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...My name	By : larch Category: M through R > The Phantom of the Opera > AU/AR Views: 3899 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own The Phantom of the Opera, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-...My name
- 2-Two
- 3-three
- 4-Four
- 5-five
- 6-six
- 7-seven
- 8-eight
- 9-nine
- 3
- 4
- 5
‘Erik is so strange. He’s so frightened of being at all close to people. It took me four months for him to be comfortable talking to me. I swear he thought I’d tear down the wall, grab him by the neck and drag him to the police!
I called out his name to see if I had just been talking to myself.
"Why do you keep calling me that?" he asked.
"This again?"
"I haven’t been called by my name since I was eight."
"And how old are you now?" I guess at about thirty, like I would be in two years.
"I can’t remember."
"I’m sorry. It’s rude of me to ask someone’s age. Why don’t you came in here?"
"What do you mean?"
"I’d rather know that the person I’m talking to is right there."
"I have never left in the middle of your conversation and I don’t plan to."
"That’s not what I mean. Of course I trust you. I just don’t like these walls in between us."
"It’s safer with walls. No one can come near me."
"You really think I’d hurt you?"
"No. I just like walls. I feel safer being close to someone with a wall between us."
"That’s just silly. Come on inside."
"I prefer darkness."
"Oh, what now?"
"I’m sorry."
"No, just go on."
"No one can see me in the dark. They don’t know I’m there if I don’t want them to. They don’t know where in the dark I am, and they don’t know what I look like."
"Erik, you fainted on me. I never cared about your mask."
"Christine, I live here. I don’t want to."
"The doors locked. If I wanted to call the authorities, I would have done so months ago."
"I feel safer here. That’s all. I appreciate—what are you doing?"
I opened the mirror and stepped through. It swung closed and we were both in pitch darkness.
"This is better, isn’t it Erik? There aren’t any walls between us, but I can’t see anything."
"I thought you wanted to see someone you were talking to."
"I can sense your presence in the dark. I can’t see a thing but I know you’re there."
There was no answer. I think I scared him. I sat down and found a railing of some sort so I leaned against it.
Quietly I began singing a lullaby.
"I loved that," Erik said. I have no idea how, but I knew he was sitting down as well now.
"Do you sing Erik?"
&;Onl;Only to myself. I frighten people, remember."
"Actually, I had forgotten."
"That’s why I liked the walls."
"You absolutely don’t want anyone coming near you?"
"It scares me, yes."
"But with walls no one can hold you."
"You mean while someone else hits me? I don’t care for that."
"No, I mean like someone else holding your hand or an embrace or just steadying you when you fall."
"It’s been years since I was called by my name. I don’t remember it enough to miss it. Why do you think I’d want to be held so much?"
"I guess you don’t know, so you’d never know what you’re missing."
"I miss my walls."
I remember singing the lullaby again. Over and over. I asked Erik if he missed his walls anymore, and he said he didn’t.thinthink I fell asleep singing it again because I can’t remember finishing it, and then I woke up in my bed.’
‘Dear Diary,
I guess it would be strange for me to write about my life. No one cares, you know? No one wants me to even exist, and here I am, writing it down for someone to find one day.
It was Christs ids idea that I write this. I guess she doesn’t know I have nothing to say.
She keeps going on about ‘friends’ and doesn’t like walls. I doubt I’ll ever understand her.’
‘I helped Meg and her mother with some baking today. They gave me the leftover of a pie to take home with me and have for lunch.
Meg hasn’t heard from the Opera Ghost for a month. I guess the managers are getting used to Erik and letting him do what he wants. Meg tells me he really doesn’t do much of anything.
It gave me the best idea. I’d go and find Erik. He has to live somewhere in that huge expanse of darkness behthe the mirror. He’s always so starved he makes the street rats who clean the opera look well fed.
I opened the mirror and stepped inside. I was alone in the darkness now. I tentatively stepped forward, against and again, and found a flight of stairs that seems to go down forever.
As I descended down the stairs, my vision grew accustomed to the darkness. I could vaguely see where I was putting my foot instead of having to guess all the time. It was like a black outline on darker black.
When I finally got to the end of stairs, I was amazed.
Before me seemed like something out of a fairytale that had been long forgotten down here in the dark.
I was on a rocky shore of a lake, no, river. There was a bridge a few feet away, and at the other side was house. Well, more or less a house.
