A/N: Thank you Thank you Thank you to those you have continued on! I love you all!

Chapter Five

As long as I live, I will never forget what I saw that day. Gruesome, gaping wounds, severed limbs, skin that had been burned to charcoal, and the screams. I knew that I would never have a night that I did not hear those screams. I had no idea a person could bleed so much and still live. I was repulsed and frustrated. I tried desperately to help the men that they brought, but every time I looked at one of them, a fury burned in my soul and I wanted nothing more than the pleasure of watching them die. It didn't matter what they looked like, or how badly they were injured, I saw each one in my mind killing Erik.

I felt a hatred the likes of which I had never felt before. It consumed me and changed me into a person I did not know. I was no longer an innocent, young, naive chorus girl. I was a furious woman who wanted revenge for what they had done to me and the ones I loved.

I wasn't sure how I managed it, but I made it through the first day with only one man dying while I stood over and watched. Patrice gave me the easy ones to attend to; most having just minor burns or deep cuts. I bandaged them the best I could. Isabella showed me the way to wrap the injuries to staunch the blood flow the best. I learned more in that first day then I had in all my years in school.

The one unfortunate soul that did die under my watch had already lost a lot of blood before he came. He didn't have a chance, but I didn't even try. He was young, maybe just a few years older than myself. I didn't stop to think about what lie had made him think that what he was doing was right. I didn't want to know that he was someone's son. I didn't care about the mother or wife that would wait forever for the soldier that would never come home. I stood over him with nothing but abject hatred, feeling a strange sense of twisted happiness when he began to make odd gurgling sounds in the back of his throat, like he had swallowed water.

A little bit of my human nature that hated to see things dying had me turning and walking away just before the convulsions started.

I went about with the rest of the injured, doing for them what I could, trying not to think. If I kept my mind busy elsewhere, hopefully my hands would know what to do on their own, but how was I supposed to justify saving a life that was trying to kill my own neighbors? Someone who would kill me if I had been found on the street?

When I was sure that the young soldier was dead, I did as I had been instructed and found the two soldiers in charge of removing the dead bodies and informed them. For a moment I was worried that I would be in trouble that I had let one die, but they just seemed to sigh and shuffle over to remove their comrade. I didn't know what they did with the dead bodies. I didn't want to know. I imagined they would have to make a mass grave, but where they could do that in a city like Paris I had no idea.

At the end of the day, I climbed the stairs with just enough energy to not fall backwards into Marie. I was asleep before my head touched the thin, ragged pillow. My dreams were filled of haunting images and sounds. I dreamed that I was standing over the young soldier again and watching him die, only to realize too late that it was Erik. More than once I awoke that night trying to stifle a scream of terror.

After the forth time of such dreams, I could not fall back asleep. I sat on the floor with my back to the wall and my knees pulled up tight to my chest and listened to the peaceful rhythm of the three other women's breathing. Patrice was the first to wake a short while later.

"Are you allright, child?" she asked, concern etched on her face. I couldn't help but notice how she spoke almost like Madame Giry. She called me child, but then again, I was.

"I couldn't sleep," I told her quietly.

She nodded her head sadly.

"Will the dreams ever go away?" I asked

Patrice sighed. "Not completely, no," she said honestly, "They will always be with you, but they won't be as bad as time goes on."

There was a nice silence that fell as Patrice let me think about her words before she spoke again.

"You did very well for your first day. The last girl they brought in here didn't do so well. She was serving as a maid in a wealthy family's home. They were taken in the middle of the night and the entire family was killed in the streets. The very day she arrived here, they brought in a man who had been shot. He would have lived, but when she recognized him as the man that had killed the family, she . . . she took one of our surgical knives and . . ."

I held up my hand to stop her. She didn't continue; she didn't need to. I got the idea perfectly clear.

"Elyssa, I tell you that because there will be times that you want to kill the very men that you are supposed to save. You have to be stronger than that. You can't look at them as the enemy." I thought about the soldier. Had he been so far beyond repair that I couldn't have saved him? I would never know because I had never tried.

"Love your enemies and pray for them," I quoted in a whisper, remembering a Sunday school teaching of so many years ago.

"Well, I don't know about loving them, or praying for their souls," Patrice said with a fleeting smile that too quickly turned serious. "But you must be strong. You can't be afraid. Can you do that?"

I was suddenly transported to another time as those words replayed in my head, but it was a different person to say them . . .

"Christine, listen to me. I won't let anything happen to you. I promise. I would die before I let them touch you. You must not be scared; I need you to be strong. Can you do that Christine?"

I nodded my head slowly and swallowed over the lump that had risen in my throat. I would be strong, but not for me. I would be strong because of Erik.

I was lost deep in my thoughts and did not even notice the door to our room opening and an elderly woman enter with a tray.

"Come, Elyssa," Patrice's gentle words urged me back to reality. I looked up and saw the lady leaving and Patrice setting the bowls gently on the ground. "You should eat, you didn't have anything yesterday."

At the mention of food, my stomach growled angrily, but I shook my head. I had promised to be strong, but that didn't mean that I didn't welcome death. With Erik dead, there seemed to be no point to my existence anymore.

