Author's Note:
Thank you so much for all the reviews!! They really make my night... I wish I could tell you guys the answers to your questions without ruining the plot! Luckily this is the last chapter. Shandethe Sanders—your review baffled me for a moment, I wasn't sure who you believed to have died of a broken heart until I saw that you were speaking of Erik. No one in my story dies of a broken heart...I'm not sure what gave you that impression, but trust me =). At the end of the first chapter, it gives a small hint on who is alive...sort of. You'll see! ...Aww...this makes me so sad...this is the last chapter...
~*~
Somehow, through the remnants of her alarm and despair, Christine had reached Erik's home by way of the Rue Scribe. The paper was clutched in one hand, the key still in the other, and both shook vilently. Christine's face shone white, and tear streaks sparkled on her cheeks like tiny crystals... Her sobs were silent, but they wracked her frail body with a force far beyond what seemed capable. She wasn't aware of her own descent into the cellars, but before long, she had opened the door and stood inside Erik's elegant front room, which had been destroyed beyond the point of recognition. The tapestries were pulled down, shredded...The piano was a mass of splintered wood...the keys overturned and lost among the shards...and the strings were snapped and bent into obscure, odd angles... twisted into shapes...looming out of shadows... Nothing was lit but for the small lantern that Christine had brought with her and held in the same hand as the paper...and it was barely enough for her to see a few feet's worth of distance.
But she didn't want to see... The shattered piano was painful enough.
In a desperate and feverish hope, Christine thought that Erik might still be alive. She called his name, weakly, but the sound of her voice echoing back to her only drove her poor mind further away from sanity. The sound was lost among the shadows, tossed back upon it, and returned warped and distorted. "Erik, Erik!"
There was no answer.
Christine searched all of the rooms...all except for his. She'd never liked Erik's room and was not allowed to enter. There was only one time where she'd seen the inside...The darkness and morbid design had frightened her, but the coffin had done more than just that... One glimpse of it had been enough for both of them, and Erik kept the doors closed to her after that day. Her horror had been so centered in on the coffin, however, that she'd failed to see what else was in his room...She hadn't seen the cages with the strange, foreign creatures that Erik kept...and if she'd gone into his room then, she would have noticed that the cages were smashed in the wake of the room's destruction, and the tiny creatures had vanished into the recesses of the house.
The poor girl dropped by the fireplace, her shaking hand pushed the lantern away from her...and she curled up into a small ball. The cloak that she wore covered her form almost entirely, and she was lost among folds of fabric, sobbing until she could no more. Then she was simply silent, and had laid limp as she thought of all that was lost to her...
She knew...She'd killed Erik...It was her fault that he was dead. He would still be alive now if she'd stayed with him...Oh, why couldn't she have accepted his bargain? She could have married him... If only to make him happy for a few months, at least; she would have been willing to sacrifice part of her life for that! If only she would have returned the day before...or the day before that...instead of waiting for the right time...Why had her mind played these tricks on her? Why would Fate choose for her to return one day too late? Oh, curse that day!
After long moments, Christine had pushed herself from the floor and sat on the cool carpet, feeling disoriented and unsure of herself. How could she return to Raoul then, knowing that she would have stayed had Erik been alive? How could she look at him in his eyes and ask for his understanding?
Near the fireplace, disregarded in the corner, she saw Erik's violin. It was mildly dusty, but Christine took it and held it in her lap for long moments with a reverence that brought tears to her eyes once more. She knew now, for sure, that he must be dead...Erik would never leave his violin behind otherwise...and to be dusty this way... No, never!
...Fate links thee to me!
Christine allowed her fingers to brush the soft wood of the instrument, down the strings and over the openings. She turned the violin over on her lap and embraced it once again, tighter... She hadn't noticed something drop from the thin holes of the violin onto her skirts and crawl to her hand.
Forever and a day...
Then she felt the sharp sting.
The violin fell from her hands into her lap... The sting was unbearably painful! So much that her mind went momentarily blank, and so shocked was she that she didn't see the deadly, slender scorpion dart into the corner...
Christine didn't know what had happened; it didn't even register that she'd been stung by anything. A spider bite was her first thought, but as she tried to call to Erik, her cry died in her throat as another wave of pain shocked her to silence...
The small pinpoint of a mark swelled...The sleeve of her dress soon felt insufferably tight, and Christine's panicked breaths made her begin to gasp aloud. She curled up, frightened, and wondered why and how it could hurt so badly...and why Erik wasn't helping her. In her mind, she'd forgotten that Erik was dead, and she continued to call for him, her small whimpers lost among the dark, dark room.