‘Quaint’ didn’t describe it. ‘Shack’ was close. ‘Pathetic’ seemed to work.
I was more surprised by the bridge and the house, and not by how pitiful it looked. I expected Erik to have some hole in the wall or lean-to made of old scraps and refuse.
It was quiet, but there was a faint light coming from the house.
I knocked on the door.
Nothing.
I knocked again.
Nothing again.
I felt a bit stupid about it, but I tried the doorknob.
I stood there dumbfounded for a few seconds when it opened.
I stepped inside and closed the door behind me quietly. I knew I was intruding, but I was curious. If it got me into trouble, then so be it, I deserved it. I was tired of being a doll that just sat on a shelf.
There wasn’t much to the house. Less than I expected. The bathroom and what I assumed was a pantry were more like closets without doors. In the main room, which was the only real room, was a broken table with a miserable looking candle, an organ, which caught my attention for quite a while, and couch I recognized from a play years ago, with Erik sleeping on it. I wondered what happened to it. The managers didn’t want it and it disappeared before they got rid of it
I set the food down and came closer. At second glance, it looked more like he’d passed out on the couch than was actually resting.
I realized Erik wasn’t wearing his . I. I took another few steps to get a better angle to see his face.
Everything stopped at that moment. My breath caught in my throat and I swear my heart stopped. His face. His FACE! I was so frightened. I kept enough wits about me not to scream and wake him up. It was like a skull! It was death’s face! Now I knew why everyone had their own different version of him. Everyone who saw him and escaped saw death. They all have their own versions of death, but that’s what they remember. I was staring at death. I was alone in the darkness with the grim reaper!
Something tore me out of my nightmare just in time. Just before I fled shrieking in terror to show someone the mirror and the house and Death, a noise startled me. I hadn’t realized it was there at first, but once it touched my ears, I saw everything as it really was. , th, that horrible visage belonged to Erik, the Erik I knew and talked to and sang to. But my fears were shatt wit with the noise of him sobbing in his sleep.
That was why he wore his mask, that was why he hid, why he felt such a need for walls between him and everyone else. That was why I frightened him. That was why all he knew was being hurt. That was why he was crying, begging someone to stop whatever memory was running through his head.
He wasn’t Death anymore. I could never look at him again and see him as that. Death never cried.
I watched for a short while, hoping his sobs would stop, but they didn’t.
I placed my hand on his shoulder and shook him slightly. He yelped and covered his head in his hands, burying his face in the couch cushions.
He was shivering. I wasn’t in the least bit surprised. It was so cold all the way down here and he had no blanket.
I carefully sat down on the couch and rested his head on my lap. He was frightening, but he was Erik, neither fact could be changed.’
I gently ran my hand over his long hair over and over again, trying to soothe him. He couldn’t scare me. He was Erik and he was my friend, whether he would admit it or not.
After a short while he woke up and then froze, startled that he found himself resting on my skirts.
He tried to back away and wound up tumbling off the couch all together. He crawled away from me and hung his head so his hair fell over his face.
"Erik—"
"Go away, Christine. Go away and cal the police or that suitor you don’t like or anyone else. Please don’t call me by my name anymore."
"You—"
"Christine, if I’d found you wandering around down here, I’d have killed you before I realized who it was! I wouldn’t have taken any chances! That’s why the door’s not locked! If someone gets down here they’ll smash it down anyway!" He curled himself into a ball and I saw tears glinting in the faint candlelight behind his hair. He rocked back and forth, softly signing to himself. "You hate me now, I know. Could you… could you please … I don’t care if I die. I just don’t want to be hurt. That’s what they’d want. They’d just hurt me. I’m tired of being hurt. I hate it. Call them down, I’ll understand, just…just let the monster die first."
I took a handkerchief out of my pocket and handed it to him.
"How am I supposed to kill my self with a handkerchief?"
"It’s for your eyes."
"Your going to tell them, though. Aren’t you?"
"No, Erik, I’m not."
"Christine, I’m a murderer! You’ve seen me. What could possibly stop you?"
"You’re my friend. That’s what."
"Friend?"
"Friends are nice to each other. It wouldn’t be ver nice to get you killed, would it?"
"I brought some food." I said and gave him the pie. After a little coaxing I convinced him it was not poisoned, but it was for him. He liked it a lot, I doubt he’s ever eaten such a thing in his life, especially considering he got sick and threw up because it was far too rich for him.’
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...My name