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Christine felt the rogue bullet rip through her side, ripping through her flesh as the reality of the friendship she had once treasured ripped apart in front of her tear-hazed eyes.
Meg the unseen girl corrupted by the harsh reality of a painful existence, the girl who had once meant the world to her now held everything in her hands, hands that had stroked her hair on long tearful nights, hands that had held her own as they shared their childish hopes and dreams for the future.
Never had Christine thought that those would be the hands that killed her, that held her precious child over an unforgiving ocean, that grasped outward for the only man she had ever loved, Meg craved Erik's love not for her own desires but to take, to own, to be seen as an equal. To have risen above Christine, Meg’s jealousy made her blind to what she truly needed, her mother's dark desires twisting her once gentle mind.
Christine heard Erik call out her name as the hard damp ground met her failing body the cold spray of the angry sea below biting at her face as the fog enveloped her mind, she did not want to leave them, she finally had them for her own, she had tasted the bliss of Erik's lips against hers enveloping herself in the contentment of being entwined with the missing half of her soul only to feel the anguish of once again being forced asunder.
They had always been two halves of one song, the song was beautiful and yet full of darkness, but it was theirs, she just never realized their duet would end so soon, she had chosen to live in his darkness to linger in his elegant world of the night but dawn was rising and she knew that this time she would be the one to leave his endless love behind and drift into the garish light that called to her, he called out to her a broken man, drowning with nothing left to hold him afloat except her failing body he clung to it fear racking his body as he begged for her to stay, he had glimpsed heaven for a moment only to be dragged back into hell.
Their son cried out as she spoke their truth that he was the product of their love, more beloved to them than their music, darkness and sorrow crept into her mind as her body faded, dark crimson blood soaking into the rotten wood beneath her, the last mark other than the hidden one on Erik's soul that she would leave on this world before she parted.
She wondered as she drifted if she would wake to find herself in the arms of her papa his gentle violin serenading her into eternal sleep, as she breathed her last she whispered of her love for her Maestro, she should have said it so many times before, she had planned to tell him every day every moment since their shared kiss but now this one would have to do, she knew that he would fall apart without her she hoped that he would not follow her into oblivion but stay for the sake of their son.
Her body was cold now his gentle broken singing caressing her, all that mattered to her now was that he was here caring for her as he always had, her angel, her maestro guiding her from this world.
Christine awoke, unsure if she had been asleep mere moments or an eternity, there a little way off her father stood in the small woodland of her childhood home her beloved mother watched as he played his violin the music drawing her closer as she watched entranced, how she desperately wanted to run to him to fall into his arms as she had when she was a child, something stayed her and she held back, a noise behind her made her gaze up the track leading away from her home was a small boy curled up on the ground filthy and shaking as he cried she knew immediately who this boy was this sobbing child was her Erik, before he was an angel or a killer he was a broken child clambering for a slice of kindness.
She took one look back at her parents and made the decision to turn away from them despite her desire to have their comfort, the image of them faded as she made her way towards the sobbing child.
She was unsure of his age, perhaps no more than five small and starving, she knew what would calm him she sang a gentle lullaby one she had used to calm Gustave on stormy nights, the boy froze his sobbing lulling at the sound of her voice.
He raised his sack-covered head and Christine remembered his broken song all those years ago.
‘A mask my first unfeeling scrap of clothing’
She reached out a hand slowly careful not to scare him he sobbed as she gently removed the filthy bag from his head and smiled at the small twisted face covered in dirt and tears.
She wiped the sadness from his face her song coming to an end, and the boy looked up snuffling
'Are you an angel?'
She laughed a little at this question coming from him the same question she had once asked him, her the crying child all those years ago
' No child just a friend, why do you cry?'
The child sobbed again
' I asked my mother for just one thing a kiss for my birthday she screamed and called me a monster and made me wear that'
Christine’s heart broke for the small sad boy who would grow to be the tormented man she loved what cruelty he had known, she leaned down and kissed his twisted forehead
' She was wrong you are just a boy in need of love'
The child took her hand and smiled as the forest faded around them a summer ocean swirled into view, and the laughter of children rang out over the sound of the sea as a red scarf drifted past her and into the gentle waves, a young Raoul sprinting after it his golden hair glinting in the summer sun the spray of the sea shimmering as he jumped into the waves, oh how young they were now full of ideas for the world that they did not yet know, their parents laughing as they played free and happy, she sighed enjoying the happy sight before hearing a pained cry from further up the beach, dark clouds where forming in the distance and she turned her eyes away from the happy picture and towards the swirling storm, she followed the cliff path up to the bustle of dirty tents and carts, people shoved past her as she followed the broken cries.
She came to a small tent where people had crowded to jeer as a large drunken man relentlessly whipped at a tall slim figure in rags who stood before him the figures back facing the
audience as the whip broke the skin over and over again, screaming as the dirty leather met pale skin flecked with red.