Minutes passed while she lied there, unable to move both from distress and pain. The swelling continued, and soon it had become exceedingly difficult for her to breathe... Christine nearly panted then, and every limb of her body began to tingle. Her spine curled more and more as she writhed with the desperate attempts for air and as black spots exploded in front of her eyes like fireworks... Her hands twitched repeatedly, out of her control, and Christine's eyes glazed over...so that the room was fuzzy... Shadows had come alive, and they reached for her...snarling, threatening...and Christine screamed...a scream that resounded only in her mind...
Any movement became harder and harder to control...and in the brief moments left in which she could actually think clearly, Christine struggled to get up...to get somewhere... But she was only able to drag herself an inch or two away from the violin, which lied innocently on its side. Christine saw the door...so far away... With exhausted defeat, her hands fell limp as her throat closed completely. Helpless tears fell from her eyes, and she felt something dark and ominous finally descending...a black curtain...
And...She was suddenly not afraid...
No...She could hear the music in her mind; the violin was playing itself...She saw the shiny wood--it was no longer dusty!...and the hands playing it...Her father's hands, perhaps? No...They were Erik's hands...Erik, her angel...her angel had come to play for her from Heaven...He'd come so far, and for her! Only for her... Everything he did was always only for her...
The dull thump of her heartbeat was far away...slowing...until her breaths were in time with the irregular pulses...and only moments before she had felt unconsciousness overtake her was she allowed to breathe...She had struggled to remain awake during those last moments... Christine resisted her closing eyes... All the muscles in her body had been paralyzed...The weight of her eyelids had grown too heavy, and she saw darkness...Heartbeats...throbbing...a bare, soft sound...tender...like ocean waves from long ago...a little boy, soaked to the very skin...and shivering...an innocent smile...
The red scarf...
Little Lotte let her mind wander...
I love you, Christine...
Erik.
...Raoul.
Her angel...
The throbbing stopped. The ocean stilled forever. The poison had taken its course.
Christine Daaé was dead.
~*~
It had been the last time that he planned on returning to the cellars.
The deceased himself had submitted the obituary to the Paris Epoque, and Erik found it extremely amusing. He had his reasons...and he found them to be warranted. In the wake of his demise, Christine would marry the Vicomte de Chagny...and she would suffer no longer in the question of his untimely fate. It was what would seal her decision... and his "death" would push forward what needed to be done...before she was torn apart with guilt.
Erik had been aware of Christine's state... The few times that he'd visited the de Chagny mansion, he had seen how badly she was suffering...because of him...and soon he had become aware that he would forever torment her until his death...
So he'd had his death arranged.
It had been necessary, and Christine would then be happy. Of course, he had known that she would mourn his death for a few weeks...but after her grief was over, she could start her life with Raoul at last and no longer have to feel divided in between two worlds.
Not if one was dead.
But legends never die, and the Phantom of the Opera was one of those that still lived, and always would...
Before Erik had even entered his home, he had been aware that someone else had been there. His first thought was that it was Nadir, misguided as he was, and there was certainly no anticipation of seeing him again... Erik wasn't prepared for the endless questions.
The first one, he'd imagined being something along the lines of why he'd submitted the fabricated obituary.
What irritated Erik to no end was how Nadir never knew the answer to such obvious questions.
When Erik did enter, he saw Christine on the floor. Alarmed, he set his cloak aside and went to her, speaking her name in a whisper that would not be answered.
At first he had believed that she was asleep, but Erik had seen death often enough to know its stillness... In a single movement, he knelt and lifted her quickly, feeling for a pulse or even a slight chance that she might still be alive... As his mind raced with shock...he felt nothing...
Numbed, he had clutched her to himself and rocked her in his arms, his fingers twisting in her hair. "No, no..." the whispers were too soft to be heard, and as his fingers trailed Christine's face, Erik no longer felt her warmth...She'd become as cold as he was now, trapped in his world; it had overtaken her, and had become her tomb... His hand trailed down to where her hand was, and he lifted it to see the sting...
His embrace around his beloved tightened, and he continued to cradle her body and sing to her whisper-softly, his face buried in her hair as he cried ... The Angel of Music and Death cried tears for his Christine while drowning in his self hatred and his love... It was all for his own Angel...who lied so coldly in his arms. She was far from the reality that she had hated so much and part of a world where perhaps she always belonged... Sent to this place by he, Erik, Death himself!
