Chapter 4. Masquerade.
Carlota was taken to the hospital, the police examined the dead body, and Raoul walked hand in hand with Christine, taking her home for the night.
Eric was heartbroken. He smashed everything in his catacomb home and sat down at his closed piano and fell asleep.
A few months later.
The manager, mostly out of fear, left the opera box 5 unrented and left the money in there as well, and also moved Christine back in to acting, but Carlota still didn't believe. If only she did…
There was a Masquerade ball thrown yearly, and this year nothing had changed.
Christine and Raoul came as a couple, Christine dressed in all pink and Raoul in all blue. They danced in the crowd and kissed as the music became louder.
Suddenly the entire place went silent, for on top of the stairs, was a tall man dressed in red suit, with a white skeleton mask and a feathery red hat.
"I am Red Death!" The man shouted. "I am also, the Angel of Music, the thing that isn't real, and the Phantom of the Opera!"
Christine covered her mouth in horror.
"I seek the girl named Christine Daeé. I taught her to sing, I made Carlota quit so Christine could have the part, I let loose the rats in the opera box, I poisoned the wrench and I murdered the stage hand all for her! And I shall not stop these deeds till Christine is in my takes! I have written an opera and it's name is Don Juan Triumphant you shall find the finished manuscript in the manager's office, and i demand it be performed with the same casting as listed with in!
Christine turned to leave but he floor under her disappeared and she fell into a dark room.
Raoul tried to follow but the floor closed up, then he tried to confront the Phantom but he was gone as well.
Christine stood at the top of a spiral stare case, not wanted to stay where she was, Christine began to walk down the steps, and heard music, sweet seductive music, that grew louder and more passionate the farther down she went.
At the end of the steps, she found herself stepping out of the tunnel of stairs into Eric's layer.
Christine looked over at the wall, and saw a large musical organ in the wall, and the masked Eric sitting in front, playing.
"Welcome home Christine" He said, not even looking up from his music. "Don't say otherwise, for this is your home now."
Christine walked to him and said. "Who are you really? You are no angel, at least none my father sent me."
"I have no name, my mother wouldn't give me one, but you may call me Eric."
"Why?"
"I just stumbled upon the name in a book years back, it had a nice ring to it you could say, so I kept it."
"I mean why wouldn't your mother name you?"
"The same reason I wear a mask."
Christine could only imagine what was under that mask, and not able to bare the question any longer, she felt the edge of it, and tore it off.
Christine screamed in horror at the site of the face underneath, if you could call it a face. It was something from a child's nightmares; a horrific mash of flesh with skin that seemed like the wrinkle skin of a shaved rat, with a flattened snout that's small lift above the rest of the face didn't end till the middle of his fore head. A frightening sight.
Eric hid his face with his hands and pushed her back and stormed to the nearest wall and said. "You little viper! You ruined everything! Now I can never let you leave!"
Christine looked away and said. "My lord…"
"If there is a god then curse him for causing this!" Eric shouted and turned to her, and then he walked to her and took her hand and dug her fingers into the flesh of his skin then said. "This is no mask, my dear Christine, this is the face I was born with, a face that caused me a lifetime of pain. A horrible lifetime of pain…"