She screamed at them to stop but no one heard her, no one except Erik he turned to face her, sad eyes gazing into hers as he stood strong against the onslaught, she silently held his gaze hoping to give him some strength, when the audience grew bored and the man stumbled off, Christine pulled her handkerchief out and yet again dried her lover’s bloodied tears wiping the grime from his face as he spoke.
' I remember you, the angel from my childhood returned to me, will you sing to me again?'
She smiled at him as she caressed his features.
‘of course, Erik’
he frowned then shrugged bound hands shaking as his head fell back face turning upwards as the man named the devil child raised his tortured visage to the heavens taking a rare moment of bliss under the grace of her voice.
His face still under her hands she brought him down to her and kissed his filthy forehead as she had before and like that time he faded from view a look of complete bliss on his features as the purgatory of the circus faded away.
A room that had haunted her since childhood came into view, she begged for anything but this knowing that once again she must walk away.
How could she walk from this, her father lay his breath rattling as his body failed him, his hands, once talented digits that flew over the strings of a violin clutched weakly at the thin blankets as he called for her to come to him, she fell to the ground her sobbing suddenly combined with the anguished calls of another.
He was waiting for her, he needed her again in some moment of torment one of many in his tortured life, she begged whatever entity controlled these visions not to make her choose, but the gods as they often do stayed silent, waiting for her choice.
Her father's dying calls faded from behind her as she moved away finding herself in the familiar tunnels of the opera house, each echoing step adding weight to the choices she had made to bring her to this place to bring her to him.
There he was huddled against the cold tunnels of their shared home, but her younger self wasn't here yet he would have to be alone in this darkness for some time longer, she padded towards him hearing her approach he looked up at her his face free from tears a coldness in his gaze that had not been present in the other visions but one she knew so well.
'Ah my angel still visits me, will such a vision still sing to this demon now it has the hands of a killer'
his voice cracked
' Will you still kiss my forehead knowing I am nothing more than a monster in the dark"
She took a tentative step towards him, this was the moment he became angry and hateful at a world that deserved his vengeance for the pain it caused him, she gazed at him warmly and cupped his face, he shivered in the rags of his former life. His twisted lips blue his pale skin like ice.
‘I am no angel and you are not a monster as I told that lonely boy so long ago you need only love to free you, follow me now follow my music through this darkness’
He sighed ‘Sing to me Angel, and I will follow’
She sang as she guided him through the darkness to where they kept the costumes knowing her way through the tunnels, as if by fate the suit she knew him by hung its ebony darkness standing out against the bright garish colours of the other costumes, It was not yet his, like all things he chose to grace with his touch he would make it his own, lift it with his artistry but it was here waiting.
' I think this was meant for you my Erik'
She turned to face him as he choked out
' As was this I think'
He held up a white mask to his face that had been sitting on a small table buried under fabric and paper.
She let her fingers glide gently over the familiar white of the mask.
'Very phantom-like my dear'
She could feel the image fading as he went to press the mask tightly to his face she lifted it gently
' Not before I give you your kiss'
This time she kissed him gently on his deformed cheek pulling away as he drifted from her grip. She knew what was coming next these moments of Erik's life were about to merge with her own and she saw moment after moment of her own life entwine with his, breaking when she saw him witness the moment on the roof, she could do nothing but run to him after the fight at the graveyard and each time she sang to him and kissed his head always turning away from the temptation of her memories following to wherever he waited, real or a figment she knew that she would always choose him, if she was to spend eternity comforting him in some small way then that was heaven enough for her.
They got to the moment where he sat crying and broken in his home, and she could bear it no longer the sound of the mob approached and he held the ring in shaking fingers as she got closer he looked up at her once again and she fell to the ground under his gaze landing on her knees in front of him cursing herself for all the pain she had caused him and he looked at her curiously
' Angel? Your face has never been clear to me before but now you take on the form of my beloved Christine, have you come just to torment me leave me in this hell angel for I need no more torment than that of my mind'
She gently wiped the tears from his face as he shook,
' She left me angel, she chose the boy I gave her everything and she threw it away, he could never love her as I do he would never kill for her, die for her as I would, you said love would fix this monster but I fear it has only broken my soul'
Christine held him in her arms
' she is young, afraid of the truth in her heart, she loves you and she will return to you Erik she will always find you in the darkness’
She pulled him up as he shook in her arms staring at her as if he were begging her to be real to be the Christine who just pressed the ring back into his frozen hands.
‘Now come, I will sing for you and we will flee this place, I... she still needs you do not give up’
She sang to him and they weaved their way out of the tunnels the vision began to fade and she turned to grab him by his sodden shirt
‘I love you, and I will always choose you’
‘How I wish this were real' He whispered as she kissed him on the lips relishing in the feel of him, this one last moment with him as she felt herself fade away.
