Re-Uploading to fix some typos (oops, I'm dumb) and to correct my Swedish. Everything else is exactly the same, I swear.

Thank you so much to anonymous reviewer that chose to call herself "A Swede." I very much appreciate the correction! The more accurate my stories are, the better!

This is creepy. Ye be warned.

Lilla gumman = swedish for "Little Girl." Directly translated this means "little old lady", but it is used as "little girl", "little darling/dear/sweetheart" ect...a real Swedish term of endearment, that a father might actually use for his daughter. (Credit to A Swede that translation/explanation!)

Erik sighed sadly. She was screaming again.

He normally shrugged it off and continued his sleep, knowing that she'd forget every minute of it come morning. But this time there was a strange thud accompanying her screams, and he was all too certain he knew what she was trying to do. He sprang up out of his coffin and dashed across the house to his beloved's room. He threw open the door, and of course there she was, slamming her head against the wall as she'd attempted to do all those days ago. Was it days? Or was it weeks, months, years…?

"Christine!" he cried, crossing the room. "Stop! Please, love, I beg you!"

She did not hear him at all it seemed, and she continued her horrid shrieking as she continued to slam her face to the wall. He abruptly seized her around the waist and dragged her away from the wall. She let out an entirely new scream, one of hellish rage instead of miserable anguish. She fought like a hellcat in his arms, kicking and flailing like a madwoman.

"Murderer! Demon! Raoul, Raoul! My dear Raoul!"

It was the same as every night.

He dragged her out of her bedroom and tied her to a dining room chair so that she could not hurt herself with anything.

"Bastard!" she shrieked, biting into his dead flesh as he tied her up. Her sharp bites felt like the mere nibbles of the fish in the lake. He had felt it all before.

"You cannot keep me here forever!" she wailed, pointlessly struggling against her restraints. "I will break loose, and I will stab myself with the kitchen knives, over and over again until you drown in my blood! I will break into the torture chamber and I will hang myself! I will drown myself in the tub! You cannot keep me here!"

Erik sighed sadly as he stirred the powder into the water that would put her back to sleep. This was most certainly one of her bad nights. Yes she'd screamed and wailed in agony every night, but she'd never tried suicide, and she'd most certainly never spoken so grotesquely of it. He would just have to coax the little girl into drinking his special tea every night, and she would most graciously let her Papa carry her off to bed. Once she was deep in sleep, he would tie her to the bed so that she would not do anything foolish. He certainly never wanted it to come to this, drugging, poisoning his dear girl and tying her up. But she was being so very uncooperative.

"Raoul! Raoul! Raoul! My sweet, dear boy! Raoul! Raoul! Raoul!"

He growled furiously and crossed the room with the drink. That was the part that hurt the most, when she called for her boy. He could not stand to listen to it. He used to angrily pound into his organ and become lost in his music so he need not hear it, but this night was different. He roughly seized her face in his hands and poured the liquid into her open, screaming mouth. She choked at first and began spitting it out, but with another angry growl he tipped her head back and forced more down, holding her thrashing head in place until what he poured into her mouth disappeared down her delicious throat.

Once the liquid was down, she did not hesitate to spit fiercely into his face, a look of pure, disgusted hatred written all over her face. Only after she spit did she release the coughs she had held back, and Erik stood back and furiously wiped her saliva off his face. It was all he could do not to scream and beat her senseless, but there was no need…she was not herself at the moment…once she sleeps and awakens…that is the real Christine…

Her coughing, sputtering, screaming, and weeping eventually faded into silence, and he began working at untying her. He carried his precious girl back to her bed and worked at the wounds on her forehead. When she awoke he would simply tell her that she was sleepwalking and slipped and hit her head…yes…

He scrubbed all traces of blood out of the room and tucked his little girl in. He resolved to sit and watch her sleep, just in case she somehow came to and went mad again. The little girl would be back soon…no need to worry…

Christine once again found herself staring into the dying embers of the fireplace in her room, bitter, lonely tears lingering in her blue eyes. Were they even blue anymore? Perhaps they'd turned black from the never ending darkness. Perhaps the embers from the fire that she stared at came up and scorched them, turning them a fiery yellow. Like Erik's eyes. She wouldn't know anything about her appearance; it had been months since she'd seen a mirror. It had been months since she'd seen anyone but Erik.

