Im back for now! I got a little insiration so i wanna try again. I hope this chapters alright, im still nothappy with it myself but i dont want to keep people waiting any longer. i'll come back to itand change it some when the story is finished.

I DO NOT OWN PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

Chapter 30

The mask slipped from her hands and clattered loudly to the ground, echoing out throughout the room, as Elizabeth froze. The sound did not wake Erik, he seemed too drunk for that, but at this point, Elizabeth no longer cared. Her hands trembled and she felt like time was going so slowly. Numbly her mind began to catch up with what she was seeing, the face that Christine had been so adamantly against, Erik's real face.

Never in all her life had she ever seen anything like it, in all her years, except once. Back in Elizabeth mind, she saw her young self, looking into a book in her mother's library when she came across a certain section. A book depicturing scenes from Dante's Inferno and other books alike. Inside were images of grotesque, devilish beings, deformed and destroyed beyond mentality. Abnormal creatures from the bowls of hell, and the worst one was the image of the demons themselves.

Looking at Erik's face now, was like looking into the faces of the demons. She was horrified.

The right side of his face looked as if it had been a cruel creation of some god child who made a figure out of clay and then racked its fingers though one side, carving deep pockets into the cheek and below the eye, the side of his lips were deformed in ways she couldn't explain. The nose was as if it had been broken on one side and fixed in and endless process. His eyebrow was barely there, it seemed as though if he should open his right eye it would show glowing globs of crimson red, so demonic he looked. And it was in such a contrast of the handsome side of his face, it looked so repulsive, a harlequin nature of a deformed doll. Whether or not it made sense, it was the only way she knew how to describe it. What was the word…Harlequin syndrome? Yes, that was it, it was horrible.

Elizabeth took a step back covering her mouth and tripped over an empty whisky bottle as she fell back with a stifles shriek. She landed on the ground and scrambled away from his as quickly as she could, happy the he still had not yet woken up.

Her whole body shook with fear and absolute terror. This was Erik, this was the face he had tried so hard to hide? Now she knew why. It was terrifying.

Was he even human?

She stood and suddenly she couldn't bear to be here anymore and she ran.

On and on she ran out the tunnel and when she was finally out she collapsed in a heap and emptied the contents of her stomach into a nearby bush. Every time his face came to mind she would retch even more and finally when she was finished she threw herself away from the mess and into another bush. Without any strength to stand she fell into a heap on the ground, sobbing madly.

Elizabeth couldn't remember how she got home after that. It all felt so, out of order.

She could remember returning, so perhaps Moonlight had brought her. And then the servants fussed over her insanely, it became too much! Finally she finally locked herself in her room and buried her head under the pillows, trying so hard to forget what she had just seen, to no avail and when she finally fell asleep, Elizabeth dreamt of gargoyles.

Erik felt his mind clearing slowly as he awoke. The first thing he acknowledged was the pounding headache that echoed though every chamber of his mind from the very moment he opened his eyes. Secondly was the dizziness and everything came after that was unimportant, all that mattered was that he get himself of the floor and sobered as soon as possible. Just because he had decided to pretend he was a brutish, drunk barbarian for one night it did not mean he had to persist in the behavior the following morning.

Sitting up he numbly reached out to grab for the organ in hopes of using it to pull himself up into a more dignified seating position. With much difficulty he finally managed to do so.

He stretched and heard all the joints in his back crackle and snap unhealthily as he swept his hand over his face and readjusted the wig on top his head . . . wait, face?

His eyes widened as his hands scrambled over his face, groping in vain as his fingers skimmed over rough skin on both sides. His mask! Where was his mask!

Glancing around the room his spotted it lying forgotten on the floor not too far from where he had lain for the night. Perhaps in his drunken rage he might have ripped off the porcelain appendage. A mistake, he would usually not be so flippant or have such low regard for the condition of his mask. It was after all, one of his most important possessions. It was his shield, as much a part of his face as his eyes or nose and had become a second skin to him. The only times he treated it badly was when he was angry or when he was drunk.

Moaning he pushed himself forward to reach out and retrieve it. He could have stood and walked to where it was, but that took to many steps, time and energy and quite frankly, right now he just wanted to be lazy for a little while. Or just until the pounding in his head receded.

Finally his mind began to clear. The head pain was still there, but at least it had dulled a little. Erik had always been quick to recover from injuries. His body's reaction from the many beatings received from the circus show master. It was useful, considering now he recovered from hangovers a little quicker than the average person.

