𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑷𝑯𝑨𝑵𝑻𝑶𝑴 𝑶𝑭 𝑩𝑳𝑶𝑶𝑫 (𝑯𝒂𝒏𝒏𝒊𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒎)

Chapter Four

The manner in which Will woke up the next morning was nothing short of nightmarish.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. He hadn't really woken up because he hadn't been able to sleep since his return to his dormitory. He'd spent the remaining hours until sunrise lying on his bed and staring at the ceiling in silence whilst his thoughts ran circles around him. There, he lingered on the crime he wasn't sure he'd stumbled upon or committed. He wasted away with each persisting memory of withering heat and scarlet blood over his skin.

Of course, that inevitably led Will to think of the Phantom's harsh touches and whispered devotions that left him with the urge to both fight and succumb to them without knowing which impulse would win out in the end…

He replayed the memory of it in his mind and recalled each sensation. Each fleeting thought and unplaceable feeling. Every reaction he'd felt in response… He still didn't know what to think of any of it. He was only sure of the shame he felt at the knowledge that he wasn't as opposed to it all as he should have been.

He thought until he could no more, and before he knew it, the lights were lit at each doorstep and the others awoke at last. Will wasn't sure how much time had passed before they were all getting ready to go to the canteen. He felt alienated. More so than he usually was.

The girls acted ordinarily just as they did every other early morning; playful and lively as though nothing was wrong. For them it still wasn't, but Will was anxious with the knowledge of everything that had occurred. He was sick with worry just as he had been from the moment he returned from his unruly encounter with the Opera ghost. Which was an encounter that Will wasn't entirely sure he'd even had, given the circumstances…

He was beginning to think he was going insane.

The Phantom's voice stayed with him long after it had left. Will was starting to suspect that it only existed in his mind, and he trembled at the thought of what that meant. Was he not innocent after all? …Were his hands rightfully stained?

He hoped that wasn't the case. But If he had indeed encountered the Phantom beyond his visions of that same night, he wasn't sure which was worse.

Sure, that meant he hadn't murdered Freddie Lounds in a state of delusion, but it also meant he'd given a merciless killer his mind and in turn been understood by it. He'd been seized by the voice of a man whose hands were stained red with incriminating blood and had keened at their touch regardless. Will didn't want to be known by someone so irredeemable. He didn't want to know what that might say about himself.

But as much as Will tried to push away the thought, he couldn't help but think of the tender words that had been voiced…

'I see you too, Will' the Phantom had said. And Will had found himself wanting. Prey to lustrous temptation, Will had wanted to believe it… So he forced himself to not.

He was continuously striken with the bitter reminder of the nature of the man that had spoken those words so clearly without so much as a hint of insincerity. Will wondered how he could be so knowingly naive, for he couldn't pull himself away from what he knew was a danger. He was drawn to it helplessly, to that voice that both threatened and adored….

He tried to shrug it off as best as he could and stood up to join the line with the rest of the girls in the corridors outside. Abigail quickly took her place next to him once she'd finished fixing her hair in front of the shared mirror in their dormitory. Will, in a world of his own, hardly acknowledged she was there until she spoke.

"You're wearing different clothes to the ones you left with last night"

Will's emotions felt as though they were a world away. He was numbed with complete exhaustion and yet he still managed to feel a pang of guilt in his chest upon registering her words. He grimaced at the knowledge that what Abigail believed to be due to his supposed encounter with Alana was truly because his clothes had been drenched in blood.