But he possessed her in death, the way he never had in life, and the thought tormented him...for Erik did not know why she'd returned, and he never would know.
Christine did not pull back from his touch, nor would she ever again...Her head lolled against his arm, and he held it up gently...
Erik did not kiss her; he knew that she would not want that...Instead, he kissed his hand and brushed it to her face, her lips, her cheeks...the kisses disconnected, but present...He traced her pale, translucent skin...as well as the soft tresses of her hair, pieces that were already becoming dull and lifeless...Only the finest shine remained. Her face was angelic, serene...and there was a peaceful smile on her lips that Erik did not understand.
Hours passed and he felt her body grow stiff, but he did not let her go. He kept her pressed against him, his arms holding her in the desperate, foolish idea that if he remained just so... she would awaken...and he would welcome even her screams just for the sound of her voice.
Erik did not stop singing once in those long hours...He did not even appear to breathe. It was far too easy to believe that he sang in order to her to keep her in this tranquil state...obliviousness...so trustingly and innocently... As it was the night when he'd first brought her down to his lair and she'd slept in his arms.
His Christine...who had belonged to Erik in only those moments, while he would be hers for all eternity...
~*~
The next morning, Raoul had found Christine in her bed at the de Chagny estate.
The entire house had searched for the scorpion that had been the cause of her death, but there was no trace of it.
Raoul didn't want to consider that she could have actually returned to Erik, and so he believed the doctor's story without question...that she must have been bitten during the night by an insect hidden inside of the bed sheets. He told himself that Christine must have changed her mind on the way to the Opera and had returned...late into the evening, when he had already been asleep.
What Raoul would never understand was that, in the end, Christine had chosen the scorpion, and had died with her judgment.
The funeral was scheduled for two days after he'd found her. Erik had attended unseen to pay his last respects to Christine and to torture himself as well...and then, finally, his false obituary rang the truth. Erik was dead.
There was no funeral for the dark Angel, but light and dark reunited in Heaven...and tears of joy fell like diamonds from the sky overcast with approaching storms.
Fin.
((::sniff:: All over! Keep in mind that I never say HOW Erik dies...that's up for you guys to decide. Personally, I lean towards suicide. What is left for Erik in this life without Christine, after all? I hope that you enjoyed it...my first finished work!))
Thank you so much for all the reviews!! They really make my night... I wish I could tell you guys the answers to your questions without ruining the plot! Luckily this is the last chapter. Shandethe Sanders—your review baffled me for a moment, I wasn't sure who you believed to have died of a broken heart until I saw that you were speaking of Erik. No one in my story dies of a broken heart...I'm not sure what gave you that impression, but trust me =). At the end of the first chapter, it gives a small hint on who is alive...sort of. You'll see! ...Aww...this makes me so sad...this is the last chapter...
~*~
Somehow, through the remnants of her alarm and despair, Christine had reached Erik's home by way of the Rue Scribe. The paper was clutched in one hand, the key still in the other, and both shook vilently. Christine's face shone white, and tear streaks sparkled on her cheeks like tiny crystals... Her sobs were silent, but they wracked her frail body with a force far beyond what seemed capable. She wasn't aware of her own descent into the cellars, but before long, she had opened the door and stood inside Erik's elegant front room, which had been destroyed beyond the point of recognition. The tapestries were pulled down, shredded...The piano was a mass of splintered wood...the keys overturned and lost among the shards...and the strings were snapped and bent into obscure, odd angles... twisted into shapes...looming out of shadows... Nothing was lit but for the small lantern that Christine had brought with her and held in the same hand as the paper...and it was barely enough for her to see a few feet's worth of distance.
But she didn't want to see... The shattered piano was painful enough.
In a desperate and feverish hope, Christine thought that Erik might still be alive. She called his name, weakly, but the sound of her voice echoing back to her only drove her poor mind further away from sanity. The sound was lost among the shadows, tossed back upon it, and returned warped and distorted. "Erik, Erik!"
There was no answer.
Christine searched all of the rooms...all except for his. She'd never liked Erik's room and was not allowed to enter. There was only one time where she'd seen the inside...The darkness and morbid design had frightened her, but the coffin had done more than just that... One glimpse of it had been enough for both of them, and Erik kept the doors closed to her after that day. Her horror had been so centered in on the coffin, however, that she'd failed to see what else was in his room...She hadn't seen the cages with the strange, foreign creatures that Erik kept...and if she'd gone into his room then, she would have noticed that the cages were smashed in the wake of the room's destruction, and the tiny creatures had vanished into the recesses of the house.
