Here I have a note:
This fic is based off a song which I HIGHLY recommend listening to before read but you don't have to. Its called: "Like Real People Do" by Hozier.
Basically, the song is about a woman digging up a man late at night and having a romantic relationship. He laments about she was digging in the first place, why at that time of night? He says he won't her ask her why, but he already knows she wasn't really looking for him.
"Everything is always taken away from me," Christine sobbed, "Mother. Father. Now Raoul?"
She had no one else to turn to once Raoul had died. She had gone to the village witch for help.
"Madame. Raoul was my true love. Surely there is some way you can raise him from the grave?"
The witch smirked. "Oh true love, you say?"
"Yes Madame. I'm sure of it."
"There is a way I can bring a person's soulmate up from Hell. But the spell would break if the string of fate breaks. Or in other words, you can't be apart from each other or both souls die."
"That wouldn't be a problem."
"And of course, money."
"Yes. Of course." She handed over her pouch of coins. It was all her savings from working at the local tavern. The witch took it greedily.
"Excellent. The spell has been set. Go to the graves in the bog and dig up your lover."
Christine fled, she ran desperately across the small village. As she entered the bog, her pastel blue dress snagged a tree, as if telling her to turn back. Yet she continued. She came upon the gravesite. Cold and unfeeling, but she had hope. Hope that the witch had not tricked her, hope that Raoul was alive. Just a patch of unmarked graves. She began digging holes not quite knowing where they buried him. Her hands grew dirty and her hair matted. The gown was ruined and she was tired as she dug her seventh hole. As her hands touched the soil for the millionth time, a pale hand reached out and grabbed her wrist. She shrieked and wretched her hand away.
It's Raoul. She thought as she tried to calm herself down. She kneeled back down in the dirt and began digging around the hand. Her heart stopped at she uncovered the groaning head. It wasn't Raoul. She instead saw a face, half covered by a white leather mask and amber eyes, like a cat's, shining through.
Maybe it is Raoul. Maybe it's tradition to wear a mask in his family.
She reached for the mask and pulled it away as the creature roared. A sunken eye, a nonexistent nose, mottled skin twisted in horrible patterns. She couldn't breathe. He was still decomposed. She had to live with a corpse, a zombie.
"Aren't you a curious angel? Or are you a demon? Digging me up to drag me to Hades? Or did you dig me up to see that the rumors were true, that they buried a monster?!" The mysterious man said with spite. He grabbed the mask from her hands and readjusted it on his face. His all black and she wondered who she had dug up. Erik had only just awoken to have his mask ripped from him by a beautiful angelic woman, she had to have an ulterior motive.
"Dear God. I thought she would fix it." She whispered. How foolish was she to believe a gypsy witch was going to give her a fully alive person, just as they were when they were living.
Fix it? What is she talking about? Erik thought.
"What are you talking about you foolish girl?"
"I paid a gypsy witch to get me my...soulmate back from the dead. But you're already decomposed," she said breathlessly.
She believed him to be a literal corpse, not resurrected fully.
A terrible laugh filled the air.
"You think this," he gestured to his mask, "is a product of decomposition? Oh ingenue. I was born like this, sweetheart," he said cruelly.
"Besides, you should be trusting those gypsies. They must have the spell wrong to think I'm your soulmate," he continued, "Thanks for digging me up girl. But I must be off."
He needed to be away from this naive angel, who kept on saying that they were soulmates. What a farce.
"Monsieur! Monsieur! Wait!" she called after him.
A groan was heard and the black figure came back to her.
"There was a price for bringing you back to life," she said hesitantly, "we can't be apart."
He looked at her bewildered.
"Or we'll both die."
"Making deals with the gypsies is never a good idea. Let's go to them and break the spell."
"I don't even your name, monsieur."
"It's Erik."
"Erik." She said rolling it over her tongue.
"I'm Christine Daae." She said offering a handshake.