Thank you for reviews... For those of you who haven't -stares down- I know who you are. And guess what? You're not getting cookies. Yeah. What now?
Midterms still going on... Studying sucks ass... Heres another chapter that I made in advance just because I'm nice :)
PhantomFan01: I felt so evil when I wrote the ending, hehe!
cynthiaphklepinger: Thank you :)
amysmiles: Ahaha, indeed, he is ;) Can't wait to release the next chapter!
TheLoverofNight: Yes... It would have been a "special" moment for Erik if he tried xD
ReadDeathLvr: I know! He's such an awkward dude :P And he'll warm up eventually... ;)
ShayShayCoolAy: Thank you! I appreciate your review :D :D
Xxnikkigirl123xX: As long as people keep reading and reviewing, I don't plan on stopping short with this story! Keep reviewing! :)
IMPORTANT NOTE: I decided to start putting up "additional information" on my profile, under the "I See You" section... If you wish, check it out. It's just where I'll be adding random thoughts/additional things like where I got my ideas from or whatever. If enough people ask for more of that, I'll keep it updated, if not, it'll be for my personal enjoyment and not be a regular thing ^_^
Everyone does what they believe is right. More people will agree with what is right than others. This is okay; everyone has different opinions. Nobody seems to remember this. Even though someone's actions may seem completely and utterly absurd, in their mind, they are probably doing the most obvious thing in the world. It's okay. Everyone thinks their own thoughts.
From this sense of right and wrong, we take action. These actions can simply mean by taking the action of inaction. This may be what seems right at the moment; to simply do nothing. To let it be, give it time to grow, to mature. Maybe the problem that you were contemplating will solve itself. Maybe you should not intervene. One can only learn by figuring things out by themselves.
Others, however, decide that the action that must be taken is action itself. They feel the desire to help or support. Desperately, they try to fix something that often times does need to be fixed, and they probably should have just let it be. However, that is another opinion. It is probably, in their mind, the best course of action to take. It is whats right. Others will without a doubt think it is wrong.
How are we to all agree on one conclusion? The majority will always win. However, we must think of the minorities' point of view as well. From their stance, nothing wrong has been done, even if it was the murder of a small kitten. Perhaps the kitten actually did threaten to murder the child's baby doll. The majority will never know, and will be consumed in their snobbish idea that they are correct, and those who oppose them are incorrect.
Right and wrong; the worst thought processes ever to have taken root in the human race.
"Doug, how much longer do you think we are going to be out here?" she asked, shivering.
"As long as it takes." Doug growled, looking through his binoculars.
The two of them had been sitting on the rooftop of the building across from the Opera House for about five hours now. It was nearing six at night, and Aimee was starving.
"Doug, how do you know he's going to come out?"
"He will."
"But how?"
"Because if some creep is holding Abigail," he hissed, snapping his attention to Aimee, "He's going to eventually need to get SOMETHING for her!"
He returned to his binoculars, searching the streets and building surrounding the Opera House. On occasion he would glance about the actual building.
Aimee shivered again. She needed a better jacket. And gloves.
"Doug, do you think he's in the Opera House?"
"No. Why would someone keep her where you saw them take her?"
"I don't know… Maybe…"
"Maybe what?"
"Nothing."
Silence.
"…"
"…"
"Doug?"
"What?"
"What if the Phantom is real?"
Doug laughed.
"Aimee, if the Phantom was real, he would be dead."
"But what if he's alive?"
"Then he must be one old little fucker." Doug laughed.
Aimee frowned. She was being serious. Doug noticed he had gotten her upset and sighed.
"Listen, Aimee. I really don't think that the Phantom exists. I mean, he's a fictional character invented by some dude and wrote a book on him, and then some dude wrote a play, and then some other dude made a movie that you were obsessed with."
"I was not obsessed!" she yelled.
"You were obsessed."
Aimee let out a small huff. She could see her breath rising up and away from her until it disappeared into the growing night.
"What if he just like, didn't age this entire time?" Aimee asked.
"How could that happen?"
"I don't know. Maybe he has some kind of curse or something."
"You were never one to believe in fantasy stories, Aimee."
"Oh you know what I mean! Maybe he has a disease."
"What kind of disease stops aging?"
"I don't know."
"Maybe he has some really great anti-aging cream. You should ask him about that."
"Shut up, Doug!"
Doug snickered.
Silence.
"How old do you think he is?" Aimee asked.
"How would I know? He's not even real!"
"Do you think he stopped aging once Christine left him?"
"Aimee, stop talking like some stupid fan girl!"
"I'm having a logical debate!"
"No, you're not, because I'm not debating anymore."