The poor girl dropped by the fireplace, her shaking hand pushed the lantern away from her...and she curled up into a small ball. The cloak that she wore covered her form almost entirely, and she was lost among folds of fabric, sobbing until she could no more. Then she was simply silent, and had laid limp as she thought of all that was lost to her...
She knew...She'd killed Erik...It was her fault that he was dead. He would still be alive now if she'd stayed with him...Oh, why couldn't she have accepted his bargain? She could have married him... If only to make him happy for a few months, at least; she would have been willing to sacrifice part of her life for that! If only she would have returned the day before...or the day before that...instead of waiting for the right time...Why had her mind played these tricks on her? Why would Fate choose for her to return one day too late? Oh, curse that day!
After long moments, Christine had pushed herself from the floor and sat on the cool carpet, feeling disoriented and unsure of herself. How could she return to Raoul then, knowing that she would have stayed had Erik been alive? How could she look at him in his eyes and ask for his understanding?
Near the fireplace, disregarded in the corner, she saw Erik's violin. It was mildly dusty, but Christine took it and held it in her lap for long moments with a reverence that brought tears to her eyes once more. She knew now, for sure, that he must be dead...Erik would never leave his violin behind otherwise...and to be dusty this way... No, never!
...Fate links thee to me!
Christine allowed her fingers to brush the soft wood of the instrument, down the strings and over the openings. She turned the violin over on her lap and embraced it once again, tighter... She hadn't noticed something drop from the thin holes of the violin onto her skirts and crawl to her hand.
Forever and a day...
Then she felt the sharp sting.
The violin fell from her hands into her lap... The sting was unbearably painful! So much that her mind went momentarily blank, and so shocked was she that she didn't see the deadly, slender scorpion dart into the corner...
Christine didn't know what had happened; it didn't even register that she'd been stung by anything. A spider bite was her first thought, but as she tried to call to Erik, her cry died in her throat as another wave of pain shocked her to silence...
The small pinpoint of a mark swelled...The sleeve of her dress soon felt insufferably tight, and Christine's panicked breaths made her begin to gasp aloud. She curled up, frightened, and wondered why and how it could hurt so badly...and why Erik wasn't helping her. In her mind, she'd forgotten that Erik was dead, and she continued to call for him, her small whimpers lost among the dark, dark room.
Minutes passed while she lied there, unable to move both from distress and pain. The swelling continued, and soon it had become exceedingly difficult for her to breathe... Christine nearly panted then, and every limb of her body began to tingle. Her spine curled more and more as she writhed with the desperate attempts for air and as black spots exploded in front of her eyes like fireworks... Her hands twitched repeatedly, out of her control, and Christine's eyes glazed over...so that the room was fuzzy... Shadows had come alive, and they reached for her...snarling, threatening...and Christine screamed...a scream that resounded only in her mind...
Any movement became harder and harder to control...and in the brief moments left in which she could actually think clearly, Christine struggled to get up...to get somewhere... But she was only able to drag herself an inch or two away from the violin, which lied innocently on its side. Christine saw the door...so far away... With exhausted defeat, her hands fell limp as her throat closed completely. Helpless tears fell from her eyes, and she felt something dark and ominous finally descending...a black curtain...
And...She was suddenly not afraid...
No...She could hear the music in her mind; the violin was playing itself...She saw the shiny wood--it was no longer dusty!...and the hands playing it...Her father's hands, perhaps? No...They were Erik's hands...Erik, her angel...her angel had come to play for her from Heaven...He'd come so far, and for her! Only for her... Everything he did was always only for her...
The dull thump of her heartbeat was far away...slowing...until her breaths were in time with the irregular pulses...and only moments before she had felt unconsciousness overtake her was she allowed to breathe...She had struggled to remain awake during those last moments... Christine resisted her closing eyes... All the muscles in her body had been paralyzed...The weight of her eyelids had grown too heavy, and she saw darkness...Heartbeats...throbbing...a bare, soft sound...tender...like ocean waves from long ago...a little boy, soaked to the very skin...and shivering...an innocent smile...
The red scarf...
Little Lotte let her mind wander...
I love you, Christine...
Erik.
...Raoul.
Her angel...
The throbbing stopped. The ocean stilled forever. The poison had taken its course.
Christine Daaé was dead.
~*~
It had been the last time that he planned on returning to the cellars.
