Only Erik

Requiem

"Phantom," Christine said starkly as she wrung her hands in distress.

There was no hope left within her hardened heart.

Her innocence and passion for everything she had once valued had fallen deep beneath the waters of the lake house.

Hope, she had given up long ago, but perhaps now was simply a chance for reconciliation.

He remained in stationary, crouched on the floor holding tightly to a veil that covered not only his trembling hands but all those masked hopes of a life he had conjured.

"Angel." she said bitterly as she drew nearer, "Look at me."

No response.

"Erik."

Here he turns, looking up with those two pale pieces of greenish ice. Alien eyes that pierce the soul and turn it to a cold blazing fire of blue.

She breathed heavily, the smell of salt smoke and gun powder still fresh in the air.

"You are a dangerous man." she said, her body trembling with rage.

His eyes overlooked her delicate figure, she was like a rose.

Easily crushed, easily wilted.

But in her, there was a power, one he had not seen before. A powerful anger against the world.

One that perhaps even rivalled his own.

He understood: He had taken her freedom, her dignity, her voice.

"You have killed more than these," she chided, "More than mere men with your hate. You have killed my soul. My innocence."

"She is a good girl," The pitiful creature moaned, "She has kept her promise. Now I have died and she has come to bury me as she said. I did not think I could love her more, how wrong!"

Christine gritted her teeth as her heart tore apart inwardly.

She bit her inner lip, taking the veil from him and setting it aside on the piano.

"You do not deserve my pity," she told him with a stark glance toward his twisted face. "And yet I give it to you. How is that so?"

"Dargo has left me, all the old familiar faces are gone. Why do you torment me?" he murmured almost in hysterics.

"Do you not yet understand?" Christine laughed sadly kneeling down beside him. "I can not kill a monster...no more than I could kill a man. And-I-I do not think you a monster Erik-"

Here she placed a tender hand on his shoulder and he shuddered at her touch.

He felt the warmth, real and gentle in her hand. Saw the rising and falling off her shoulders as she breathed.

There was that marking of youthful vigor that flowed through her veins, a heart, he saw, that beat in her chest.

He did not think it could be so, had he died?

As she had done before, she took closely to his side, her eyes showing inward calm as she looked to his mangled flesh.

"You love the young man," Erik moaned clutching his chest, "Go with him. You can not love me."

"I do not," she stated coarse as she took a nervous hand and put it to his cheek. Her tears had dried but he flowed steadily, wetting the soft skin of her fingers. She savored those tears, tears that she knew had long been repressed and withheld for the sake of her sanity.  "I will not."

"But Erik," She sighed heavily, turning her head to the small light the cracked through the walls. The light that led her to Raoul, to her life and love.

"Erik I must try to love you; to save your soul."

He turned to her, face contorted with shock.

"Erik you mustn't die," she said in almost a whisper, "I cannont be the one who brought this fate unto you."

"You will- stay?"

Christine closed her eyes, tormented by her choice, "Yes."

Erik sobbed aloud and Christine herself could not retain her tears in the presence of that man who, with shoulders shaking and hands clenched to his heart, was moaning with pain and love by turns.

She took Erik by the hand, helping him to his chair, looking for brandy or whiskey, anything to sustain him.

All along, four hallowed words churning horrors in her stomach.

What have I done?