More silence.
"Well," Doug said, pocketing the binoculars, "I don't think he's coming back out today. Let's-"
"DOUG!" Aimee cried, forcing his head down.
"What?" he yelled.
"Shhhhh! What's that?" Aimee said, pointing to the empty streets.
They were not empty anymore. A tall man dressed in almost all black was gliding gracefully across the street. Doug whipped out the binoculars and zoomed in on his face. He couldn't see much past the hat and glasses.
"Aimee, it's just some dude."
"A dude who went on a major shopping spree." Aimee said suspiciously.
"What are you talking about?"
"Look at the bags, Doug! No guy walks around with that many clothing bags!"
Doug frowned. It was true; he hadn't given it much thought.
"What if he's just gay?"
"He is not! I can tell!"
"How can you tell? I mean, look at his hat."
"Plenty of straight men wear those hats!"
"I've never seen one."
"That's because you never get outside except when you go to see Abigail!"
Doug glared at her. Aimee apologized.
"Look," Doug pointed out, "He's not even going through the gates. He's just going home."
The two of them watched the man turn a corner, a street away from the Opera House. Aimee sighed.
"Whatever. We can eat, and then we can come back. But I need my gloves."
"Yeah. You're retarded."
Erik froze, stopping mid sentence. There was a splash, and Abigail was gone.
Despair shot up his spine as he threw off his jacket and scarf; distress radiated off of his skin as he scrambled to rip off his shoes.
Why was she so idiotic? What did she possibly need to go to the water for? Was she really this incompetent as to not know where the water is by now?
He knew that this day was going to come eventually; he never realized it was going to be this soon.
Erik finally managed to tear off his other shoe, ripped off his shirt to expose his muscular chest, and dove head first into the water after his little pianist. He forced his eyes open. Erik could hardly see through the murky water. Could she swim? He didn't know. Movement caught his eyes; he dashed towards it as fast as he could. Erik saw Abigail thrashing around a couple feet in front of him and then slowly stop.
He saw red.
Erik roared, the sound echoing through the water like an aquatic beast. He dove at Abigail, crushed her against his chest, and flew to the surface. An explosion of water met them in the air. He pulled her onto the ground and laid her down.
Now what? His mind was still in anger mode; he forgot what he was supposed to do next. Her clothes were soaking wet and she was visibly shivering. His wild mind put the two together and ripped off Abigail's soaking shirt and covered her with his abandoned cloak.
She wasn't breathing. He opened her mouth and pounded on her chest. One, two, three, one, two three. He grabbed her face, pinched her nose, and froze.
He did not want to have to kiss her. What if she woke up when his mouth was on hers?
Abigail still wasn't breathing.
Erik forced his face upon hers and breathed quickly. He repeated the process twice. As he was about to try to breathe life into her again, Abigail suddenly coughed up a large amount of water and promptly passed out.
Erik stared at her. He checked her pulse and breathing. She seemed fine. He relaxed, and looked down at the mess he had made.
Abigail's shirt lay soaking wet halfway across the room from where he had tossed it. His own clothes lay scattered about, and several books and a chair had been knocked out of place in his rush. Erik shook his head. It was probably the fastest thing he had done for someone else before. He had saved her life. Nobody had done that for him, ever. Why did he do it for a blind girl? He could have simply let her drown and all of his problems would have been solved. He could have easily forgotten about this little mess and gone on with his sad, pathetic life.
But he had to be honest with himself as he looked back down at Abigail. She had brought some kind of life back into him, even if it was out of anger. But it wasn't the same kind of anger that he had before. It was more… playful? No, he thought to himself. It was not playful at all. He had hit her in his anger. Maybe it wasn't anger.
Perhaps he just likes someone to talk to. He almost smiled to himself.
Almost.
He slowly sat up and picked up the mess around him. After considering the ugly sweater, he tossed the shirt into the boat to be disposed of. She would no longer need turned back to Abigail. He grabbed his cloak, prepared to place it on the table when he suddenly stopped, staring at her.
Half of her was almost naked in front of him. He couldn't tear his eyes away from her smooth looking skin for a moment. Erik had not thought of it until now how long it had been seen he had seen someone, touched someone…
Erik grew disgusted with himself. How could he think such thoughts of someone who was unconscious on the ground? He placed the cloak on the table, unsure of how to approach the task ahead of him. Erik knew he should put her back on the swan bed, but definitely did not want to touch her skin now that he was in a clearer mental state.
He looked over to the boat. All of the clothing bags were still inside. He darted over, took out the first shirt that he found (he distantly remembered the saleswoman saying it was a camisole, or a 'cami'. It was white.), and made his way back over to her. She was still sort of wet. Erik mentally slapped himself.
