The acrid and cloying smell of mildew, neglect, and decay lightly masked by moldering candles left too long in dusty wall snifters, was at once familiar and disconcerting. His footfalls muted on the worn stone steps, he ascended from the underbelly of the monstrous opera house. Here, in the catacombs below, Erik had made his home and conducted his life in a state of relative peace for nearly a decade. Each year since his arrival the air seemed a little colder, the stone a little more moist. Even though the building was still considered new, the phosphorous moss had begun its unyielding overthrow of the grey masonry below. Slimy and pungent, the plant would eventually overtake the entire cavernous underside - turning the very walls and floors into a living mass, devouring it whole. Yet for now, the stone persisted, staying firm and unyielding beneath the lichenous growth. All the phlegm-colored halls managed to affect was a most unpleasant cough, one that rattled deep in his lungs when he laid in his bed, one he was certain would develop into pneumonia yearly as he grew older. One that would most likely herald the end of his otherwise wretched life; and that end, he had no doubt, would come about within these same clammy corridors.
Here he had built his glory and his tomb.
Erik paused for a moment at the archway that signaled he was leaving the safety of his underworld and entering the opulence of the opera house above. Had it truly been weeks? Recently he'd noticed that hours, days slipped by without much notice. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen natural light. Or the last time he'd spoken aloud before Nadir's interruption earlier that morning.
He'd lost himself, somewhere in there.
The corridor he chose almost mechanically, giving no thought to where he was going - or what he would do if he encountered another soul - was blissful, mercifully empty. He could vaguely hear the plaintive strains of a lone violin warming up, distracted murmurs of a small crowd. The tension in the building was palpable, mixing with his own odd sense of foreboding. For something had made him uneasy, something he noticed almost immediately upon waking, thrashing blindly into the dark in the last throes of some dream he couldn't manage to quite recall. Something in the air, like a storm you could smell before the sky even began to darken. It settled in him now, deep in his chest. Electric. Heavy.
He felt positively haunted.
Something is about to change.
Erik stopped himself just short of bursting into ridiculous laughter, but the thought lingered. Something is about to change. Ludicrous. He wasn't one to list "premonition" among his varied talents.
The box was empty, the curtains drawn. He took a moment to collect his thoughts as the tension on the stage below turned to a dull roar of activity. The woodwinds rose in a shrill wave before quieting back down, only a single flute continuing its wild, high-pitched trilling. He could hear the maestro tapping furtively. No one was paying him any attention.
"Un peu de silence, s'il vous plait!" The stern voice rang out. "Merci. If the ladies would please step to the left... pardon, stage left, giving the gentlemen the right side of the stage."
This was such a silly practice. Every spring, when they cast the upcoming season, they forced this mockery of an "audition." It was a showcase for the true talent and puerile humiliation for the mediocre. Everyone who had any dreams or aspirations of singing forced onto the stage together, pitting years of experience with amateur infants freshly birthed from the conservatories. Barbaric, really. He knew full well they had cast most of the shows already, this was simply masturbatory and loathsome.
If he hadn't feared drawing attention to himself, he would have drummed his fingers on the chair arm in frustration. Why did Nadir feel it was so important that he attend this, exactly?
"Step forward, state your name and the name of the piece you have prepared," came the stern direction. Erik's head lolled against the back of the seat. Three auditions, he told himself. Then he would make his exit.