Erik didn't usually indulge in drink other than in moderation, preferring to keep his mind at full working capacity. It was rarely he allowed himself to get this drunk, but that was why he had forbade Elizabeth from coming to see him for their lessons. In the previous years of knowing her he had been lucky because she herself had had something to do on these nights, excusing her from his presence. Looking at the mask in hinds he replaced it on his face. He must have ripped it off while in his drunken stupor, it was a good thing Elizabeth had not seen this.

Last night was the anniversary of a night he preferred not to think about. It was the night Christine had left him. The night Don Jean Triumphant went up in flames, the day he tried to force Christine to go with him, and the day he foolishly allowed her to go with the fool who loved her.

On this night, all his regrets and memories which he usually kept such perfect control, would flood and overflow till he was swimming in it.

His Christine. That day seemed so far away. It was this day that but would creep into his heart. Although he often told himself that it was for the best, that he let her go back then, he sometimes wondered otherwise.

Would it really have been so hard for her to forgive him? If he forced her with him, would she really have hated him forever? Or would, after many years, she forget that fool and come to love him. Could she have at least looked at him with something other than loathing and pity? Could he have lived everyday listening to that hauntingly beautiful voice? He wondered.

It was on nights like this, that he realized something.

He still loved Christine. Always had and always would and nothing would change that.

Erik tried to stand; he couldn't allow himself to wallow in pity. Before it would have been fine but now he had something to do. Elizabeth had mentioned before that her sister was performing at the masquerade and so he had told her to convince her sister to play the music he had composed for Elizabeth's song.

Hours later, she awoke and she felt so calm. As Elizabeth sat up she stretched with a small smile at the sun shining though her window, but for some reason her eyes felt sore and her cheeks felt drained. She touched them and felt the tell-tale sign of crying. She had been crying, but why? Despite the niggling feeling in the back of her mind telling her she shouldn't, Elizabeth searched her memories, trying to find what had troubled her so.

When she had almost given up she sighed and closed her eyes. Suddenly a flash of something terrifying filled her vision and she screamed.

Then she remembered what it was. A face, his face. Erik's face!

She forced herself not to gag as she bent low and buried her face in her knees.

Oh god! How could this be! How could that be his face! How, what, made it that way?

Elizabeth could not organize her thoughts; she didn't know where to begin. Was it a disease? She had heard tell of a disease called Smallpox, but she had never before seen anyone inflicted with such. All her life she had never been allowed to see anything of such.

This was England, there was pestilence and disease everywhere, but Elizabeth, however useless her mother may think her, was a lady of the English ton and had been censored all her life from things that were unseemly. Disease, war, poverty. Elizabeth knew it all existed, but not once had she ever seen it, and if one had not seen it how can they even attempt to try to imagine it? Oh she read about disfigured humans in books, and she had even read in the papers of carnivals were such humans names 'freaks' were paraded like animals, a practice Elizabeth found most barbaric, but still she had never seen them. So she could never even hope to imagine what they were like.

But now she knew, and it was beyond anything she could ever have imagined. Was this why christen couldn't love him, his hideous face. Elizabeth couldn't help but understand, even now just thinking about him filled her with such fear, such terror that she shivered. Gripping her arms she wept again as tears streamed down her yes. She was so scared, how could she ever see him again, the masquerade ball and the lessons before the ball, how could she even hope to look into his half face, knowing what was on the other half.

He had tried to warn her, tried to tell her but she was too curious for her own good. Satisfaction wasn't bringing any cat back to life, this time curiosity had indeed killed the cat, Elizabeth felt so dead.

And there was something else too, other than disgust, other than fear was another emotion that tied the tree together in a torrent of pain.

She felt so ashamed.

This was the man she had claimed to love, and yet the very thought of his face filled her with such fear. Christine was right, Elizabeth's love was a fantasy, superficial and fake, how could she claim to love him and yet be so disgusted by him? It wasn't love. She had said that she wouldn't love him if she saw his face, and she was right. Now when Elizabeth clutched her heart all she felt was fear.

This wasn't supposed to happen, love was supposed to be all powerful, people in love were supposed to see past all flaws and love the other person anyway, no matter what. How could she love him when his face scared her so much?

She felt like a little girl who had made a fool of herself, Elizabeth felt so ashamed.

SHORT CHAPTER AFTER SO LONG BUT I TRIED HARD AND REALLY CANNOT THINK OF ANYHTING MORE FOR IT, I HOPE YOU ALL WILL FORGIVE ME

PLEASE REVEIW