2
A Fate Worse Than Death
5 hours earlier...
With her striking black hair done up in a tight brioche, Amy Sauveur(AI-me, SAH-vee-yur) practiced through the complicated motions of the dance, twisting and turning in every which way to suitably perfect it. Alone in one of the many empty rooms of the Opera House, the young girl could lose herself in the tune resounding in her head and let her feet guide her through a world of bliss, euphoria, and enchanted majesty. A place where only she could go. A world without pain and misery, just music and movement.
Time didn't matter in this world. Because of this mindset, Amy jolted from her practice when a soft voice called her from that land of fantasy. "Amy...it's time to go on stage now," Little Jammes said from her position at the doorframe, her lithe body leaning lightly against the wood.
Stumbling slightly as she tried to come to a halt, the girl with the jet-black hair glanced over at the old grandfather clock in the corner. She had been in that room for two hours! Sighing, Amy turned to Jammes again, her piercing green eyes seeming to gaze at the ballerina's very soul, making the girl shiver.
This new girl was unlike anyone Jammes had ever met before. She was just as skilled as all the other girls in dancing, that was easy enough to discern, but she acted much more differently. This girl didn't care to hear or spread gossip, a favorite pastime amongst the corps de ballet, and she mostly kept to herself, writing in her notebook for most of her free time and only joining in on conversation when absolutely necessary.
And those eyes! What frightful eyes to gaze upon. The color was beautiful, a very bright green, but the darkness of her hair and the paleness of her skin brought extra accent upon those eyes. Her intimidating gazes and intense glares didn't help any.
She had come here only a few weeks ago and had already been marked as 'outsider' by Jammes' friends. Little Jammes herself had tried to befriend this girl, but Amy seemed to want to be secluded, to be left alone to write in her notebook.
It was a strange thing, indeed, for a woman to enjoy writing over gossiping. And, in these days, a strange person was considered untouchable, unreachable, and was to be tossed off to the side like any other loner. No one paid attention to her, Jammes mused sadly. Nor did Amy seem to care. But, surely it was a lonely life, not having anyone in the world to talk to!
Upon her arrival, Amy had been bombarded with questions, mostly by the curious younger girls and the suspicious Prima Ballerina, Sorelli. Amy didn't hold back anything about her life. She didn't seem to really care.
Jammes had found out that Amy was an orphan, her parents had died of old age and her older siblings had forced her to seek out a job to help maintain income. No one would take her, though. Until one night she had been offered a very large amount of money to do a very vulgar job: sell her body to a man for that night.
The girls who had, by that time, gathered around her as she related this story with an air of flippancy, gesturing with her hands wildly at appropriate times, had gasped. This thought made the young girl smile. She may be quite the recluse, but when she did decide to join the world of the living, she jumped in quite eagerly.
Eyes were wide in disbelief as she related the price the man had offered: 60,000 francs. Surely no whore was worth that much, Jammes had thought, but with a second glance at Amy she had began to believe otherwise.
The girl was tall, the tallest person in the ballet, reaching a massive five feet and eight inches. A lot of it was leg height, though. She should have been clumsy, but was far from it, probably the result of her intensive training in dance throughout her childhood. Hair black as night and straight as the green meadow grass reached to about the middle of her back, not too long and not too short. Her skin was very pale, almost unnaturally so, but she didn't look sickly and was rather radiant with a strange glow of...what was it?...contempt?
Yes, contempt would explain her very well. But, all-in-all, she was quite the striking beauty.
She had refused the man's offer for her body, telling him she was no whore, and walked off. Upon returning home she retold her story to her siblings and, angered at her stupid naivety, they had kicked her out.
After that she went to the Opera House seeking a job, and ended up in the ballet.
She was an asset, Jammes knew.
Her skills were great and her mind and body were pure.
An asset.
"Ready?" Amy spoke quietly, touching Jammes on the shoulder lightly to wake her from her reverie.
The little ballerina nodded dumbly and walked down towards the stage, Amy in her wake, gliding like a shadow directly behind her guide.
Upon arriving on stage, everyone began their warm-ups, then started the dance routine an hour or so later. Nervous at first, Amy had held back.
