Sorry it's short! But you'll get another update tomorrow. Your reviews are inspiring and delightful, thank you all so much!

11
True Distortion

Madame Giry's hands froze, still clutching the laces of my corset. Carlotta's corset. Screams were seeping under the doorway.

A moment later Meg barrelled into the room, expression of pure horror clashing with her garish costume. "Joseph Buquet! Joseph Buquet!" she cried shrilly.

It was all Mame Giry needed to hear. A hand flew to her heart. Her mouth silently trembled around the word "Erik".

"No," I rasped, suddenly feeling the pull of gravity increasing, the warmth being sucked from the room. "No."
Meg seemed to feel it too, for she fell into a chair, crying out, "The phantom hung him! On the stage!"
"The audience?!" Mame Giry snapped.
"They must be running by now, if they've any sense!"

Running. I could think of nothing else. Blind, rising panic was taking me. Erik. Capable of murder. Erik ablaze with inhuman wrath.
Erik, who would now be looking for me. Whether to hurt me or to explain, it didn't matter.

"Christine!" Madame Giry and her daughter called out in chorus.
But their questioning voices couldn't have stopped me any more than they could have slowed a hunted animal.

I sprang to the door and away. Anywhere. Anywhere. The front doors would be blocked by the audience, moving sluggish and jostling like dumb cattle. And even then, where to run? I was trapped here by my own dependence. Upwards, then. Upwards as though running from a spreading fire, or raging flood waters. From a force of nature.

To the roof. To the last place he would expect me. I wasn't certain if he had even been to the roof before.

The small arch of the door was in sight, reaching for me, bidding me to run faster, offering freedom.

I wrenched it open, feeling the blast of cold snowy air, real natural air. It shattered the last defences that held me together. Swept straight through me, breaking apart the layers of numb detachment and instinctive panicked shock. I stumbled on into the dark wild landscape of stone figures and distant lights, and finally felt the first tears dashing down my cheeks.

And then, I screamed.

The cloaked silhouette standing before me was not a statue.
I caught a glimpse of the white mask, like bone, glinting in the scarce starlight. Like a skull, like death.
I had never felt so afraid of anyone.

He said my name, like an angel's heart breaking, velvet-soft with agony and love. Relinquishing control over my bursting chest, I broke into violent sobs in return. My legs snapped like twigs under me. I recoiled into the cold white blanket of snow like wounded prey, incoherent and helpless. Joseph Buquet's ghost hung about me, leering and swollen-tongued, accusing.

You could have prevented this.