Inside My Mind: The Phantom of the Opera as told by Miss Christine Daae

Chapter 8: Memories

I can hear what sounds like a music box playing close to my head. My eyes are heavy, but I open them slowly. It takes me a while to realize where I am. His home, his lair, his abode, I don't know what to call it at this point. Looking to my left, I see a music box. It's a monkey, sitting on a barrel organ. It is dressed in Persian robes and playing gold symbols. How peculiar! I sit up slowly, and start trying to see if I can place the events of the night before.  I sing, "I remember there was mist, swirling mist upon a vast, glassy lake."

I sit up taller and look around. "There were candles all around, and on the lake there was a boat". Looking down, I realize that the boat had become what I fell asleep on, how interesting. "And in the boat, there was a man". I look to my left and recognize the man sitting at the organ as the same one who took me from my dressing room last night. He is dressed in some ornate jacket and fez. I stand up and walk over to him, but he is so immersed in his writing that he doesn't notice me.

"Who was that shape in the shadows?" I approach him and try to take the mask off his face as I continue singing "Whose is that face in the mask?" After three tries, I finally succeed and immediately see the grotesque, horrifying, deformity that is the entire right side of his face. He screams, sending me running down the stairs of the organ. He follows me, screaming with rage, his right hand covering the right side of his face. "DAMN YOU, YOU LITTLE PRYING PANDORA, YOU LITTLE DEMON!" He grabs my arm and spins me so I can get a full view of his entire face, asking "IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED TO SEE?"

He throws me down on the ground, my hand losing grip on the mask, and runs away, his hand still covering the deformed half of his face. "CURSE YOU, YOU LITTLE LYING DELILAH, YOU LITTLE VIIXEN". He comes up to me, as I cower on the floor, and points his finger at me "NOW YOU CANNOT EVER BE FREE!" What is that supposed to mean? What have I done? Dropping to his knees, his hand still covering his face, he says, with a significant amount of pain in his voice, "Damn you, curse you". He is facing me, so I turn to face him, the mask a few inches behind me. I start trembling, my heart is pounding.

He explains to me what I have just seen, but with sadness and begging for compassion eminent in his voice. "Stranger than you dreamt it, can you even dare to look? Or bare to think of me, this lonesome gargoyle who burns in hell but secretly yearns for heaven secretly, secretly. But, Christine" He is down on his chest now, pulling himself towards me with his left arm, his right hand still covering his face. "Fear, can turn to love. You'll learn to see, to find the man, behind the monster, this repulsive carcass". He pulls his hand off his face for a second and I shrink back in fear. He realizes I'm paralyzed with fear and covers it again with his hand. "Who seems a beast, but secretly dreams of beauty, secretly, secretly". He looks at me, with a sense of pleading in his eyes and says "Oh Christine, why?"

I realize now that the mask is a significant part of how he lives his life. I turn my face away from him, reach down and pick up the mask. My hand shaking, I hold it out to him and he takes it in his left hand, an image I will never forget. He stands up, turns his back to me, and slips the mask back on. He rubs his hair into place before turning to me. He grabs my arm, pulls me off the ground saying angrily "Come, we must return. Those two fools who run MY theatre will be missing you." He leads me back through the catacombs and as we approach my dressing room, I can hear Buquet talking to the dancers. He seems to be mocking the Phantom. The Phantom drops me off in my dressing room and as he vanishes through the mirror once more, I can hear him laughing with an evil tone.

I dress for bed, before collapsing and falling into a deep slumber.