She'd found herself bitterly weeping and crying herself to sleep the first week or so, and it had taken every ounce of strength within her to remind herself why she was there. It was so that Raoul may live on and be safe. She was paying the ultimate price so that her love would be safe from harm. She was doing all of this for him. When things seemed bleak, when she felt that horrible longing for death, she reminded herself that it was all for Raoul. All that so he may live and be happy.

Was he truly happy, though, without her? Surely he could not be…He had told her that she completed him, made him whole. He told her that she possessed pieces of his very heart. Surely he is incomplete without her, as she is incomplete without him. Oh, cruel, cruel Erik! To keep such passionate lovers apart for all of eternity! She prayed fervently every day that he would change his mind, that he would let her go free and find her beloved boy, that he would realize that this is wrong, that she could never be happy here…

She however, could not cry anymore tears. It was as if she'd cried every ounce of liquid left within her. She felt nothing, and it was horrifying. She would rather feel the most horrible anguish than absolutely nothing.

There was a gentle knock on her bedroom door that jolted her out of her reverie. "Breakfast is ready, my little bride."

"I'll be there in a moment, Erik." Christine continued to stare into the fire, dreading having to move her stiff limbs. Every movement was too much effort these days. Simply walking to the dining table wore her out.

What had she become? A limp rag doll that sat and stared at the wall and smiled prettily for the child that coddled her endlessly? She slept and she woke, stared at the fire, smiled and giggled for Erik at breakfast, lunch and dinner, singing in between, and then collapsed back into her chair to stare at the fire once more. She was a programmed automaton, wound and screwed together by Erik's obsessive hands. One faulty screw, one stuck cog or spoke would result in being shaken and prodded until she broke down completely.

And then he'd pet her golden head and put her to bed and tuck her in like a child with a porcelain doll.

Was she truly born to be someone's plaything? To be forced to smile and be pretty for all of eternity or else suffer dire consequences? Was she really destined to forever live at the mercy of someone so completely intolerable?

Her blood suddenly boiled as if the fire she stared at had sparked a bonfire within her. She would be damned if this was to be her fate! She refused to believe that her God would destine anybody to so something so horrid! She'd taken her fate into her own hands once before; that was in fact what got her into this mess. She could most certainly do it again!

With a fervency that she hadn't felt in months, she shot up out of her chair and stormed over to her door. She ferociously grabbed the handle, prepared to turn the knob and launch herself at him, give him a piece of her mind. She froze, however, realizing that her temper never got her anywhere when it came to Erik. He would only hit back with more fury than she could ever muster, and who knows what would come of that? He was too unpredictable for her to try anything out of the ordinary. She must remain calm, rational. Tell him what he wants to hear.

She took a deep breath and straightened herself out. She gently opened the door and swept into the hall with the usual grace and delicacy that she presented every morning in their game of make believe. She smiled brightly as she crossed into the dining room, prepared to be greeted with a "Good morning, little bride," but no such greeting came. She stopped, puzzled. He was not sitting at the table waiting for her as he did every morning.

"Erik?" she called sweetly. "Your dear wife wants to speak to you about something that is of most importance to her."

She peered into the sitting room, and noticed the door to the outside, to the lake, slightly ajar. Silly her; Erik must have been planning a picnic breakfast for this morning. She crossed the sitting room and waltzed out the front door.

"Erik! Here I come!" she sang as she rounded the house. "Your little wife is ready for breakfast!"

She found him there, standing at the edge of the lake, several feet away from her. It was rather difficult to see him; the outside of the house was not very well lit.

"Are we picnicking this morning, dearest?" Christine managed her most charming false giggle, leaning flirtatiously against the side of the house.

"Yes," he said quickly, curtly. "Wait inside."

"Erik, before we begin breakfast, there is something I must say to you," she began, taking a few steps closer to him. "Wife to husband," she finished passionately.

"Make it quick," he snapped. Christine could not for the life of her understand why he was so irritable. She hardly ever initiated conversation; this occurrence should have made him exquisitely happy.

"I know as well as you that the circumstances of our union were not of the typical sort," she said carefully, watching for his reaction. He remained stone cold, unreadable. She quickly realized that there were beads of sweat dripping down his face. She made him that anxious, did she?

