Forget All You Know

Upon awaking.

Erik woke slowly, foggily. Something was very wrong...

The graveyard...the voice...Christine...

He sat bolt upright, instinctively cowering from the light of the window though it was dimmed by thick velvet curtains. In glancing around him, he found more questions, and no answers.

He appeared to be sitting up in a richly made four-poster bed, dressed in black and red silks to match the themes of the rest of the small apartment. There was an arched doorway leading from the sleeping chamber to the main room, which was just as darkly beautiful, and contained a sofa, an organ, and easel with a half-finished painting of what was perhaps going to be a Parisian skyline. By the door was a large ornate mirror, flanked on the other side by a coat rack bearing a long-tailed black coat and a tall hat to match.

Glancing down at himself through his hand, Erik was amazed to find that he was clad in black silk sleeping clothes in the English style, monogrammed EJ over the chest pocket.

Something else was wrong...something was very wrong...

His vision. On his right side.

He could see.

Disbelieving, Erik lifted a hand to his face, moving very slowly and gingerly. His finger tips barely touched his cheek.

Sucking in a sharp breath, he leapt from the bed, heart pounding against his ribs as he bounded toward the mirror. He pulled up short, staring at the ground and panting, one hand still on his face, covering the right side. Steadying himself as well as he could, he closed his eyes and lifted his head so that he knew he was facing the mirror head on. He took a deep breath, then another, and slowly opened his eyes, daring to look.

Before him stood a young man, perhaps in his twenties, with skin as pale as snow lying flawlessly across a thin, handsome face. His nose was small but of a Roman nature, and his cheeks were high and fine. Dark hair fell in a frame to his shoulders, raven in the morning glow. Bright golden eyes widened in shock.

Erik sank slowly to the floor before the mirror, unable to take his eyes off of the reflection and perhaps not fully aware that he had sunk. His hands trailed over the pale skin of his face, then touched the mirror as if to discover some trick. But he found none. His voice slowly returned to him.

"Not possible...no, impossible, I...I'm dreaming, I..."

He looked around himself, seeming to realize that he'd fallen to the floor, but it didn't seem to bother him. Instead he looked about in confused awe.

"But this...these are my apartments, then..." He grabbed at the pocket of his pajamas and ran his fingers over the initials. "EJ...Erik...but the last name...I have none..." His eyes scanned over to the window. "But where...?"

The sounds of a rehearsal in progress below him answered that. He was home, the Opera Populaire, but in the upper floors, above the stage. It was impossible because his theater held no upper-floor apartments, but then...perhaps he was no longer in his theater, but a facsimile, in a strange world where he...

He was not a monster here.