And here it is, the long (long) awaited next chapter of All Through the Night. This is in Christine's point of view, and she will say things in it that may not sit quite right with some (myself included), but there has to be a chasm created in order that it be bridged in future chapters (I know how this will end, and like J.K. Rowling, I have my last chapter started, but I don't want to give anything away.) Anywho, if you would be so kind as to review, I would appreciate it greatly.

K.S.

While the Weary World is Sleeping

I've ruined it. Somehow, I've ruined everything. I don't know what to do! After what I've already done… oh God, I'm so foolish! Blind, impetuous, naïve, foolish Christine! And there is no way for me to fix this. How could I? I am no angel, to turn back the hands of time and space. More a slack-jawed idiot, not to realize the truth for what it was. I'm sitting in this beautiful room, too afraid to move. He's outside the door, I can hear him. The queer little hiccups of sound, as if he's cried all he can and yet still he sobs- with no tears to show for it. How can any one person be so… I don't even know what the right word is… ugly is too cruel, and yet not nearly enough to describe…

Oh I should have known that he was no angel! How could I have been so easily deceived? Foolish, foolish, everything I do seems to be unutterably foolish. I don't dare move, the… the monster shall hear. I think that he hears everything. And it all had just seemed to have fallen into place just a few hours ago! I'd sung for the Emperor himself and been lauded to the heavens. I'd met Raoul again, and he remembered it all, even my foolish affection for chocolates. And the Angel had come to me. I went through my mirror and it was as if I'd stepped into another world. Only when it was too late did I realize that my Angel, my kind, thoughtful, wonderful Angel was in fact the Phantom of the Opera. Yet he did not frighten me, not then. Because, though he wasn't an angel, he still possessed the voice. And how sweet he was, just glancing at me, then turning back quickly, as if he were too shy to meet my gaze- as if he could not believe I was really there with him. Now I know why. Oh God, what shall I do? I cannot escape; I do not know the way. It sounds crazy but I… I don't think I could leave even if I knew the way.

After I took off his mask, after I had seen that… that face… even after his terrible display of temper, there was something so pitiable in the way he crept towards me, trying to calm me. And how did I react? Like the frightened little girl I was. I couldn't even give the mask back to him. I didn't want to touch his hand- the hand that had taken mine so tenderly the night before. I slid it across the floor, so that it was just within his reach. And then I fled to the room that I had awakened in. I slammed the door shut and turned the lock, and here I am still- huddling on the floor with my face buried against my knees. He could come in any time. I'm not fool enough to think that a locked door could stop him.

How could anyone be so hideous? It looked as if… I can't describe it, but the right side of his face was in direct contradiction with the left. I've cried out all my tears, he's drained them from me and I have no more left to cry. There's nothing more, I have to get out of this room, I feel as if it is closing in. It is time for me to come out, and to face him. I turn the key in the lock once more, and I swing the door open. He has returned to the organ, with his hands cradling his bowed head. He looks so bleak, so defeated. I don't know what to do! He has lied to me, deceived me for years, and yet I still have neither the courage nor the desire to play the prima donna: to demand to be taken back to the Opera, and to never see him again. I can't do that. I just can't. Because I still remember the little girl whose tears were dried because of a song telling of guardian angels. Because a few short weeks ago I sang the whole of that song to him, loving him beyond any measure. Because, despite it all, I'm not certain that I don't, even now. What am I to do?