Why must he always be caught in these situations with this girl?
He grumbled, grabbed the newly bought white towl and a pair of black sweatpants out of the boat, and nervously walked over to her.
He considered just waiting until she woke up and letting her put on her own shirt and pants.
But what would she think he had done if she woke up without a shirt on? His eyes took another peak. Her bra was bright red with black polka dots. Erika cursed to himself and stared at the ground.
He finally decided on simply carrying her over to the swan bed, towel wrapped around her. He laid the clothes near her feet, just touching her so she could find them, and quickly fled the area.
He was a bumbling idiot.
Abigail's throat hurt. She felt sick and woozy. Her head was on fire.
She wasn't wearing a shirt.
"PHANTOM!" she screamed her voice cracking slightly. Abigail sat up and let the towel fall.
"What do you want?" came a yell from the organ.
"WHY am I not wearing a shirt?" Abigail screamed back, outraged. She suddenly felt insecure and violated.
"You fell into the water, and I figured I'd let you not die of pneumonia after I went through all of the trouble of not letting you drown."
Abigail felt her face burning. What had happened? She distantly remembered falling into the water, but not much else. She heard the Phantom's footsteps draw near. Abigail brought the towel up to her chin, hiding herself.
"I set a shirt and new pants on your bed. The rest of your clothes are waiting next to the wardrobe… I believe you wanted me to tell you what they were?"
"Yeah." Abigail mumbled, her head bowed.
She heard the Phantom cough awkwardly.
"Well, I will leave you to change, then. When you are ready, simply tell me."
He walked away. Abigail relaxed, and quickly found the new clothes. After changing she deposited the wet clothes off to the side.
She stepped outside of the curtain, listening for some hint that the Phantom was around. She heard a shuffle near the table. Making her way over to it, she reached a hand out, and surprisingly touched a bare back.
She felt the Phantom jump in surprised.
"You are not wearing a shirt." She stated simply.
"Yes, I know." The Phantom replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Why?"
"I took it off to rescue you, and I do not sleep with a shirt on."
"You were sleeping?"
"No. I will be once we are done with this... sorting of clothes."
"Where are you going to sleep?"
"Somewhere on the ground."
"Why don't you use the bed?"
"You are using it."
"But I'm not at the moment. I'll busy myself."
"No."
"Why not?"
"I do not wish to use the bed that you are." He hissed.
Abigail felt hurt, but brushed it off.
"Well, I'm ready." she replied, "For sorting."
It took them around an hour, mostly because of Abigail. She felt bad, but the Phantom was not the best at describing the new clothes. It took her awhile to put them where they should go for her to find them later. The Phantom also gave Abigail her shampoo and such.
"Where do I like, take a shower?"
"In the bathroom?" the Phantom replied, shocked at such a question.
"Where is that?"
"Where have you been going to the bathroom all this time?"
Nobody said anything.
She felt him firmly grab her shoulder after a moment and lead her to the door she could not open the first time that she had looked around. She heard him open the door, and the two walked inside. She placed her things all around, occasionally running into the Phantom's own products.
"How did you get a bathroom down here?" Abigail commented, noticed how nice it was. It even had tiled floors.
"I had a renovator of course."
"How did you get him to not talk about you?" she asked, touching the shower curtain. The entire bathroom seemed off from the rocky nature of the Phantom's lair. It was as if this was the only modern thing that he had.
"I killed him."
Abigail stopped fooling around with the shower curtain, "What?"
"What?" The Phantom asked, confused.
"You killed a man?"
"I have killed many men."
"Why?"
"Why do you think?" he growled, growing annoyed.
"I don't know. I just didn't think about it."
"You shouldn't."
Abigail gulped. The Phantom seemed much more dangerous now, and she grew nervous. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, unsure of what to do.
"Well, uh, didn't you want to sleep or something?" she asked quickly, wishing he would go away.
The Phantom did not respond for a moment. He slowly replied, "Yes… Should you need me, wake me."
Abigail heard him walk away.
"Oh. And do not go near the water." He called.
She heard a slight tease in his tone.
"I swear to god, Doug, I think that was the man again!"
"Aimee, for the love of God, it wasn't him!"
Aimee was freaking out. Just as they had gotten down to the street level, she had sworn she saw the same man turning back onto the road where the Opera House was. Her ears could have sworn she heard a gate opening and closing, and she knew that it was the gates to the Opera House.
"Please, Doug, can we just peak inside? Please?"
