Chapter 1- African Sun

The fair skin on her face was now a deep red, her nose already peeling and her lips cracked. A dry tongue escaped her mouth and tried to moisten them but to no avail. She was covered from her scalp to her feet in a layer of dry sweat which her body had long ago stopped producing, for there was not even enough moisture left in her for that.

Her whole body ached and when she tried to think of how long she had been here she could not, as her mind was slowly beginning to unravel. Her head ached of tears her dried up eyes could not shed and the voice she had once used to bring Paris to its knees was now useless to call out for help; she could hardly whisper.

She had tried to draw shade from the trees, trees that seemed to stretch on for an eternity, but it was no use, the sun shone from directly overhead. And even when night came she could not rest because there were animals all about and she was afraid that one of them might harm her.

All she could do was pray that he was not dead and would find her. And if he was, perhaps it was better that she die here after all. Was it not what she deserved, even? Perhaps she should even end it now, before the sun melted away the last of her strength. Her eyes fell to the noose that lay, conveniently, beside the trees. She would certainly go to hell for that but then she would almost as certainly be with him.

'Oh God will this torture never end?' she thought, 'This is maddening. Absolutely maddening. I think that I shall never escape this forest. I don't even know how I came to be in Africa. It was as if a rabbit hole existed in the opera cellars and I fell through and landed here. But that is impossible. I must be insane. I was only looking for him. Why hasn't he come? Has he abandoned me already? Oh God, why, why?'

She weakly began pounding against the mirror she had been leaning against. The part of her mind that retained some vestiges of sanity vaguely wondered how there came to be a wall of mirrors in an African forest but was drowned out by the chaotic insanity that was beginning to grip her already fragile mind.

One last word formed on her lips before she sucumbed to her exhaustion and fainted..."Erik."

---- ---- ---- ---- ----

a/n : this is my first fic so please be kind, r&r. more to come, the second chapters almost done! and of course i own absolutely nothing, the credit for that belongs to Leroux, Kay and ALW. ):