Thank you all for your wonderful reviews! I think I responded to all of them, except the anonymous ones. Thank you guys too, though!
Alright, this chapter is the first one that deals with events that actually take place in Leroux's novel. (I'm sure that you all figured out that the first two chapters were pre-book). The chapter begins as sort of in the middle of events, but things will be explained in the next story/chapter, and anyone who has read the book will know what's going on fairly quickly anyway. In my story, if you recall, Christine and Erik have not spoken for years. She has not heard him for years, butshe never forget her 'angel',and he most assuredly never forgot her.
I'm ravenous for reviews, good or bad. Please don't hesitate to tell me what you think!
Love comes to us through a mirror
In shadow'd darkness, with voice dear...
The darkness swirled behind her eyes, lit by periodic flashes of color and showers of sparks. Christine idly thanked God for those lights, because she was distantly uncomfortable with the numbing blackness that surrounded her like some dark lake. She even felt herself drifting, as if underwater, up toward a surface that she didn't understand. Somehow, she knew that she did not want to break the invisible barrier, for whatever lay outside of her protected mental cocoon was infinitely worse than existence within its safe boundaries. She fought to remain enveloped in her soft oblivion, but the pull of the surface was stronger than she. As she slipped upward, the sparkling lights behind her eyes disappeared and left her in absolute darkness. Fear clutched at her just as the pounding of her head signaled her return to consciousness. Eager to regain balance, light, and a sense of location, Christine opened her eyes.
It was as if some phantasmal nightmare had seeped into reality. Blackness pressed in on all sides, a solid, cold darkness that seemed to hold all measure of evils, lurking in their obscuring shadows. Christine had never feared the dark as much as she did now- cold, alone, lost in a shadow that she didn't even know how she had fallen into. She began to breathe deeply, warding off the first tendrils of panic that snaked toward her weakened mind.
"There must be a light somewhere" she thought, attempting to push fear away with rationale. She twitched her fingers, glad to find that she still had them- that she was not only a pair of blind eyes. Gingerly, she lifted her arms to push herself toward what felt like up, and as she did so, Christine abruptly became aware of several things simultaneously.
One, that she was laying on something very hard and cold, anda littledamp. She could feel the slight slime of algae under her hand.
Two, she felt something soft, like a rich fabric, on the back of her neck, and she realized that her head was propped upon something. She reached a hand over her curls (probably covered in grime and tangled beyond salvation, she thought) to further investigate her strange pillow, and nearly shrieked when her silence- sensitized ears caught the sound of a sharp intake of breath.
Christine scrambled to her feet as quickly as she could, considering her recent bout of unconsciousness, stumbling a bit in her frantic rush to put space between herself and the unknown person. She searched the darkness with unseeing eyes. She could only hear her own breathing now, harsh and ragged. It echoed within the new, tense silence. As the minutes crept by, Christine's eyes began to adjust to her shadowed surroundings. She could vaguely see the outline of some sort of figure, and she held her breath as it came more and more clearly into her view as the minutes wore on. She could soon see that it was not her mysterious companion (by now, Christine began to wonder if she had imagined that quick, sharp breath), but a statue of an angel. This angel only had one wing- she could see the other, fallen into a circular structure at the feet of the once great sculpture. After a few more moments (surely, she must have imagined it), she determined that the circular wall around the statue was a small, stagnant fountain- hence the dampness and the wet grime.
Christine squinted, trying one last time to find the person who had so sharply inhaled. There- on the short wall of what she had already dubbed, in her mind, the Fallen Angel Fountain, was a long, dark shape. She blinked, and took a small step forward. Confusing memories clamored for attention, but she pushed them all away, concentrating on the shadow within the shadows that now was only a few feet before her. There was a small movement, and suddenly two glowing golden points of light glittered through the dark haze. Christine gasped, surprised by eyes that were so inhumanly luminous. At the sound of her voice, the golden lights instantly disappeared, as though the man (for she felt sure that this was a man) had quickly closed his eyes.
"Who- who are you?" Christine whispered, trying without success to control the slight quaver in her voice. He sighed, and again the push of recognition and muddled memories assaulted her brain. Again, she pushed them away, too focused on her current situation to evaluate her thoughts. The man gave a low, musical whistle and, puzzled, Christine stared at his vague outline. But before she could voice her confusion, the vague sound of movement in the distance reached her ears, and soon resolved itself into the clear, comfortingly familiar clopping sound of a horse's hooves on stone paths. Then, gleaming in the darkness, stood a giant white horse. He gave a soft whinny, and she instantly gasped with recognition.
"Cesar!" she cried, carefully moving to his side. She stroked his soft nose, amazed to see the Profeta horse that had been missing for weeks. After a brief reunion with the gentle stallion, she turned again to her shadowy companion. She could still not see his eyes, and it was hard to discern his dark form from the darkness surrounding him. She warily watched as he slowly straightened into a standing position (He is very tall, she thought, with another funny pang of memory). He extended his arm, gracefully beckoning toward Cesar. Understanding, Christine urged the horse toward him. Cesar walked to the man willingly enough, and he stroked the horse's nose with a surprising gentleness. Then, without warning his eyes appeared again, piercing through the darkness. He looked directly into her eyes and extended his hand once more. The meaning was clear. Christine debated wildly for a few seconds, but logic told her that she would never be able to find her way back to the opera from a place that she had never seen before- if 'seen' was quite the right word. Quelling her doubts, she took a hesitant step forward. The man's eyes seemed to glow. Two steps. His hand still beckoned her. Three steps. Christine reached out her own hand for his, but his quickly retracted and he shut his remarkable eyes once more. He bowed his head for a moment, then looked at her again as he gestured to the short wall of the Fallen Angel Fountain. After a few seconds of blank confusion, she understood that he wished for her to use the wall to mount Cesar. Still slightly dizzy from her bought of unconsciousness, Christine shakily pulled herself onto the wall, then she inelegantly scrambled into Cesar's saddle. She fisted her hands in his white mane, taking comfort from the familiar, coarse feeling of the strands. The horse began to slowly move, and Christine could dimly make out thedark man, gliding in front of the gleaming white horse.
In this manner, Christine found herself disappearing intotwilit lands unknown, on the back of a missing horse, led by a shadow that she could not truly see. And it was not until she was many minutes into the long, mysterious journey that Christine finally examined her thoughts, and nearly fainted as she realized who her dark escort must be.