Your authoress is half dead. And still posting to prove that she is alive. Project work as a subject is swamping me-I am to make edits PLUS design for my project OTL It kills me. As such, I don't use my brain much to type anymore-I have taken to playing League of Legends the whole day haha! If anyone is on the Asia server add me through Gayrena okay? :-)

Short chapter is short as short beyond short is short. :-P

Chapter 17

He who strikes first wins.

-L, Death Note

The delusion is crashing over him in waves, rolling in his blackened soul. Maybe he is but the moniker he has created for himself, a dark shadow. Perhaps he is no better than the man that killed his mother. He might as well have killed the woman himself, he tells himself, as the Vicomte is soon pressed to gunpoint. His hair still is oily and slick, and even with his background he is but reduced to a poor scum. Once, his mother had been the most sought after nurse in the whole of Victorian Europe. And then she had met that devil, that black devil! And he had killed her when he returned, not a single word of thanks for bringing him up all those years. Admittedly, his mother had barely been kind in the upbringing of him, but who could fault her? After she had nursed him, being hired by those infernal de Changys, nobody had wanted her. They were sure she had been cursed with the Devil, to care for the Devil was to be its servant. The money she had made as a governess soon dwindled, and she sold him off, hoping he would die at the hands of those gypsies. As a boy, he had hoped so too, even if he was slightly intrigued by the way that the strange creature made music out of all the pots and pans in his mother's house. As a boy, he had watched in fascination and disgust, however, a strange friendship had formed, one that burned into hatred when he saw that strange creature return and kill his mother in a heated rage, most likely under the effects of morphine. And now he too was induced by the drug to murder, to kill, the exact same way that this fop's infernal brother had done to his mother! His beloved mother! But reason sang in his head. If he killed the boy, where would his money come from? And if he killed him, would he not be as base as the creature himself?

Bloody hell.

In the darkness of the morphine, he could barely see the Vicomte in front of him, still trembling at gunpoint. Instead, he pulled out a hypodermic needle, and plunged it straight into the hand of the Vicomte, which he grabbed and held close. The blonde thrashed wildly before his eyes, screaming as the drug took over him. The painkiller was beautiful; his virginal experience with the drug was a kaleidescopic high too. Shapes swam in Raoul's eyes, all the colors of the rainbow, as he curled up into a ball and whimpered. It was so amazing; he could almost see Christine again. The jewels that sparkled in her hair, the coolness of her soft hands against his face. The way she smiled at him. Her mouth curving at the edges, its soft rosy pink hues…Raoul found himself kneeling at the assassin's legs with delirious want as the delusion faded from his view, screaming for more of the drug. Black gave a leer, as he slowly injected more of the venom into the boy's veins…

As Christine sits in the parlor with the Girys, Erik finds himself utterly bored. He feels almost as if his mind is languishing in realxation, something he has never felt before his marriage to Christine. The dark side of him, a curled up panther on the prowl, ready to pounce, will consume him whole. To wait for the womenfolk to have their tea and chitchat is not something he would do. And yet to experience a rush of working again, under the effects of drugs and coffee and tea is not what Christine would want either. He remembers working tirelessly in Persia to design the very torture chambers of lore, under the effects of morphine, coffee and other lethal combinations. It was only after five days of consecutive working had he collapsed at his desk to sleep it off, and Nadir had entered his room on an order, and had ordered his men to take him to the offices that the Daroga of Mazanderan had. There, Erik had been left in a cold cell to sleep off the effects of the drug. And when he had awoken, he had flown into a dark, terrible rage. Bars, cages, nothing could hold his demons in. The Phantom himself remembers the way he saw in the dark, prowling around his cage as Nadir sent his best men to subdue him. And all had left the cage half dead and quivering in fear. Erik bit his lip, vowing to never detiorate to such a level again. It was then, at the end of almost another week, where Erik had all but not touched the drug for a few days, had Nadir crudely set up a table and chair in the cell, and placed all of Erik's work in front of him. Frantically, he had scrabbled and produced designs of palaces grander than the common man's imagination, to please himself and the accursed Shah. The man himself must have been a creature of chthonic descent, as a result of Nadir's actions he sentenced Erik to even greater amounts of work. In an attempt to break free from these demons, he had flown into a blind rage, killing every guard that had been sent to him. And this bloodlust, this dark thirst had instead sated the Shah. Erik stared at the needle in his hand, rolling the fine tip he had fashioned in the tip of his fingers. He remembered the last time he had succumbed to this addiction after leaving Persia, he had killed much more, so much more in Paris. All those innocents.

