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Do I Dream Again?	By : LaurieBaker Category: M through R > The Phantom of the Opera > Het Views: 10049 -:- 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
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I do not own any of the rights or characters of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA in any version.

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Christine ran as hard as she could...

Gasping for breath, she ran through tunnels and mazes and trap doors, groping out in the pitch black dark with her hands but seeing nothing...feeling nothing. All around, she was enshrouded in mist...or was it smoke from the fire raging above in the Paris Opera House?

On and on, she ran until she reached the underground lake.

Where was the boat? She had to find the boat!

It was so dark she could not see anything, not even her own hands reaching out before her. She could not see anything at all!

But then it appeared, floating up from the depths of the cold water with a soft gurgle…the faint whiteness of a mask...

“Angel!” she screamed. “Angel!”

The stinking filth of the water made her want to wretch as she waded into the lake desperately. Feeling the solidness of the man’s shoulders, she pulled at him frantically, trying to get him back to safety and dry land. She tugged so hard at his soaked frame that her muscles screamed in agony. When she succeeded, for some moments, she could do nothing but clutch for breath, her heart pounding so hard that her chest hurt.

Even in the pitch blackness, although she could barely see him, she knew it was him. Her Angel. Her Phantom.

“Please don’t die!” she begged, falling to her knees beside him as she pulled him close in her arms. “Please don’t die!”

Christine pressed her lips to his frozen mouth, praying that he would steal the breath away from her own body so that he might live. She held his head to her breasts, cuddling him as if he were a long lost child. She kissed him and stroked the wisps of his hair as she rocked back and forth. She slapped at his face frantically, pleading with him to waken. She screamed and sobbed.

Yet all attempts were useless.

He was dead, bloated and pale from having drowned himself in the underground lake. Hysterical with grief, she took off his mask and stroked his mottled cheek. His infected face did not faze her in the slightest now…now when it no longer mattered. Her tears fell upon his mask like rain.

“Forgive me, my Angel,” she sobbed. “Forgive me…”

Then his eyes opened...yet they were the lifeless unfocused eyes of a dead man.

“You did this, Christine...” he hissed with fury. “Damn you to hell! You did this to us both!”

And then his hands suddenly lurched for her throat…hurting her...squeezing the life out of her…

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Clutching at her neck and gasping for breath, Christine awoke with tears streaming down her cheeks.

Only after a few minutes was she aware that this was merely another nightmare, one of many that she had suffered since she read the announcement in the Epoque only a week ago.

ERIK IS DEAD.

The damning three words had killed something inside of herself. She felt as if part of her soul had died with that sentence. And she could not find enough peace to sleep. She wondered if she would ever know rest again.

Safe and warm in the large bed of the guestroom in the de Chagny estate, Christine halfway wished she were in the hell of the catacombs, cold and wet, being choked by the vengeful ghost of the Phantom of the Opera. Then at least her torment would end at last. And she could join her Angel of Music and her father in death.

Sitting up slowly, Christine moaned in disgust at the warm pink cotton blankets and dainty floral sheets of the large poster bed. Moonlight streamed into her window, making the guest room a frilly paradise. She did not deserve such niceties. She did not want them.

After the fateful night of Don Juan Triumphant, Raoul had desired to marry right away. He had wanted to find a priest and run away to the North in a mad dash. But Christine had convinced him otherwise. Too much had happened. She could not rush headlong into a new marriage and family when she could still hear that haunting music box melody in her head. She could not look at Raoul and profess love to him when she still felt the Phantom's eyes burning into her soul.

But she did not tell him those things. She simply said that she had always wanted a proper wedding, not a sordid elopement. And she needed time to recuperate from her ordeal before she would be up for such an event. Never mind the scandal, she insisted. Her name was forever linked with the Phantom of the Opera. She had grown quite accustomed to all of the lies spread about her.

Fortunately, she had made Raoul see reason. Yet he insisted that she stay in the de Chagny estate, properly chaperoned by his family members, of course. She asked why she could not just stay with Mamma Valerius, the woman who had helped raised her since she was six years of age.

“She is much too old to care for you, Christine,” he answered. “And you are my responsibility now.”

Christine wanted to answer that she did not need caring for, that she did not want to be anyone’s responsibility. Yet she was too sad to even get up the fortitude to argue with her fiancé. Thus, she remained at the de Chagny estate, suffering the cold glances of his sisters. They did not approve of a common chorus girl marrying into one of the most distinguished families of all France. Although they were too polite to say so, their feelings were evident.

Such an attitude from his family gave Christine further pause. Did she want to spend the rest of her days constantly being looked down upon simply because she had not been born into wealth?