He vanished from her grip and she was left alone in the darkness a voice heavenly and thunderous called out to her
‘You have made your choice, you chose your Maestro and you will be rewarded"
She called out into the endless darkness ‘Please just let him, let Erik and my son live happy lives they deserve everything I can no longer give them’
The voice replied the darkness shaking around her ‘We gifted the world a soul pure and musical but the world could not accept him, only you could see the beauty in our gift and for that, we reward you with a second chance so awaken Christine and choose wisely as you have before’
She cried out to the voice ‘Thank you, Angels, Gods or whatever you may be, thank you I will treasure him as I should always have treasured him, as the world should have treasured him, he will be loved like no other’
The darkness rumbled and she found herself in his candle-lit rooms under Phantasia a vision no longer she heard him singing the gentle lullaby she had sung when he was that small boy crying in the dirt, she followed the sound as she always would and found him cradling a sleeping Gustave trying to hold in the tears as he rocked their son to sleep.
She joined in as he sang and he froze shaking as he slipped out from under Gustave's sleeping form and ran towards her falling at her feet and clutching the hem of her dress.
'Tell me I have not gone, mad tell me that the heavens have sent you back to me, promise me I won't awaken alone again'
She flung herself down into his arms
' Never Erik you will never be alone again'
He cradled her both grasping tightly to the other afraid of their beloved vanishing from their fingers as they finally came together, lips meeting in a frenzied symphony of emotion, he clung onto her as if she were a dream and she held him just as tightly back.
He cried out into her curls 'Vision or ghost I find that I care not if I have gone mad for the bliss of holding you in my arms is worth losing my mind, what need did I have for such things when you were gone from my embrace, my heart stopped beating when yours did, my soul withered and faded away the moment you left this earth, you where the only thing that kept me loyal to this torturous existence perhaps I am dead and you are the angel come to take me away I shall not deny you my darling my angel of darkness, I could never deny you I would happily embrace death if it came by your gentle hand'
She looked up and held his face between shaking palms 'I am not dead, I am alive again for you as you are more than just the monster you see yourself as you are loved by fate and it has designed to return me to your arms for the is no heaven for me without you in it, I have proven myself worthy to share your love and now we can spend our lives together'
He asked her how such a thing was possible never taking his gaze off her for one moment holding her tightly against his beating chest she told him of the test she had taken to prove her worthy of him, he scoffed at the idea of such a thing until the moments she began to tell him of what she had seen and he gasped 'The angel it was you?'
'What do you mean dear it was all just a vision to test me to make sure I was worthy of returning to your embrace'
He shook his head his golden eyes glowing
' No it is insanity I know but since I was a child I had dreams of an angel made of nothing more than light and beautiful music, the angel would visit me and guide me, it gave me my first moment of kindness, my first gentle touch, it gave me my name, my very appearance it made me the person I am today, it kept me alive a single light in moments of darkness, I never saw who it was except for the last time where it looked just as you do now I thought it was a figment of my desperate mind, I based this dress of the vision from that night always thinking it was no more than a dream a ghost in the mind of a broken man but all this time it was you, we have been bound together all this time’
She clung to him joy washing over her that she had been there for him in those moments more than just the dreams of a dying mind but real.
‘You must tell me more, about how this came to be it would be unbelievable if not for the presence of you here in my arms’
She told him of the voice that they had called him a gift, that they were angered that the gentle musical soul they bestowed on humanity was treated so villainously for nothing more than being different.
He cried as he heard this 'I thought I was a beast crawled up from hell I thought that I had come from beneath the grave my twisted fingers pushing up dirt as a monster made to torment crawled free of the earth but now you say that I was a gift that my music means something it is all too much to comprehend.’
Getting a chill at the idea of Erik having to crawl from the grave she begged him 'Let us not dwell on the meaning of Fate and Angels let us be people, flesh and blood once again let us be together as we were always meant to be, let me be your wife, let me spend each moment with you loved and taking care of our son, let me make you a father again say we can sing together once more.’
He held her tightly lifting her and taking her into his darkened room before pulling a ring from under his pillow and slipping it on her finger,
"Gods Christine yes I will give you it all I am a slave to your desires"
She shushed him "No Erik you are gifted by fate you are a slave to no one, we will be equals in life and death and I will choose you in this life and the next"
They spent the night reveling in each other's touch letting their bodies sing an ancient duet as they came together finally at peace, nothing in the way of their love at last allowed to bask in the music of the night.
Morning would come and she ached to see her son again but for now, they held each other too afraid to sleep for fear this was a dream, the night moonless and dark as it was that time before, their passions unaffected by time and circumstance the fire of their love burning brighter than it ever had knowing that they had a love that defies logic, defies even death.
She gazed into his golden eyes as they whispered words of love bodies pressed against each other as the ring glimmered under the warm candlelight far above fate basked in its choices for what beauty had become of its creatures of the night.