Mirrors

Hope

A/N: SECOND TO LAST CHAPTER!!!!!!

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I didn't know what to do, where to go.

            The fire eventually stopped, leaving the opera house half crumbled and smoking in the middle of Paris like a burnt candlewick.

            They eventually took away the bodies to be claimed by family and buried. This included Marie.

            It was like everything around me slowed in that moment. I tried to wake her, I really did, but nothing seemed to work. She wouldn't wake up.

            The nurses and firemen carried her limp body away from the curb that her head rested on like a pillow.

            The sobs choked out of me, like my stomach was leaping to force them out from my throat.

            I sat alone on that dirty pile of snow, hoping. I had no one. Marie was gone, and Erik hadn't shown up.

            I was informed that there was a shelter near by that the dancers and employees of the opera house that had no family stayed. Perhaps I would stay there until I could find transport to Bordeaux to stay with my mother and sister once again. It was the last thing I wanted to do, but where else would I go? Sure, my mother would accept me into her home with open arms, but how could I face them? I was supposed to move to Paris to become a success, not a homeless maid.

            I sighed, and started to slowly stand up, my bones aching and screaming at me to stop.

            The nurses had wrapped more limbs with bandages, and even secured one to the side of my forehead. The external pain hardly compared to what I could feel inside at that moment.

            I slowly walked to where everything changed: where Marie was. It seemed just like any other curb. People walked over it, ignored it, and sat on it. It didn't matter to them. They didn't know that Marie had died.

            Letting out a groan of pain, I started to carefully sit down on the pavement, deciding it was a better place to sit rather than the bench that was a few feet away.

            I closed my eyes, letting the tears flow freely down my pink face.

            It was getting colder. I should have just gone to the shelter where there would have been a warm fire. The other maids were probably looking for Marie and I there. I would have to tell them. I don't know how many people died from the explosion. Perhaps I would be the only one left.

            I shook the morbid thought from my mind, and opened my eyes.

            Something quite curious caught my attention as I looked at the pavement.

            Trapped under my shoe, was a cream colored piece of parchment. Not a large piece, no. It was just a tiny selection from the paper it came from. Like it was torn.

            I quickly remembered back to when Marie was ripping that piece of parchment apart. She had said it was just sheet music from Don Juan, but did I really believe her? I mean, after all, she had said it too fast.  

            I quickly retrieved the piece of parchment from under my shoe and unfolded its tiny corners to reveal one word. One name.

            "Isabelle." I read it out loud.

            Erik had been there. He must have come up at least momentarily to deliver the letter. Marie must have seen it and gotten upset. Who else would have made Marie angry by writing something addressed to me?

            I took that tiny piece of hope and shoved it in the burnt pocket of my skirt.

            Erik would be there. I had to hold on to that.

            So, I began to wait...

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            I eventually went to the shelter, but only when I didn't think I could stand the cold anymore, and only when I thought my eyes were about to close. I slept there only for a few hours, and then awoke early the next morning to go back to the opera house, and to sit in the exact same place as before.

            I had told the other maids of Marie's death. We cried together, and then laughed together once we shared our memories.

            Marie was like a mother to me, and a sister to them. Her absence would be greatly missed, but we all knew that if she became a ghost in the after life, she would find a way to pinch our ears and yell at us for mourning over her death, and not doing something productive.

            I spent the day at the sides of the opera house, hoping for some sort of sign of Erik. I refused to believe that he had died. It was impossible. Marie had died, so he couldn't as well.

            I tried opening the secret door that I had escaped from, but as soon as I opened it, I was only greeted with a large pillar of wood, which must have fallen from the floor above it.

            Just to be sure that Erik wasn't waiting for me somewhere else, I walked around the entire opera house twice.

            A few of the maids eventually came and sat with me for a while. We talked and ate the bread and cheese that they brought with them. Then, we sat in silence for a while, each of us thinking about different things.

            I wanted to blame Erik for Marie's death. It was technically his fault, right?

            I shook the idea from my head. Marie died from an unexpected explosion. Surly, Erik didn't specifically plan for Marie to die?

            The three maids eventually left, leaving me alone to my thoughts. I wanted to cry, but I promised myself that I wouldn't 

A/N: SORRY FOR THE PAST FEW CHAPTERS BEING SO MORBID WOW OKAY WELL GUYS I REALLY HOPE YOU'VE ENJOYED THIS STORY IT'S ALMOST OVER BUT I HOPE THAT I HAVE MET WITH YOUR EXPECTATIONS, AND I HOPE YOU'VE ENJOYED MIRRORS. DON'T FORGET TO REVIEW

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THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH AND FOR THE LAST TIME THAT I WILL BE ABLE TO SAY THIS IN THIS STORY, I WILL SEE YOU ALL IN THE NEXT AND FINAL CHAPTER OF MIRRORS!!!