There were any number of girls in the chorus who, on the surface, would have met Erik's needs. A voice that could be molded, a pretty face - these were not enough. He liked to dig deep into the things that interested him, to lay everything bare. That was how he had known Christine was exactly the girl for him; there was always something more to excavate. To anyone who knew the details, her upbringing alone revealed that something nearly unbreakable lived beneath her fragile exterior. He wanted to bring it to the light.

Events simply had not transpired exactly as he had envisioned. When he had given her the ultimatum – a slow, lingering death with him, or one glorious leap taking a packed house along with them – he had expected her to find some hidden inner violence residing in that well of strength. Instead, she had cooperated, and shown him more compassion than anyone else ever had. She'd shocked him into forgoing the plan with the smallest bit of human contact.

No more. He was waiting for her, and hoping she'd bring that boy with her. It would be so easy. No one in the world was better at playing dead than Erik. It wasn't only that he looked dead, but that he could perfectly imitate death with an unfathomable accuracy. It was a trick he had been perfecting for years. By the time he heard voices and footsteps approaching, he no longer knew if he'd been lying there for hours or days.

She was beside him, kneeling next to him. He could feel the heat radiating from her body. Her hands touched his as she slid her ring onto his little finger. It took all of his resolve not to reach out.

"Poor Erik," she murmured, then more clearly stated, "He was always cold, but not like this."

He wanted to open his eyes, to see her sorrow (Sorrow for him!) etched onto her lovely face.

Christine's fingers were on the edges of his mask.

"What are you doing?" the boy asked.

"He doesn't need it now. At least in death, he will be like everybody else. That was all he ever really wanted," she explained.

Dear Christine. Sweet, naive girl. That was never all I wanted, he thought as the cool air brushed his bare face.

Somewhere, a shovel hit dirt. He should do it now. He would have the element of surprise on his side; it wouldn't take much to get his hands on the shovel. The boy would be dead before he understood what was happening. Well, maybe not quite that quickly, but he would be dead. How satisfying it would be, to smash in his pretty face. Then, he could grab Christine, and take her back to the house on the lake. She would never be able to outrun him. He wanted to wrap his hand over her mouth, to feel her lips and breath against his palm while she tried to scream. He would whisper in her ear that everything would be fine. Perhaps he would sing to her. It would all be as he intended.

Fingertips brushed his cheek, then trailed along his jawline, and up to his mouth. "I'm sorry," Christine whispered so softly he almost didn't hear it.

She'd done it again; he no longer cared about the plan. Since Erik first realized that she did not, could not, love him like he loved her, all he'd wanted was to die at her hands. And now, he didn't need violence to do it. All he had to do was continue to be still, be patient.

Soon enough, he was being gently lowered into what he knew was a shallow grave.

"No, Raoul," Christine said firmly, "I should be the one to do it." Of course she would insist on doing this part herself.

This would be her greatest moment, and she didn't even know it. Though he could not see her, he knew she'd never been more beautiful. The first shovel full of dirt hit his chest. The next, his face. It was a struggle to stay still now. Every sense he had was urging him to blow the dirt out of the hole where his nose should have been, but he did not. Pile after pile of dirt continued to hit him. He couldn't breathe at all, but he did not fight, did not move.

His final thought, before it all faded into nothingness, was that he'd always known Christine would be the death of him; Christine would survive him, one way or another.

Disclaimer: This idea came from a fun little slasher flick called Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon; I have no more claim on it than I do on Leroux's novel.