Marie and Isabella were starting to wake up and Patrice came to my side and laid a motherly hand on my arm.

"You have to eat."

"I'm not hungry," I lied.

"Please, Elyssa, eat it for me?"

I shook my head, my stubborn streak showing through.

She was silent for a moment as the other girls rose and began to eat their breakfast.

"Then," she said hesitantly, "would you eat it for your Erik?"

My heart ached longingly at the mention of his name and I fought the tears that sprang to my eyes.

"That's not fair," I said, my head swimming with what she had said.

"If it gets you to eat, I won't apologize. Starving yourself will help no one. Do you really think your finance intended to give his life to protect you, only to have to whittle away to nothing and die? You must be strong."

Isabella handed my bowl to Patrice who handed it in turn to me. I took it with trembling hands and looked to Patrice who nodded her head in encouragement.

Slowly, I lifted the spoon to my lips. The look of revulsion on my face must have been amusing because Isabella and Marie were giggling silently.

"Do not worry," Isabella said with a smile, "You will come to love it."

I managed to eat a grand total of three spoonfuls before I had had enough.

"Well, at least you've had some," Patrice said warmly. "We best be going. The night nurses will be needing their time to rest."

"The night nurses?" I echoed, trying to swallow away the taste in my mouth. "Are they the two women I saw yesterday?"

"Yes," Patrice said sadly. "There used to be three; Ingrid was sent away the day before you arrived."

"Look on the bright side," said Isabella "Today will not be as busy as yesterday. It's mostly just re-bandaging and dressing wounds."

I tried to be encouraged by Isabella's words, but they brought little comfort.

We all made our way silently down the stairs into the huge room. Looking down on it, I saw that where there had been only a quarter of the cots filled before, they were now almost all full. I had not noticed the day before, I suppose because we stayed so busy.

We put on our aprons and washed our hands before heading off to relieve the night nurses.

So was our routine everyday for the following weeks. I did my job without much to say. I saw men die and men that should not have lived walk out of the doors. I became detached and gratefully allowed the numbness to seep through me. I was a heaven sent relief from the pain. I didn't care if they lived or died, my goal was to get to the end of the day. I never thought I would feel anything again. I didn't want to feel again. How could I feel anything positive about the soldiers? I took care of them, but I did not care for them.

Once again I was proved wrong.

I was going about my normal routine when they brought them in. There had been an explosion. At least that was what I was told. We were quite a ways away from the actual fighting. I suppose that was a blessing. I had no idea how far away we were from the Opera House, or even if we were still in Paris, I was unconscious for the trip and honestly didn't care.

Most of the men were dead by the time we rushed to their aid. There were three men out of the twelve they brought that we were able to help. Marie, Isabella and I each took one while Patrice attempted to revive the others with no success.

I had steadily become better acquainted with more serious injuries and though I had no formal training, I became able to help with more than just the burn victims and the mildly injured. Patrice had said one time to Isabella when she thought I was sleeping that my depression made my brain shut down and run on learned instincts. It was a horrible way to live, but for the present situation she confessed to her daughter that she was envious of my ability to shut down.

I didn't think of it as depression, my understanding on depression what that you felt sad all the time, but I didn't feel anything. My brain no longer registered anything but what seemed absolutely necessary to survive.

Even when I would hear Patrice and Isabella crying about Riena late at night, I couldn't feel more than a hollow pity for them.

I didn't sleep more than an hour or two at night anymore. I couldn't afford to. The dreams I had - well, nightmares was more accurate - made the pain too great. I would see Erik's face, dead eyes staring at me. That's not how I wanted to remember him, but that was the only image of him my dreams could conjure.

As I looked down on the man I was to help, my breath caught momentarily in my throat. His entire right side was burned horribly, while the left side was left mostly untouched. Even in his seared soldier's uniform, I could not help but be instantly reminded of Erik and pain shot through me like a hundred daggers. Though the burns had removed much of his hair I could see that he naturally had hair as black as a November sky at midnight. He was tall, his feet hanging over the end of the bed a little. One of his boots was missing and I could see with relief that the burns did not cover his entire right side, but just down to his torso. His skin was white with the loss of blood, causing him to look even more like Erik. I blocked out the image that had tears threatening to fall and immediately went to work.

His burns were extreme, some of his skin was blackened and peeling like onion skin. I needed to stop his bleeding, but if I wasn't careful, I could pull his skin completely away from the bone.

Mercifully, he was unconscious. I didn't think there would be enough morphine left to take much edge of the pain. The supply truck hadn't come for some time and it was feared that it had been attacked. I wasn't sure if I should feel glad about this or not. It meant that the Paris soldiers got medical supplies, but it put us in a very precarious position. I bandaged him as best as I could, having to peel some of the dead skin away, breathing very carefully so I didn't get sick. It was a long and tedious process and I did not leave his side for nearly two hours.

Perhaps it was the likeness to Erik that had me whispering words of comfort in his ear as I carefully stitched a cut across his forehead. They were not elegant words, nor was I pleading, I merely found myself telling him that he would be okay and to hold on. I'm not sure why I did. I could have let him die and would not have been at risk of being punished because he was already so badly injured. I suppose it was because of his sudden likeness to Erik that I did what I did.