The Phantom Ascending |✔| [Phantom of the Opera Fanfiction]

A Masked Visitor

Someone was inside my home.

I had traps set for such an occasion, just like they were set once in the Opera. This time, however, there was something about the memory of Christine's kiss that stopped me from making them deadly.

Her kiss was the purest and warmest thing I've ever experienced, and I could feel its fragile light still tingling gently deep inside my soul. I felt that any new misdeeds would make me unworthy of that light, that they would vanquish it.

I still sometimes imagined talking to Christine, and sang halves of our old duets. For one wretched moment I imagined it was her, here, inexplicably coming to me with a change of heart.

I donned a mask, hid in the shadows and observed.

It was a... Damnation! In what must have been a mockery sent to me by the Fates, the woman downstairs was like a mirror reflection of me, her features covered with a similar mask. She was lean and wore male clothing. Her long black hair was braided and danced around her whenever she would jump. There was something catlike in her movements.

Swiftly and silently I kept moving from one shadow to another, watching her evade my traps with the skills of a supernatural warrior. She even laughed once. Playfully she climbed upstairs, taking her time, reveling in my traps as if they were a delight, a lovely game to play.

The sight of her filled me with shame and fury. Was she an apparition? A phantom to cut down the phantom?

I readied my sword and prepared for her arrival.

Forgive me, Christine, but I will have to stain my soul once more.