"No! It's under renovation for fucks sake Aimee, you and Abigail weren't even supposed to be in there! The man probably saw two stupid young women go inside the Opera House and went, 'Oh! Look! Easy target number one and number two!'"
"Shut up!" Aimee cried, growing more and more desperate. She blamed herself more every hour for Abigail, and she knew Doug blamed her too. He had grown more anxious as well, even if he didn't admit it.
The two of them couldn't help but wonder what was happening to Abigail. None of them wanted to admit their worst fear; that she had been brutally murdered and was lying in a ditch somewhere.
Doug sighed, "Well, we can't report her to the police until tomorrow I think. So we're just going to have to keep looking out to make sure he doesn't come back around looking for someone else."
Aimee nodded in agreement. In the back of her mind she knew she should be practicing for her audition that was rapidly approaching, but she quickly shook the thought from her mind. For right now, Abigail was more important; even if it meant she and Doug had to play cop for awhile.
The next morning they returned to the rooftop. They waited for three hours, got breakfast, and went back up. Aimee and Doug talked a lot. They had never had so much time to share each other's thoughts before; it had always revolved around Abigail, when she needed a ride, who was going to visit her that night, and so on.
But now, in mutual worry, they realized that they had more in common than they thought. The two of them bonded and became much better friends. They laughed and worried together on the rooftops of Paris.
By noon, they both agreed it was time to announce Abigail missing. Doug jumped into Aimee's car and the two of them drove off to the local police station.
"God, I didn't even know where the police station was until now." Aimee breathed, looking around the ominous waiting area. Suspicion loomed in the air.
"Meh, I've been here a few times."
Aimee laughed at him. She knew he had a less than angelic childhood. Doug shrugged, hiding a small grin.
"Ah, yes, is there a Mr. Porter here?" a young secretary called from the desk.
Aimee and Doug jumped up.
"Yes, the chief will see you now. First door on your left." She said, pointing to the correct door. They nodded in thanks and went through.
The chief's office was medium sized. It had enough room to fit the desk, two chairs, and a couple of filing cabinets comfortably inside. The man sitting at the desk barely raised an eye at the two of them before pointing to the two seats in front of him.
Aimee and Doug looked at each other before sitting down, facing the African American man and waited patiently for him to finish his paperwork.
"And, done." He said calmly, dotting the end of his sentence. He closed the file and put it in an ever growing pile to his right, "Now, what can I help you with?" he asked, grabbing a blank file and looking at them expectantly.
Aimee sputtered. Doug took this as his cue.
"Our friend, Abigail, went missing around this time yesterday." Doug explained as the chief started a report, "She and my friend here, Aimee, were around the Opera House when Aimee saw someone grab her."
The chief nodded as he wrote quickly, "And did you happen to get a look at the man?" he asked, looking up at Aimee.
Aimee shook her head, tears welling in her eyes. The chief scribbled something down and shut the report.
"Well, I'm afraid this is not much to go on. I'll have a guard stationed around the Opera House, but I'm afraid there is not much more to do but wait and see. If we see no activity by tomorrow, or you don't get a ransom call, we need to expand the perimeter and probably do a search of some nearby buildings."
Doug nodded. It wasn't much, but it was something.
"You two should probably put up wanted posters to see if anyone calls in having seen her. Is there anything that I should know about this Abigail?"
"S-she's blind." Aimee cried softly.
The chief frowned, but nodded. He added it to the report, as well as a physical description that he asked from them.
"We'll do the best we can." The chief said as he saw them out.
"Thanks." They said together.
The two silently made their way back to the car. Doug drove Aimee home, noticing she was in no mood to drive. He didn't mind walking home.
It took him thirty agonizing minutes to get home. All he could think about was Abigail. She was alone and afraid, and he was hopeless to protect her. He wanted to scream.
Shutting the door behind him, Doug slowly took off his coat and put it away. He dragged his feet into the kitchen only to find a plate of his grandmother's cookies on the table. He trudged over, sat down, and took one.
He stared at it for a long time. Doug saw Abigail's face in the small chocolate chips.
If he could have Abigail back, Doug knew he would give up all of the cookies in the world.
He ripped a chunk off only to find himself not hungry.
He threw the cookies in the garbage.
Doug began to cry, knowing Abigail would have murdered him to see such an act.
He couldn't do anything right.
Poor Doug ):
Poor Erik xD
Every time I write about those goddamn cookies, I want chocolate chip cookies... like, right out of the oven when all of the chocolate chips are still gooey and waaarmmm... OMG. I'M SO HUNGRY NOW.
REVIEW. I KNOW YOU WANT TO. PRESS THAT BUTTON... YEAH. PRESS IT. o.O.