Love Will Continue - Sequel to Phantom Child

3. I miss him, you know?

Yes, you can kill me for the amount of angst that you are going to endure because of me... and for my poor lyricist skills, that are apparent below... and for getting turned up because the song above, which this time is kinda related to the chapter... (But Hadley Fraser😃)

After an evening like this, there was only one place in the entire world that I could go ease my mind in. As far away as it was, I was determined to go there, no matter the odds. At this time of year the nights were cold and humid, but none of this affected my choice of destination.

As I reached the stairs of the old and ruined Opera Populaire, my heart began to race faster and I sped up in fear of being seen or followed. I ran into the building and stopped in the lobby to have a brief look around, which I hadn't done the last time I was here and never had since that memorable night.

The floor was covered in dust and pieces of fallen scaffoldings, burned to charcoal. Lamps were broken into smithereens, not having given light for over a decade, as the only living beings within these walls were spiders and mice. The sad memory, that there was to it, made the whole image almost black and white, like in the old pictures, showing forgotten days of former glory.

The sight of the place being so empty and dark instantly brought to my mind a memory of the masquerade night. One minute the whole room was filled with music and laughs, everything shining with it's own light. And the other - faces overtaken by horror and people running for their lives, leading up to leaving this place in a very similar state to the one I was seeing it in now.

I sighed as this realization came to me. But then a real aim of why I came here returned to my head. I quickly ran up to the trapdoor wall and pushed it slightly, making it open for me like a door. I slipped into the darkness and closed the gate behind me.

This time the hallways were really pitch black. Not a single torch was left burning and giving light. After all, for whom could they have been shining? Fortunately, one of the objects, that I'd never leave the house without, was a box of matches. Blindly, my hand quickly found an old lantern and within seconds I had my light.

I started a walk down the halls with nothing else, but it's emptiness to fear. I didn't have to worry that something or someone was creeping in the dark, because I knew that no one could possibly be here. And that scared me the most. I was recalling how many times I had been walking here, careful not to fall straight into the Phantom's hands, but now that the thrill was gone, it felt even worse.

Every corner was exactly as I had remembered, and it was no problem for me to quickly reach the secret passage, that led straight to the fifth cellar, a place where I had spent the best half a year of my life. My heart felt like it was about to jump out of my chest and make a run for it's freedom, while I was approaching the place.

I stopped at the massive wooden door. Something inside me was keeping me from opening them and walking in. I knew what I was about to see; empty and quiet, the Phantom's lair. I really hoped to walk in and see Erik at his pipe organ, writing a note to the managers, preparing food. Even seeing him broken down in tears on the floor would be better than what I knew I'd see.

Finally after a lot of emotional research and convincing myself, I pushed the door only to be met with the same silence that I would many times find relieving; but not today. It was even darker than I had been expecting. The place had been abandoned and forgotten long ago and the candles were no longer setting its mood. I put my matches to use again and lit couple of them just to make it at least a bit less cold and dismal.

I walked over to the hollow, where once Erik's bed used to stand. Now it was just an empty space, with a small pile of dirt, covering the buried coffin and a poor gravestone towering above it. On the stone there were engraved a few simple words, that I had grown to hate so much: