AN: FINALLY! I have it all sorted out nice and neat. Whew. If you go back to Chapter 26, there's an added section that explains the whole plane situation. Sorry for all the confusion!
Chapter 30
Emmy's mother (who looked like a typical middle aged mom aside from her lack of plumpness) came rushing through the crowd at the sight of who she thought was her precious angel baby, lunging forward to give poor Christine a suffocating hug. Gerry just stepped aside and stayed quiet until the woman was done rambling about missing her daughter so much.
"Oh, hello!" Mrs. Rossum finally said to Gerry, giving him a not-so-subtle once over. He tried to ignore this and smiled back politely.
"Hello."
"I didn't know you were coming here too! Do you live in the city?" she asked excitedly.
"Ah, no, actually, I just figured I would be Emmy's bodyguard," he said, half teasing and half serious. Quickly, he added, "And I hadn't been to New York in a while, so…"
"Wanted to pay a visit, eh? I don't blame you. But thank you so much for helping her with the plane—and coming with her, too! I was worried sick when she flew over there by herself, you know…"
And on she went, babbling in this manner again. Christine and Gerry patiently endured it for a good ten minutes before the woman finally decided they should get out of the airport. Then Gerry realized something.
"Yeah, I haven't gotten a car or a place to stay, I should probably sort that out…"
Christine looked at him pleadingly, glancing at Mama Rossum with dread. He quickly added, "You know what, I'll do that later. Er…lunch is on me. How about it?"
Mrs. Rossum couldn't have been more pleased.
/
"Answer me!"
"Tell me what YOU want and I'll answer!"
"I asked first!"
"My answer depends on yours!"
"As does mine!"
Nadir had left, but he could hear Emmy and Erik's childish bickering all the way out in the audience seats where he had retreated—for he knew this was the perfect spot to listen to everything, due to the amplitude of the cavernous room.
"Just decide what you want, already!"
Madame Giry silently entered the auditorium, furrowing her brows as she heard Erik's voice reverberate off the walls, even though he was using a normal, though frustrated, speaking voice.
"I have!"
"Then tell me!"
Antoinette found Nadir and gave him a look that asked for an explanation. He just gave a small, mysterious smile and said, "Ah, young love."
"Fine!" Erik snapped, finally accepting his defeat and beginning his explanation exasperatedly. "I've loved Christine for years upon years and I would do anything for her, but I can not even relate to her, except through music alone. You have the same mesmerizing voice and beauty, yet you also evoke thoughts I never would have even considered by way of deep conversation. But we have easy talks as well. I've never been able to speak to anyone in such an amiable manner, aside from my only friend, Nadir, and even that is a very rare occasion. Not even Christine and I have had that simple pleasure. It was either voice lessons or situations in which I was frightening her with my words. I am driven to protect her, as with you, but she can never appreciate it or return it. Even when she is not consciously afraid of me, there will always be an underlying intimidation for her. You, however, don't appear to see me as a threat whatsoever. And there are things in your world I could never have imagined—everything from how your society works to the inventions to how I am treated. The past few weeks have been the greatest happiness I have ever known. I love you both, I always will, but I want to be with you, in your world. That is the only way I can ever be truly happy and be of any worth to someone."
Outside, Madame Giry had gone pale and Nadir's jade eyes were wide. They glanced at each other as if silently asking if they had heard the same thing or if they had gone mad. But they heard nothing else. At first, they smiled mischievously a little, assuming that the two were, at present, madly embracing and kissing one another, but after a few minutes, Nadir became worried and returned to the backstage area.
No one was there.
/
Mrs. Rossum had been babbling on about something or another for about twenty minutes as she drove Gerry and Christine through New York, trying to find a decent place for lunch. They both were in the backseat, patiently enduring her talking, until she parked.
"I hope you like this place, it's really—" she started to say as she turned around, then gasped. She shook her head and blinked rapidly, not sure she had seen what she thought. It was nothing horrifying or threatening enough to induce an immediate scream, but her scream followed soon enough.
Once again, no one was there.
/
Gerry, Christine, Emmy, and Erik simultaneously found themselves in a white abyss. The doubles (Erik and Gerry, Emmy and Christine) only had a moment to look at eachother in shock before the endless, blindingly white and empty space shook, as if it were a stalled elevator, then they all screamed as everything went black and they dropped. This stomach wrenching, deadly feeling of falling from an astronomical height only lasted another split second. Then they all had the sensation on being on a totally awesome acid trip.
Well, actually, it was more like their souls were being split apart then smashed together again, mingling and separating like someone trying to combine oil and water. Streams of color flashed, muffled voices that sounded as if they were underwater screamed, and the only thought that could come to anyone's mind was the panicked idea that maybe this was death. All four screwed their eyes shut then felt as if they were plunged in icy water, unable to breathe. Opening their eyes and looking up towards a glimmering surface, they found that this was exactly the case, and desperately clawed through the water towards the air.
Emmy reached the surface first with a desperate, choking gasp, then sputtered as she expelled the water from her lungs. The other three did the same a moment later. After they rid themselves of their immediate danger, they looked around in confused horror.
They appeared to be in an underground lake, much like Erik's, yet not the same. The dome of the cavern was lower and as they looked to shore, there was a small but beautifully built house standing there.
Desperate to get out of the freezing water, all four misplaced souls swam then trudged through the water to the shore, holding themselves and shivering.