'Just let go,' she told herself while spinning in a perfect pirouette, her feet carrying her automatically through the steps. 'Let go and leave this place. Just let your mind wander, your body will not follow. Trust it.' And she had done this, trusting herself and her skills, and had floated off once again into her dream world.
The music played loudly, though not unbearably so, in her head and her heart, adding to the emotion she displayed in her dance.
But something broke through her concentration and held her heart in an icy grip. She felt like she were being watched, an unfamiliar darkness beginning to envelope her perfect world.
'No, no, no! This is not supposed to happen!' she thought as she felt herself stumble slightly near the end of the song. Whether her fears were tangible or figments of her imagination, she did not care. What did matter, however, was the fact that she had been afraid.
It would ruin her chances of staying in the corps de ballet if she hesitated, and she could not mess this up. Amy had no where else to go, this was her last chance.
When the song ended and everyone was dismissed to the dormitories, Amy walked around the halls of the Opera a little longer, still trying to get acquainted with the maze-like passageways, before retuning to her room.
When she opened the door the first thing she heard came from Sorelli who, although she had her own private room, often enjoyed telling her tall, superstitious tales to the younger members of the ballet.
"...amber eyes were as cold as ice and as hot as flame when he looked upon me."
Amy rolled her eyes and dropped onto her bed with aloud thump, leaning against the wall to glance over at the small congregation gathered around the over exaggerating Prima Ballerina.
"'You dare enter the Phantom's lair' he growled, his death's head mask coming to life before my very eyes. I feared for my very life in those moments when he stood before me, his massively tall body towering over me by at least three feet! I swear, he's a giant! Not only a ghost and a skeleton, but a giant too! 'No, no, I just got lost, was all,' I had said calmly, though my heart beat twice as fast in my chest.
"'Foolish girl,' he yelled, long skeletal fingers coming out to ensnare me. 'No one sees the Phantom and lives to tell the tale!' When those cold, bony fingers grazed my arm I gave a yelp of surprise and ran off in the opposite direction. I could hear his ghostly footsteps ringing unnaturally loud behind me, and when I glanced behind I saw his burning deaths head floating in mid-air. I screamed and ran faster, and as soon as I got into the light of the hallway, looked back again to find him gone!"
The girls around her gasped in unison.
"I tell you, beware of him, the Phantom of the Opera! He's a monster, a murderer! He'll kill you, and me, too, if I'm not careful!"
Once again Amy rolled her eyes. "Don't believe in such nonsense," she spoke, catching the attention of everyone in the room with her bold words. Sorelli gave her an icy glare, dark blue eyes slitting dangerously.
"You have never seen him. And if you say such things, he will come and kill you. Or..."
A wicked smile broke out across the ballerina's face as she continued to glare down Amy. Tossing her dark hair over her shoulder, Amy stared back with equally cold green eyes, though her gaze was much more piercing.
"Or what?" interrupted an overly curious little girl by the name of Celine.
"Or," Sorelli continued, still looking at Amy. "You will be subject to a fate far worse than death."
Gasps sounded around the room and terrified faces glanced at one another as if to confirm what they heard was true.
The Prima Ballerina jumped up swiftly and stalked over towards Amy, her gate slow and menacing - the gate of a predator cornering it's prey.
"So many young girls from the corps de ballet have gone missing. Why? Previous managers have blamed it on accident, coincidence, anything but the truth."
She reached Amy's little cot and sat down at the end of it, the other girls coming to rest on the floor around her.
"The truth is: The Opera Ghost. What could be worse than death, you ask? I'll tell you! The Phantom may be a ghost, but he can have a man's desires when he so pleases. And when this happens, he steals away one of the many available girls to appease his appetite. For once, though, it is not an appetite for blood. He thirsts for a woman's pleasures, drinks it up, then throws away the cup.
"So, what is worse than death?" At this the girl looked pointedly at Amy, grinned maliciously. "Becoming the Phantom's whore!"
More resounding gasps echoed through the room as Sorelli and Amy held each other's eyes for longer than either intended. It was a challenging stare, one neither planned on backing out of.
Finally Amy smiled. "How silly," she said in a friendly manner. Too friendly.
"Only a child, a baby, would believe in such tall tales. Why, what's next? The boogieman?"
Laughing it off, the girl buried herself under the covers of her cot and yawned loudly. "Goodnight!" she said, then turned her back on the lot of them.