Love Will Continue - Sequel to Phantom Child

10. Ten long years

Black hair, black formal jacket and cape with glittering elements. The same white mask and smart, golden eyes looking from beneath it. Erik stood in the middle of the room and watched Gustave talk to his mother, with greatest bafflement displayed on his face.

I didn't know anymore whether my heart was rushing or stopped completely. I was staring at Erik with one emotion in my eyes, that I would never expect I'd feel in the moment of our potential reunion - fear. Thrown into it unprepared, I was completely lost and didn't know what to do or think. After all those years of missing him, now I was scared to face him. For now though he wasn't noticing me at all.

"Mother please, I'm scared!
What a dream, an awful dream.
Someone strange and mad
Seizing me and drowning me!"

Gustave cried into Christine's shoulder, while she whispered softly:

"Shh Gustave, it's okay, darling."

The boy's sobs ceased, after having been comforted by his mother. Meanwhile Christine turned around and looked at Erik again. He really seemed surprised with little Gustave's existance, but didn't let it show completely. Only I knew, what he really thought. Christine sang:

"Come and meet a friend of mine."

Erik snapped back to reality.

"Welcome to my world, young friend!"

He sang and walked up to Gustave, but still failed to see me. I was watching his every single move, with my breath still almost non existant.

"Your world? Where are we?" Gustave inquired, curious and excited.

"We're in Phantasma, Little Vicomte!" Erik explained, using a mysterious, but appealing voice, like an illusionist in front of an audience, that I had never heard him use before. "On Coney Island! A world of fantasy, where illusion is emperor!" He got on one knee in front of Gustave to be face to face with the little boy.

"Tell me, where you'd like to go
Tell me what you want to see."

Christine was about to pull Erik away from her son, but he noticed her attempt out of the corner of his eye and,
still focused only on the boy in front of him, silenced her with a simple move of his hand:

"Madame, please, I insist."

Erik stood up. Before Christine responded, Gustave decided to speak for himself:

"Could you show me, if you please
All Phantasma's mysteries?
All that's strange and wild and dark"

"In the shadows of the park..." Erik finished for him, amazed with the young boy's hunger for thrill, that his unusual show had to offer.

"Yes" Gustave whispered.

All that they were saying barely got through to my head, as I was only focused on the fact that Erik was standing right in front of me, only a few steps of distance between us. I watched him smile widely and respond with a little chuckle:

"You shall see it all tomorrow. In fact..." here he made a pause "I, myself, will show you. I promise."

He was smiling, but it was a smile, behind which was hiding an idea. I knew it's nothing good in Erik's mind right now. Christine decided to intefere and walked over to Gustave, placing a hand on his shoulder and said:

"Go back to sleep now, Gustave. Go with Maya."

The sentence was like a shot straight through my heart. I felt like my head is on fire when, immediately, my eyes locked with Erik's. I must've been pale as a ghost, but my eyes were big like plates. He looked at me with wonder in his golden eyes. A surreptitous smirk crept through his face together with a strange gleam in his eyes, but I noticed it even so. Luckily for me, Gustave grabbed my hand and pulled me back to our room, so I made myself focus on him instead.