"And we both know that the circumstances were hardly in either of our favors," she continued, stepping closer still. "And I know that I have been awfully disagreeable at times. I know my weeping breaks your heart. You feel as if I am unhappy when I weep, and you are correct. I become so very miserable sometimes, Erik. And the reason is because you can also be extremely disagreeable. Now listen," she said quickly, knowing that if he interrupted her now she would never recover. "I want to mend it. If I am to stay here, I don't want either of us to be unhappy anymore. Our love is special," she felt her mouth go grotesquely bitter as she said it, nearly grimacing. For a moment, she thought she had betrayed her innocent facade, but he was again unmoved. "And nothing should interfere with it. Here is my proposition: You forget about my tears, and I will forget about your temper. I want to start from the beginning again. I want to sit by the fire beside my husband the way we used to before all this heartache. I want you to tell me stories, and I want you to hear my stories. We will forget about every ounce of pain we ever caused each other. I swear to you Erik, we will be so happy if you would just let us. You must try."

She was now only a few steps away from him, and she noticed that his face was not only damp with sweat, but also his entire body. In fact, he was positively drenched, as if he'd gone for a swim in the lake.

"Erik, dear, you're all wet!" she managed another girlish giggle. "Have you gone for a dip before our picnic?"

He was stiff as wood. As soaking wet wood.

"Dear, have I shocked you that much?" she said. "Please, I am more than willing to start over if you are. Please, Erik."

And then she noticed the mass lying in a heap behind Erik's feet. Her eyes fell on it lazily, and she stiffened immediately, her eyes popping out of her head.

"Erik…is that…"

"The siren! The siren, Christine! He does not know who, he only knows what to do!"

"You promised there would be no more killing!" The temper that she swore to keep at bay suddenly resurfaced. "What child have you made fatherless, now? Who's lover have you killed this time?"

"He did not know! He did not see! He just did…"

"Here I stand, like a fool, asking to start over! While my husband hides a body! Oh, I might be sick…"

"Christine must rest," he said quickly. "We can still start over! Christine can go back to sleep and Erik will be rid of him, and when you wake we can pretend it never happened! It will be a dream! Yes…yes…off to bed…"

He reached out to push her back into the house. Disgusted, she sidestepped him. And then she saw the eyes.

Eyes that she hadn't seen in months. Beautiful, crystal clear, blue eyes.

Erik could clearly see the change. She gaped for a moment, turning whiter than he thought possible. She then quite literally turned green, and looked as though she would be violently sick. Instead of retching as he'd expected, she collapsed to her knees, her eyes still wide open, unblinking. She did not scream as he thought she would. She was in fact not even looking at his body. She was staring at the floor that she sat upon on all fours, as if the crime were being committed in the cracks of the stone. After what seemed like hours of her trembling violently and staring soundlessly at the floor and him watching her in suspended terror, not at all sure what to expect, she very suddenly became sick. It was as if someone flipped a switch that signaled an explosion of sorts.

After several minutes she finally stopped, and he could see tiny droplets of tears trickling down her pale cheeks. She was muttering something he could not hear or understand. It was becoming louder and louder, and he eventually was able to pick it up:

"Papa…Papa…Papa…"

She was staring with horror at her bile, looking so disgusted he was sure she would be sick again. "Papa!" she suddenly cried out loud. "I am sick! Papa!"

"Christine…?" Erik said unsurely.

"Papa!" she whirled around to look up at him. "I've soiled the floor! I am sick! I will clean it I promise! But you must save me, Papa!"

He stared at her in bewilderment.

"You are angry!" she cried, sticking her bottom lip out in a terribly sad pout. "I am sorry! I am sorry! I did not mean to! You must make me better! The ginger root, Papa! The ginger root!"

"Ginger root…?"

"For the sickness, Papa! Don't you remember, you gave it to Mama when she was sick. You mustn't let me die like Mama! Please Papa!"

For a moment, Erik gaped at her, completely dumbstruck. What on Earth was the meaning of this? Why on Earth was she under the impression that he was her father? How did her voice change so drastically in a matter of minutes? It sounded like a child sitting before him! What was happening?

"You…you won't die, Christine…" He said carefully. "I won't let anything happen to you."

"But you said you wouldn't let anything happen to Mama either." Her bottom lip stuck out again, and big fat tears rolled down her cheeks.