Yet when Erik's announcement appeared in the newspaper, Raoul was more determined than ever that they should marry as soon as possible. She did not understand why he was in such a sudden rush. After all, what harm could come from a dead man? Her fiancé answered that he did not believe Erik dead simply because of a skeleton found which could easily have been a victim of the Commune. Nor did he set any weight by that announcement in the papers, he continued. It could have been someone’s idea of a prank. Maybe even Erik had even posted the notice so that he could more successfully kidnap her again.

Christine had bit her tongue when he made such foolish statements. Trying so hard to be the lady he expected her to be, she did not flail out at him with her fists and curse him for his stupidity as she so yearned to do. Sometimes she swore that Raoul loved the idea of being the gallant hero more than he loved her. He had won her, after all. Why was he still wanting to fight the Phantom when there was no fight left to be had?

Besides, she knew that he was wrong. Erik was indeed dead for she had killed him.

That night, as he clung to his music box, bereft and hopeless, pleading his love for her. What had she said? What had she done? She simply gave him back his ring and walked away. Consumed with disappointment and sadness from his betrayal, she had all but handed him a death sentence as she left his side.

That had been only one of so many poor choices she had made and bitterly rued.

If only she had not been such a foolish girl, so easily taken in with promises of ghosts and angels…

If only she had not given in to the temptation of curiosity, ripping off her Angel’s mask to see his face…

If only she had not been so afraid of him…perhaps her Angel would not have murdered...

Perhaps he would still be alive…

But all regrets and recriminations were of no point now. What was done was done. The past was dead.

All Christine could do now was to attempt to set the future right. This thought propelled her to action.

Two days ago, Christine had been horribly insulted when Raoul’s sister, Lucille de Chagny, offered her a great sum of money to quietly abandon her fiancé and leave town never to return. In fact, she had been so insulted that she called his sister a word that she had never before spoken to anyone. Yet, as time passed, she had thought on the offer with more consideration than she had expected to.

For the last month, Christine had felt the walls closing in on her. She was growing to resent Raoul’s possessive attitude of her. She despised his relatives. She found the wealthy estate cold and forbidding. She missed performing and singing on stage. In short, she no longer felt like Christine Daae but like a stranger that she did not recognize. Such a realization frightened her to the core.

Even though her Angel of Music had turned out to be a murdering madman, at least he always knew her for who she was. He had taken her love of music and had made her the toast of Paris. He had helped her see that her grief for her father could strengthen her acting as she performed on stage. He took all that she loved in life and helped her see how she could use such passion to enhance her career. Even now when he was gone forever, she had that knowledge that he had given her. She had that gift for the rest of her days. The thought of squandering all of her hard work, technique and talent away on a remote estate made her ill. And for what? To be bullied about by a young spoiled little boy and to be spurned by his well-to-do relatives...

This was not the life for her.

With strengthened resolve, she dressed in a gray traveling suit, the only dress not already packed in her valise. Quietly, she slipped past Raoul’s room. But then she stopped and set down her bag, despite her better judgment.

Just one more glance at him, she thought as she entered his bedroom, although she would not dare to wake him to say goodbye.

Raoul de Chagny was a handsome man, even in sleep. He looked like an innocent babe, so relaxed and at peace he was with the world. How many nights had she dreamed of awakening beside him, admiring his golden locks and sapphire blue eyes?

What woman wouldn’t want to marry a storybook lover? After all, the fair maiden was supposed to marry the prince, wasn’t she? She was supposed to become a princess and live happily ever after in his castle. She wasn’t supposed to suffer with grief and guilt at the death of the monster that the prince had helped to slay.

And even now, despite Erik’s death, she felt those mysterious cravings in her body whenever she thought of his masked face. His death did not absolve her of her own sinful longings. Indeed, now that the threat of his strong personality was gone, those yearnings seemed to have only intensified in a morbid sort of way. Even from his grave in the depths of the catacombs, the beast fed from her…hungrily and greedily…driving her mad…

She was no fit woman to be a Vicomtesse. And she was not the innocent princess that the prince believed her to be. Raoul de Chagny was an honorable man. She could not sentence him to a loveless marriage. She would not help to destroy yet another man she had only meant to care for. How much of her professed love for him had simply been a means of holding on to her father from the grave?

Yet, Raoul was no longer that little boy who retrieved her scarf at Trestraou.

And she was no longer a little girl who believed in dark stories of the North.

“Forgive me, Raoul…” she whispered as she brushed the soft golden locks of his forehead. “I truly thought I loved you. Please believe that I never lied to you...”

Then retrieving her packed valise, Christine started for the hallway, knocking softly on Lucille de Chagny’s door.

The fairy tale romance was at an end.
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Do I Dream Again?