Sweet Intoxication

Chapter One

She was gone. She had chosen beauty and youth rather than the genius of an angel. I was going to have to accept this. Still, there was such an immense pain where it felt as though she had torn my heart right from my chest. "Christine," I moaned into the deafening silence that had befallen my now empty home. This was not how things were supposed to end, I told myself in pitiful attempts at comfort. As I sat in my workroom, holding my head in my bony hands, I cursed my hideous body and the god who bestowed such an awful thing upon me. If only I could have been handsome, like her lover, Raoul. Perhaps then she would've stayed.

Don't fool yourself, Erik. Your soul is just as hideous as the rest of you. That's the true reason she left. Knowing my conscience was right made my despair boil away into rage. With a large sweeping motion, I threw everything from my desk as I stood. I cursed Christine for abandoning me, and her lover for convincing her to go. The palms of my hands itched with the urge to kill someone. Preferably, her precious vicomte. Pacing through the rooms in my home, I tried to think of what I was to do now. I couldn't quite kill Raoul, Christine would never forgive me for that, but perhaps that obnoxious daroga that lead him into my home in the first place. You've already brought plenty of attention to yourself with the troubles with management and they're undoubtedly going to eventually find Raoul's brother dead. In and of itself, that was entirely too much attention being brought to my home.

It was then that I had quite decided there was no longer a purpose for me and it was time I left this hateful and cruel world. After all, there was no one who wanted me alive at this point, and Christine was gone forever. To go about this death, I simply laid in my coffin, with the veil she was to wear at our wedding clutched to my chest and the plain gold wedding band I had given her what felt like an eternity ago upon my little finger. The human body is such a fragile apparatus. All I had left to do was lay here and eventually I would succumb to the open arms of death himself.

I'm not sure of how long I was in this practically comatose state, but I suddenly heard loud knocking, which I assumed came from my front door. Deciding my mind was simply beginning to deteriorate, I ignored it. Seeing as my only brilliant attribute was now failing me, there truly was no use of me living.

"Erik, are you there?" The voice's Persian accent pointed to the fact that I was imagining that the old daroga was here. I could have at least imagined Christine's voice, which might have at least brought me some comfort before I died, I sighed inside my head. Ignoring the daroga's voice, I laid completely still, refusing to let my own mind trick me out of death "Erik, are you still alive in there?" Usually I could shut out these things if I wanted to. I suppose my mind's more deteriorated than I thought. "I've come to see if I need to bury you." The daroga's voice called out, knocking once again. Why couldn't I make him go away? Normally I could shut out delusions like this.

I heard a click, or at least imagined that I did, in the main room of my home. Still, I did not stir. "Erik?" The daroga's voice sounded closer. I don't believe the real daroga would make it into my home so easily. He only struggled for a couple of hours to find the springs for my door. I heard footsteps in my home and the daroga's voice calling out into each of the rooms in my house. The door to my own room opened, and a small gasp came from the direction of my doorway. "Erik..." There was a hint of disbelief in the daroga's voice, and I heard his footsteps draw nearer to where I lay. "Poor Erik. The sultan of Persia couldn't even put your eyes out and now it is love that has done the deed." The remorse in his voice was all too fake for me. The daroga had wanted me dead as well, why on earth would he pity a monster like myself?

Suddenly, I felt a tug at the veil that was clutched tightly in my bony fingers. My eyes opened immediately, which apparently shocked the daroga because he sprung back, out of my sight. "Erik! You're alive!" He gasped. "I couldn't even see you breathing," he commented, coming closer once again.

I must have been in that state for quite some time, seeing as it took quite a bit of effort to simply speak. "Daroga? Wha- how long?" I said in a raspy voice, still unable to actually move my body. "So I'm not imagining you?"

"It's been a week since..." he trailed off, knowing how much the tragedy had affected me. "Were you really planning to simply die?" He asked, changing the subject. That's none of your business, I wanted to snap, but I had not the energy.

"Yes, daroga," I stated simply. "This world has no use for an angel of music without his pupil or an opera ghost that no longer haunts," my voice sounded like a whisper due to it's inactivity and I rather missed the rich, smooth sound it used to have.

I was only able to move my head enough to see that the daroga had squatted next to me. "You know, you could move away from here," he suggested in his dry tone. "Go somewhere far away and at least astonish some people with your talents there."

It was a good idea, I had to admit to myself. Not only would I get away from the tragic memories of what had happened in the opera house, but I could show off. But then I remembered the hatred of mankind and the cruelty I'd undergone before I made it to the opera house. "No, daroga. I couldn't do that," I said under my breath. "Not only am I in no condition to leave, but the outside world is not a safe place for a monster such as me," I wanted to curl up on my bed and sulk in my own misery. "Leave me alone to finish dying, daroga," I sighed pathetically.

"I know you don't want that, Erik. You're like a child, in that way. You know you love to show off your genius, so why not do it for the short time you have left?" The old daroga had a point, but I was not about to admit that to him. I stayed silent for a moment, actually considering his idea.

"I'm too weak, daroga... I cannot go back out there," I breathed, remembering the reality of my sad life and not wanting it to repeat itself. I heard the daroga say something, but I couldn't quite make it out, because everything went blurry for a moment and I slipped out of consciousness.