"I…I know," he said. Christine began to weep, but it was not the tortured, gutted cries that he was accustomed to hearing from her. It was a tiny, lost sound that could only be described as a child's tears. It broke his heart more than any sound she'd ever made before.

"There, there child, it's alright."

"Why are you speaking that way?" she wailed. "Please do not be angry with me! Call me lilla gumman like you always do! I don't want to die! I don't want to die!"

"I am not…Papa is not angry with you," Erik said carefully. She continued to weep, and he knelt to the ground beside her as he would a child. "Come here, llilla gumman." The Swedish rolled flawlessly off his tongue. She crawled like an infant into his arms, and it nearly knocked the wind out of Erik's lungs. She had never so willingly come to him.

Was this their new destiny? An odd, disturbing pretense of father and little daughter? She said she wanted to start over…surely this wasn't what she had meant, but this was indeed like starting over again…from the very beginning…

Christine nuzzled closer into his chest, wrapping her arms around him. He stroked her beautiful head with a trembling, dead hand. The grown up, woman Christine would never dream of nuzzling so lovingly in his arms. But this little girl that so suddenly came to him…

Perhaps this was how he would keep her.

"Come, my sweet girl," he said lovingly. "Papa will bring you inside and give you ginger root to chew, and we will clean you up. Then you can sit by the fire and listen to stories of the North."

He picked her up off the floor and carried her as he would a tiny child, careful to make sure she did not see the body that had set this all off.

He watched her rinse her mouth in her bathroom sink, and he gently washed her matted, soiled hair and dried it gently with a towel, all upon her making him do so. "Have you forgotten, Papa? You must gently squeeze!" she would say.

She sat on her bed and kicked her legs back and forth as Erik gingerly dried her golden curls. When she was satisfied he set off to retrieve ginger root out of his store that he thankfully had easily accessible. When he returned to her room, she was sitting in the middle of her bed brushing the curls of one of the porcelain dolls that lined a particular shelf on her walls, and singing in such a young, untrained voice that he was shocked still for a moment. It infuriated him that after years of work her voice was once again reduced to childish, shrill squeaking once again. He then listened closer, and he found it rather endearing. His little girl, singing to her doll. She'd never touched any of those dolls before now…

She'd happily taken the ginger root and listened as her Papa told beautiful stories of trolls and fairies, and all thoughts of being sick and dying like Mama faded away.

All the way, Raoul the Comte de Chagny lie dead on the shore of the lake just outside the house.

He could wait until later. Right now, little Christine needed her Papa…

Erik waited on edge for her to snap back to reality, for the shock to wear off and the grief to set in. The rage, the anguish. But it never came. He regarded her cautiously every time he wanted to speak with her, but she merely skipped to him and giggled like a child, sometimes even speaking in Swedish, to which Erik could only laugh or smile, patting her head. He waited for her to recoil from his touch or realize that she was staring at the face of death and not her kind father, for her to shriek in his embrace and beat him with her vengeful fists. No such fit came.

Days passed in this manner, and he'd long since disposed of the boy's body while she was sleeping. Christine seemed to have endured far too much shock all at once, and she'd escaped to a new reality more to her liking, to a time in her life before she'd seen death and suffering, before she'd seen evil. Before she'd known love strong enough to cause her as much pain as the death of the boy. To her, the boy was still alive, just away from his summer home in Perros-Guirec and back in Paris with his brother, who was also still alive.

Erik was not stupid. He knew Christine was miserable with him. He'd been living in his own new reality, where they were a truly functional, happy, loving couple. The signaling of one of his alarms and the reappearance of the boy had snapped him back to his reality, and all he'd wanted was to get rid of his body quickly and return to the lovely facade. But then the curious little chit had to waltz out there in all her womanly charm and see him there with her lover's blood on his hands.

Erik had never intended on killing him! If he had, he would have been dead that night when he nearly drowned in the torture chamber! The Siren simply did its job and killed the intruder...Nobody told him to return...nobody told him it would end well...

He'd truly thought he'd lost her forever. He knew that with the boy dead, so was her will to continue living. She'd attempt suicide every second, she'd perhaps attempt to kill him.

But then the unexpected, the inexplicable happened, and it could not have been any better. Now she was no longer a broken, melancholy women, but a beautiful girl full of spirit and life, the girl he'd once known, when he was her Angel. He was then struck by the irony of the situation; he'd started out as her father figure, a heavenly being representative of the dear parent she'd lost, and here she was once again, truly believing he was her father in the flesh...

