The Underground Music (Phantom of the Opera Fanfic)

Chapter 10: Of Sympathy and Pity

I looked around at the not-so-intricate cave walls. This place...this place was made to look like the Opera Garnier's Underground? But this is London...not Paris...

Suddenly a sense of nationalism swelled up within me.

Who does he think he is, making my homeland into his homeland?  Why must one need to colonize a place for his own?...oh, wait, that's ironic for me to say.  I mean, why must one need to make someone else's home look like his own home? Let alone, why must one need to make a new home resemble his old home? Isn't the point of moving to see new sights, live in new dwellings?

Frustration and slight territoriality was blurring my thoughts, and I was about to speak my mind to him...

But then I saw the look of pride in his figure. He was standing tall, looking triumphant, looking confident, and...happy with his accomplishment.

Something clogged my throat...no, it's clogging my chest...my chest feels tight.

It's pity.

No, no, I can't feel pity...father always tells me, 'do not do unto others what you wouldn't want to be done unto yourself'...I hate pity...no-one should ever give me any pity...so I would never give anyone any pity, either...

Then a voice in my head suggested, "what if pity isn't bad?"

Preposterous. All pity is bad. It...it shames, it patronizes, it deigns...

"But then...it gives sympathy." The voice countered.

Sympathy.

That's exactly what I'm feeling.

I pushed aside my thoughts and walked over to the wall, and slid my palm over its cold surface, feeling very specific bumps and fissures.

"Erik...is each and every bump and crack in these walls just like your Underground?" I asked.

He gave a proud chuckle. "More or less. Of course, as I carved out these walls and their designs, I relied mainly upon my recollection." He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice seemed slightly annoyed. "Oh, and I mustn't forget that that God forsaken 'earthquake' put new cracks into it. But that is of no matter."

I couldn't help but feel awe slip into my feelings. Wow...that must have taken a long time.

But my awe didn't have much time to exist on its own before confusion joined it.

I turned around to approach Erik, and directly faced him. "But Erik...doesn't it hurt you, to practically be back in the place of your..." I trailed off and looked at the ground, not knowing a non-offensive way to put my thought.

"...heartbreak?" He finished, his voice sounding meek. I looked back up to him in surprise.

"...I suppose so. Why?" I asserted.

"Because...it is home...it is all I've ever known..." He stopped, cleared his throat, picked up his posture, and continued more confidently. "I am the Phantom of the Opera. I was ruler over that beautiful place. Now that I've been exiled, I plan to resume my rule over it- even if just in my mind. As long as it is in my mind, then it is real...it is deceiving...and it is the Opera Garnier."

I stared at him. In my mind, I was shaking my head.

This isn't the way to live. Why live in a deception?

I should tell him my thoughts- but then again, one cannot convince anyone of a truth in just one second. So I decided to save my opinion for later.