The deceased himself had submitted the obituary to the Paris Epoque, and Erik found it extremely amusing. He had his reasons...and he found them to be warranted. In the wake of his demise, Christine would marry the Vicomte de Chagny...and she would suffer no longer in the question of his untimely fate. It was what would seal her decision... and his "death" would push forward what needed to be done...before she was torn apart with guilt.
Erik had been aware of Christine's state... The few times that he'd visited the de Chagny mansion, he had seen how badly she was suffering...because of him...and soon he had become aware that he would forever torment her until his death...
So he'd had his death arranged.
It had been necessary, and Christine would then be happy. Of course, he had known that she would mourn his death for a few weeks...but after her grief was over, she could start her life with Raoul at last and no longer have to feel divided in between two worlds.
Not if one was dead.
But legends never die, and the Phantom of the Opera was one of those that still lived, and always would...
Before Erik had even entered his home, he had been aware that someone else had been there. His first thought was that it was Nadir, misguided as he was, and there was certainly no anticipation of seeing him again... Erik wasn't prepared for the endless questions.
The first one, he'd imagined being something along the lines of why he'd submitted the fabricated obituary.
What irritated Erik to no end was how Nadir never knew the answer to such obvious questions.
When Erik did enter, he saw Christine on the floor. Alarmed, he set his cloak aside and went to her, speaking her name in a whisper that would not be answered.
At first he had believed that she was asleep, but Erik had seen death often enough to know its stillness... In a single movement, he knelt and lifted her quickly, feeling for a pulse or even a slight chance that she might still be alive... As his mind raced with shock...he felt nothing...
Numbed, he had clutched her to himself and rocked her in his arms, his fingers twisting in her hair. "No, no..." the whispers were too soft to be heard, and as his fingers trailed Christine's face, Erik no longer felt her warmth...She'd become as cold as he was now, trapped in his world; it had overtaken her, and had become her tomb... His hand trailed down to where her hand was, and he lifted it to see the sting...
His embrace around his beloved tightened, and he continued to cradle her body and sing to her whisper-softly, his face buried in her hair as he cried ... The Angel of Music and Death cried tears for his Christine while drowning in his self hatred and his love... It was all for his own Angel...who lied so coldly in his arms. She was far from the reality that she had hated so much and part of a world where perhaps she always belonged... Sent to this place by he, Erik, Death himself!
But he possessed her in death, the way he never had in life, and the thought tormented him...for Erik did not know why she'd returned, and he never would know.
Christine did not pull back from his touch, nor would she ever again...Her head lolled against his arm, and he held it up gently...
Erik did not kiss her; he knew that she would not want that...Instead, he kissed his hand and brushed it to her face, her lips, her cheeks...the kisses disconnected, but present...He traced her pale, translucent skin...as well as the soft tresses of her hair, pieces that were already becoming dull and lifeless...Only the finest shine remained. Her face was angelic, serene...and there was a peaceful smile on her lips that Erik did not understand.
Hours passed and he felt her body grow stiff, but he did not let her go. He kept her pressed against him, his arms holding her in the desperate, foolish idea that if he remained just so... she would awaken...and he would welcome even her screams just for the sound of her voice.
Erik did not stop singing once in those long hours...He did not even appear to breathe. It was far too easy to believe that he sang in order to her to keep her in this tranquil state...obliviousness...so trustingly and innocently... As it was the night when he'd first brought her down to his lair and she'd slept in his arms.
His Christine...who had belonged to Erik in only those moments, while he would be hers for all eternity...
~*~
The next morning, Raoul had found Christine in her bed at the de Chagny estate.
The entire house had searched for the scorpion that had been the cause of her death, but there was no trace of it.
Raoul didn't want to consider that she could have actually returned to Erik, and so he believed the doctor's story without question...that she must have been bitten during the night by an insect hidden inside of the bed sheets. He told himself that Christine must have changed her mind on the way to the Opera and had returned...late into the evening, when he had already been asleep.
What Raoul would never understand was that, in the end, Christine had chosen the scorpion, and had died with her judgment.
The funeral was scheduled for two days after he'd found her. Erik had attended unseen to pay his last respects to Christine and to torture himself as well...and then, finally, his false obituary rang the truth. Erik was dead.
There was no funeral for the dark Angel, but light and dark reunited in Heaven...and tears of joy fell like diamonds from the sky overcast with approaching storms.
Fin.
((::sniff:: All over! Keep in mind that I never say HOW Erik dies...that's up for you guys to decide. Personally, I lean towards suicide. What is left for Erik in this life without Christine, after all? I hope that you enjoyed it...my first finished work!))