Was he wicked for taking advantage of her madness? Surely she had lost her mind; normally one sees this type of behavior amongst the old and senile. Certainly he was wicked. But that had never stopped him from doing anything his entire life. Let them both continue to live in sweet oblivion. Surely he could not kiss, touch, bed a girl who thought him to be her father, but he could hold her innocently, kiss her head, brush her hair, sing her to sleep, even share a bed with her. It was closer to a marriage than they'd ever been before, and he was willing to accept it.

There was a particular night where he'd awoken to the sounds of her screams, and he'd rushed to her room, certain that she was having a child's nightmare. He froze right outside her door, however, when he was able to decipher what she was saying. She was screaming for her boy.

She was back.

He'd collapsed to the floor in a miserable heap of tears, certain that he'd lost his precious girl forever. He'd stayed outside her door all night until her screams slowly faded away, his forehead pressed against the door. The door suddenly opened, and he fell into the room, not expecting it.

"Papa!" came her little voice, young and innocent once again. "What are you doing?"

"Christine…?" he said unsurely.

"Are you spying on me?" she asked with a little giggle.

"I…you were crying in your sleep, little one." He quickly stood up. "I sat outside your door to cast off the evil spirits that were giving you bad dreams."

"Oh! Alright. I am hungry." She skipped off into the kitchen, and they continued as normal.

Every once in a while, she would have a similar night, screaming and carrying on with anguish that the child she was during the day would never know. It was almost as if the real Christine was trapped within the little girl, and she was desperately trying to claw her way out, and for some reason she only made it through during the night. Erik would always push her back in, however, and the tortured, older Christine was once again trapped within the mind of a nine year old. A few hours of agony in the night was a worthy price to pay for the sweet, innocent, ignorant bliss of the daytime.

The fits had come more frequently and more violently lately, but she remained as youthful and happy as ever during the day. The Christine trapped inside was likely growing more and more frustrated with her captivity in her own mind and had to release her frustrations somehow, but it was no matter. Erik would keep her safe.

Now he watched her sleep, keeping a careful eye on her wounds. She stirred awake, and a tiny whimper escaped her lips. A whimper that could only belong to his little girl.

"Papa…my head…"

"Hush, liten flicka," Erik soothed. "You bumped your pretty little head in the night. You will be alright."

"It aches terribly…" she whimpered, tiny tears leaking out of her big blue eyes.

"I know, love. Papa shall kiss it. Will that make it better?" She nodded, her lip sticking out in the most adorable pout. He cupped her little face in his hands and tenderly kissed the bandages on her forehead. Oh, how sweet she smelled, how terribly beautiful she was…

"Papa shall bring your meals to you today, and he shall tell stories all day until you are better," Erik whispered, still cupping her face in his ghastly hands, his lips merely inches from hers.

She smiled brightly up at him, and he kissed her little cheek before standing up straight and heading out of the bedroom.

"Papa," she called sweetly before he could exit the room. "I love you."

Erik's heart swelled, and he closed his eyes in ecstasy. How did he get so lucky, to have his beloved tell him she loves him?

"Papa loves you, Christine."

Recently, my Aunt was talking about her grandmother, who is a very old woman. She was saying that her grandmother always wanders up the stairs to a particular room, even though climbing the stairs is dangerous for her. Her grandmother always returns to this room because she somehow believes that her late husband is still there, as they spent much time together in that room during their life together. My Aunt then went on to say, "I believe God does these things to elderly people on purpose. He knows that reality is too painful for them to handle because they've lost so many people. So he helps them out by letting them escape to their own little world."

And so here I give you: Christine's reality being far too painful, and her escaping to her own little world. And Erik of course, taking advantage of that in the most creepy way possible. I've done much research on mental illnesses/coping mechanisms to make sure I wasn't pulling something out of the air, and what Christine has here is severe cases of regression and fantasy. The "real" Christine reappearing at night hints at somewhat of a dissociative identity disorder that flares after she's slept and dreams of the tragic event that sent her down this path. Of course Erik does everything he can to make sure the distorted, regressed personality of "Little Christine" always comes back, and he sends her further and further along the path to insanity.

Thank you so much for the read! Please leave a review! If anyone would like to see the sources I used for my research, feel free to PM me :)