"Erik."

The quiet, insistent voice of his Persian friend came from the door, as Erik let out a low growl and whipped around to face the Persian.

"Nadir Khan. I never gave you express permission to enter here, did I?"

"But look at you, Erik. You scorn the boy, which I know is drunk half of the time, and yet you insist on drugging yourself with such substance. What makes you any better than him? Not to mention—" Nadir said, choking as he felt Erik's strong grip on his neck. "You cannot hope that she will stay, if you don't relinquish your dark side completely. Such a whirlwind marriage. You cannot hope to think that such a damnable idea would work, would you?"

"Shut the hell up."

"You well know I speak reason, Dark Angel of Mazanderan."

"YOU LIE."

Erik shook the Daroga with such fierceness he was sure that he could snap the elderly man like a twig. With a roar, he set him roughly down, his head ringing with the soft voices that coaxed him, even with the security he drew from Christine's marriage with him. Even with such reassurance, he would doubt. Inside his head had always been the doubts that she would leave, even after she had promised to stay with him for all eternity. The memories of their wedding came flooding back in, and he remembered Christine's face as she saw Raoul leaving. Decidedly, he donned his fedora and cape, deciding that the twilight would be enough to shield him from prying eyes.

Raoul breathes heavily, his eyelids twitching as he gives an involuntary spasm. Beside him, the assassin purrs softly, raking filthy hands through his hair. He knows now the extent of control this drug and this man has over him. Raoul bites his tongue, choking back a groan that he may not seem pathetic.

"Do you now see, that you never had the upper hand, Monsieur le Vicomte?" A yank on the boy's hair. "Do you?" Nails raked down the boy's face, gently that they left no scars. Then rougher, that red lines were drawn across his nose and eyelids, red lines that soon faded. Lost in the haze of the drug wearing off, Raoul still made no effort to fight back. He choked on a glob of his saliva, coughing.

"Imbecile." He managed, after coughing a few more times. Black kicks him violently, glaring at him. In the course of torturing Raoul, he had consumed more syringes of morphine than he thought humanly possible. Maybe, he mused, this is how Erik felt when he killed my mother, he muses, a lopsided leer on his lips. The window flies open as Black looms over Raoul, half strangling him. Cold metal is pressed to Black's temple, and he flinches momentarily.

"Drop the boy."

A coaxing, hypnotically melodious voice is heard behind Black, and Raoul barely makes out a figure behind the assassin as he is dropped uncermoniously to the floor, his head hitting the floor with force that he is almost sure it leaves an indelible bump.

Erik is pretty sure what he feels now is inhuman. As he loops the lasso effortlessly around the man's neck, keeping the gun pressed to him, all he can think of is Christine. Rescuing her Vicomte, her foppish friend. Is this not the best for her? He feels the adrenaline pumping in his veins, and tells himself this is but something he should have done ages ago. The lasso tightens around Black's neck, and the man coughs, blood spattering over the floor. He struggles, the rope tightens itself. Raoul, splayed on the floor, looks up in fear.

There is no turning back. He will not care. Erik grins darkly, giving the final tug that will kill him. And Black chooses that moment to fight, sending the gun spinning out of Erik's hand, whipping off his mask. Enraged, Erik instantly pulls, the sheer force of the rope killing the man.

Not before Black manages to taunt him, taunt him for his deformity.

All he can see is anger, red anger.

Taking the gun, he shoots blindly, shooting until the body before him spasms even in death. Blood. Blood of a sinner will justify the means…Erik then proceeds to spin onto the Vicomte, the gun in…Nadir's face?

A cliffie? What? Me?

/runs to a Becca concert and sings I'm ALIVE with the crowd so everyone can't find me...

You didn't think I was gonna let Erik be all goody goody smooshy lovey dovey forever did you...Oh wait, you did? ;0

I'm sorry for my writing being so bad, I haven't been myself since the exams ended/started/two weeks before the exams. First, I started spazzing and spacing out, and my whole body ached. Then I kept calling myself the Devil's Child and began to act like Erik when he's pissed-see where my inspiration comes from? Then I started mindlessly playing guitar, piano, ukelele, clarinet...and listening to Mozart's Requiem on eternal replay, slowly composing my own Kyrie mass...turning into Leroux's Erik, and probably scaring my mum and parents into thinking that I was possessed "OTL I'm alive though lol.

0;-) Until next time~