"I d-don't s-suppose…any of y-you know wh-wha-what the hell just…h-happened..?" Erik struggled to say through chattering teeth. All of the others shook their heads. For a long moment, they just stared at their doubles, shivering. Finally, Christine couldn't take the cold anymore and clung to Gerry, trying to obtain some body heat. Erik couldn't bother to ask himself if he should be jealous, as Emmy soon did the same to him.
"Ah, you've arrived!" a nasally but welcoming voice greeted them. They whipped around to see a middle aged man smiling at them. Nothing would have been disturbing about him aside from the fact that he was wearing a half mask. Erik stared in horror, recognizing him from his marathon of watching every version of his story ever made.
"You're Michael Crawford!"
The other man sighed. "Yes, I'm his version, but I do exist in my own world, you know. Just like you and Gerry aren't the same person."
All four of our soaked protagonists stared at him with their jaws dropped. They stayed this way until a moment later, when only their eyes moved behind the man, where ANOTHER masked man was standing. This one had a full black face mask, was painfully thin, and was twitching in a slightly disturbing way, giggling to himself.
"Erik is so pleased to see you are here! Do come inside, visitors, Erik doesn't want you to freeze!"
Erik (the soaking wet one) took longer than the others to rush towards the house, as he was trying to figure out in his disturbed mind which version of himself this was. The skeletal Erik crossed his arms and stared at him from behind the mask with gold eyes.
"Well, brother Erik, are you coming or not?"
"Y-yes…" said the other, struggling to walk into the house without stumbling, as he was shaking so much. Once inside, more Eriks, with various masks and heights and bodies all greeted him (some less friendly than others) and the one he recognized as the Charles Dance version gave him a warm blanket. Gerry, Emmy, and Christine already had wrapped themselves up in blankets themselves, huddling next to a small fireplace in an elegant little room.
"This is Leroux Erik's home—the original, you know, in case you're uneducated," said an Erik who bore a resemblance to the one he mentioned, but spoke much more condescendingly. Our Erik only guessed that this was the Susan Kay version.
"I-I know..who…you…all are…well, most of y-you…anyway…" he said, glancing at all the other Eriks with a mixture of fear and fascination.
Christine, being less cold and no longer chattering, asked clearly, "Will someone please tell us what's going on? How did we get here? Who meddled with our lives? Why?"
"Oh, you women are so inquisitive…" muttered Leroux Erik. Charles Dance Erik shot him a disapproving look. Kay Erik just rolled his mismatched eyes, obviously annoyed by being in the presence of those less intelligent than he.
"Leroux Erik did it," said a hissing, malicious sounding voice as an unmasked Erik with uneven, stitched together flesh on his face stepped forward. It was Robert Englund Erik Destler. Leroux Erik cackled giddily.
"Yes, Erik did it, for he is so very clever, and he gets very bored, you see! He went out in Paris at night and stole a crystal ball from gypsies! He did it because they beat him as a child, you know, and it was a small way to get back at them, and also, the crystal ball looked like a marvelous gift for his little Christine! It's very pretty, and she would like that…but Erik found that the ball showed him strange things, other men like himself! He watched their lives through that ball for seven days and nights on end, not eating or sleeping, just staring into that wonderful oracular ball, until he found that if he asked it questions, the ball would show him the answer! So Erik found out that the reason there were so many other Eriks is because men had made his life into a story, that they copied over and over in different forms through theatre and books and strange things called films! So Erik started watching the lives of the ACTORS. At seeing how fortunate the actors were, he felt pity for himself and wondered what would happen if he gave one Erik the chance to BE his actor! Erik would do it for himself, but he doesn't have an actor, you see, so it was quite impossible. But he tried it with the most fortunate actor, the best looking, the most popular, and swapped their lives for his amusement. But also, for the sake of his youngest brother Erik! Oh, he was so happy when he saw how it was working out with Madamoiselle Rossum and brother Erik…but he was curious about the other Eriks, so all he did was wish them in his house, and they appeared! And here they are!"
"Leroux Erik is very prone to monologues, as you can see," droned a sarcastic man with an ill-fitting, shiny mask.
"We've been watching your lives much like people in Gerry and Emmy's time watch television…except we watch almost nonstop," an Erik with an equally absurd, full face mask with a flap over his mouth—Lon Chaney Erik.
"That's not creepy at all," muttered Gerry. He received many, many death glares.
"So what was the point of all of this again?" asked Emmy, who was looked upon much more nicely by the other Eriks—a bit too nicely, in fact.
"You can't say you regret this situation, can you, my dear?" asked one of the ALW stage phantoms.
"Well…er…not really, but—"
"The point was it had no point. Much like life," Kay Erik mused gravely. The other men chimed in eagerly.
"But it had a wonderous outcome, did it not?"
"At least one of us has a happy ending!"
"Hey, why don't we try this with all of us?"
"Because half of your actors are dead, imbecile."
"Time is nothing with this ball, remember!"
"True…but—"
"It's not fair to us book characters, we don't have anyone to swap lives with!"
"Can't you go back in time and change your actions?"
"Erik already tried that for himself. He swears to you, it is impossible."
"Damn it! Damn it all to hell!"
"Kerik, you can do things aside from curse, you know."
This resulted in a confusing squabble among all those masked except for the one we know as Gerik.