two thoughts clicked together into a much more pressing question. What had happened to the innocent genius that Erik had been? What had happened to twist his mind so? Why did he so often act the part of a monster and why did he haunt this Opera?

Such a hard question was impossible for me to answer so instead of trying I moved on to other issues, if I could lessen the questions rushing around in my head maybe I could ask Erik what had happened to him. Ask Erik why he would ever want to put any human through such a terrible torture.

I started my next round of questions for myself with what I knew for sure.

Jammes hated me. She had been the one to play such terrible tricks on me and she had been the one who destroyed my slippers. I had no real questions other than ones of why she would hate me so but I did wonder why she acted the part of my friend if she hated me so.

I was reminded of when I called into question just who my mother was after that night so long ago. The feeling of being betrayed was there just the same and that feeling like there were no longer any people around me that I could trust.

Even my trust in Christine had been called into question.

It was startling when I realized that the only person I did trust at all was Erik. He was a static object in my mind and he would not betray me simply becaused he was waiting until I betrayed him first so that he knew just how much to destroy my life. The balance of that forced a kind of trust and as I began to drown in all these tears and all this confusion I clung to that poor reason for trust like it could save me. Because, with good reason or no I still trusted him and I needed to trust someone. So I was sure that just that trust was all I needed and that that trust could save my life.

Maybe it could. All the same I clung to it and tried to figure myself out in this whole sea of confusion. Was I a child? I was getting married so I would think I was a woman.

Did I want to be married? It would make my life easier and I had no reason to say no.

If I had no reason to say no, why did it hurt so when I thought of saying yes?

And if I was so adult why did nothing make sense anymore?

Erik watched the Opera unfold before him. It was the standard tale and there were plenty of other Operas he could name which were far more dramatic and far more moving. In fact he didn't even like Wagner's work all that much. Not because the composer was unskilled but more because they would always, inevitably, play the Opera in the French adaptation. When you translated some Operas it was fine, but to tear Wagner's work out of its mother-tongue you lost something.

Not even that bothered him tonight. Tonight all he could see was that Meg was unnaturally like Isolde. She was strong and stubborn and on her own in the world. Sure Megan's mother was still alive but in betraying him she had lost what little strength she had in her daughter's eyes. Megan was now supporting her. The child had become the mother to her mother. He had heard it once before. He had spent time in Europe where they clung to tales of Arthur and Uther like children cling to their mothers. There it had been much different but still a tale of lovers seperated by more than their warring houses or social classes.

There had been a line in the story he had heard, when Isolde's mother first began to sink into insanity. Albeit Madam Giry was far from insane, the sorrowed words wrenched from Isolde's heart seemed to fit just the way he thought of Meg as she was now. Supporting the mother who had always been to strong for help. "Is this my burden, written in the stars? I must be mother to my mother, even though that makes me a motherless child?"

As he thought how clever he was to make that connection he never realized how similar that left he and Megan.

He never liked to think of his childhood but if he had maybe the connections of these two and their lives to a Wagner Opera would have been made more apparent and maybe the tragic ending that Isolde and Tristan suffered would not be the same ending that Erik and Megan suffered.

Maybe it would be Megan to make the connection. For if the shadows of what may be are not altered they will become the facts of what passed yesterday.

Darth Gilthoron: I have in fact read your story, parts of it at least, being without internet I only got up to I think chapter three or four. Anyway ducks I'll stop apologizing just leave my poor ears alone. I need them to listen to music for insperation. I can't write these chapters without listening to the soundtrack I've developed for this story. I'm glad you don't feel like you're wasting time on me, and I'm going to go back and change the two you pointed out to me. Like I said before I muddle through with what I have but what makes me great is people like you who help me overcome the odd translations that babblefish and google offer up for the public.

Its amazing that I keep mentioning things you're putting into your story, yeah Leroux used it and it was a mistake on his part but Othello (Otello does seem odd) is so perfect for the characters I can understand. I may just forgo everything and stick some Carmen moments in here as well but yes I can't wait to see Othello show up in your story. I couldn't find a german script of Tristand but I managed a translated version, I stuck in a little bit but I might put a few songs in later, I dunno I get worried using lyrics in my stories for much more than a quote or two. We'll have to see how that turns out.

Your comment on my story being dark. I think I do in fact need to hug you. I usually write such disgustingly sappy things that I was almost scared to try a Phantom Phic (heh I love how that sounds) because I would think it needed to be dark and gothic, I wasn't sure I could pull it off so seriously, massive amount of enjoyment that I accomplished that feel. I meant to start with this but I forgot: oh well. As you can tell you DID in fact inspire the title of this chapter, though I'm not sure if it fits, I hate naming chapters, I always feel like I botch it up something fierce. Thanks again!

Herbie: Think nothing of it, my computer actually broke. This chapter would not be here if not for a very nice man named Mike who works at a company called Geeksquad and was nice enough to A) Do hardware repairs when he's not supposed to and B) not charge me for the repairs. So yes, please don't catch something like Leporsy just for me! Then you'd never be able to review again and your comments do mean so much to me. Sorry to announce the hiatus then but at least it gives you time to get that computer fixed!

Rio/Javert's Suicide: So nice to hear from you again! As to calling our dear phantom Mr. Nunustinerkins as amazing as a name as it is I do think he just might kill you for it. Hmm I almost wish it would be in character for anyone in my story to call him that.

Meir Brin: I always love to hear when I've improved on my mechanics.

Alexis: The best! Aww I wish I could hug you in real life! Hearing that makes me so happy. I've read several M/E's on this site but I couldn't find many, still there were ones I thought much better than mine so thank you for such a wonderfully spectacular compliment. It brightened my day!

Kate Norris, Aleema-darkrose1, almost-lost-hope6, Dreamspeaker-jt, Quixotic Feline: Thank you all so much, all of your reviews keep me going.