My Angel of Music

Damn You

"My Christine."  I felt a finger gently caress my cheek.  I tried to flutter my eyes open but they seemed like they were glued shut.  I felt Erik's presence beside me, so with great effort I lifted my hand to show I was awake.  He grasped my hand and leaned in closer to my face.  "Christine?"  He whispered.  I moaned and squeezed his hand.  There were footsteps coming into the room and a cough was heard.  "Monsieur, she only has a fever.  The nurse says there is no need to call the doctor."  Meg's voice rang out.  I heard Erik mumble a "Fine."  Then the darkness overcame me once more.

My eyes fluttered open and I groggily wiped away a strand of hair from my face.  I was in a red bed with black lace curtains surrounding me.  My eyes flashed with confusion as I looked for an exit.  Then memories of the previous night flooded back into my mind.  I sat up and pulled a rope, raising the black curtains.  I stood and began walking towards the sound of a piano.  "I remember there was mist.  Swirling mist upon a vast, glassy lake.  There were candles all around and on the lake there was a boat."  I sang softly to myself.  

I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to face it.  There, pouring over his music, was my Angel.  The man who I was now forever chained to.  I slowly began walking towards him with my head cocked in curiosity.  "Who was that shape in the shadows?  Who's was the face in the mask?"  The Phantom didn't notice me for he was enveloped in his music.  I reached him and gently placed a hand on his cheek.  His eyes shut in pleasure and for a moment everything was perfect.  But, I wanted to see the man who captured not only my heart, but my soul.  I wanted to know him in every way possible.  So I ripped the white mask off of his face.  At first I just saw a lump of deformed, twisted flesh.  It surprised and disturbed me, I will admit.  But that's not what made me cry out in fear.

The Phantom stood up abrubtly and pushed me to the ground roughly.  My body met the stone floor, sending signals of pain up my side.  I cried out and tears immediatley formed in my eyes.  "Damn you!  You little prying pandora!  You little demon.  This is what you wanted to see?"  He ripped a curtain from off a mirror and displayed his twisted flesh.  I flinched away from it in fear.  "Curse you!  You little lying Delilah.  Now you cannot ever be free!  Damn you, curse you."  He pushed a glass vase over in anger.  Then, as quickly as it came, his anger diminshed.  He sank to the ground, tears in his eyes.  

"Stranger than you dreamt it, can you even dare to look?  Or bare to think of me, this loathsome gargoyle, who burns in hell.  But secretly yearns for heaven, secretly, secretly.  Oh, Christine."  He sang.  The broken Angel looked at me with such despair in his eyes, I had to look away.  He started to crawl towards me like a wounded animal.  My first instinct was to scoot away, but I fought against it and held my ground.  "Fear can turn to love.  You'll learn to seek to find the man behind the monster.  This repulsive carcass that seems a beast, but secretly dreams of beauty.  Secretly.  Oh, Christine."  He reached a hand out to me, as if I was a millon miles away.  

Tears streamed down my cheeks in pain and pity.  My side ached, but I managed to grab the white mask that laid on the floor next to me and hesitantly reach it out to the Phantom.  He looked at it and quickly pulled it from my trembling hand.  His face hardened and he wiped a stray tear from his cheek.  "Come, we must return. Those two fools who run my theater will be missing you."  He snapped.  I flinched away fro his extended hand, but eventually took it.  He dragged me to the gandola, even though I had no intention of leaving.  

"I want to stay."  I whispered as he pushed me into the boat.  "What?"  He turned to face me with a look of confusion written clearly on his face.  "I want to stay."  I repeated.  His eyebrows knitted together.  "Why?"  He asked.  I shrugged.  "I don't want to go back."  was the only answer I could come up with that didn't make me look like a desperate fool.  He shook his head.  "You must return."  He muttered.  I bowed my head and curled into the back of the boat.