Of Masks And Roses

Stubborn

"What?" I asked. I was stunned. It couldn't be possible. Absolutely not. I could not be the reason why Erik wrote an opera for three months, forced Christine to be the lead, and then took her down to his lair and burned down the Opera Populair. After all of my hard work of trying to change the story and make things better, it seems like it was all for nothing.

"Oh, it will be magnificent," Erik said as he began to pace back and forth, running his hand through his hair, "Just glorious! I'll have Christine be the lead, and Carlotta can be shoved aside to a minor role for once. It'll be so grand that all of Paris will have to love it." he turned to me, "I can see it now; audience clapping and cheering, and Christine will be so amazed that I wrote such a marvelous piece, she'll have to love me."

"Erik," I said slowly as I stood up from my spot on the bed, holding my hands out to try to calm him, "Think about this."

"Think about what?" he asked, turning to me, "What is there to think about? This is my one chance to win Christine back. To show her that I'm not the monster that she thinks I am anymore. That I have changed."

"I dunno, Erik. I'm just not sure that this is such a good idea, trust me on this." I warned, placing my hand on his shoulder.

"And I'm telling you it is," he said, taking my hand from it's spot but didn't let go, "You tell me to trust you, but do you not trust me?"

"I do. It's just-" I stopped and sighed, taking my hand back, "It's just that I don't think that this is going to go very well."

"Well, I think it will. Now," he turned around and walked over to an empty space on a wall. With his hand he reached up above his head and put his fingers in a large crack in the wall. With a flick of his wrist he pulled down on it and then there was a sudden 'thunk'. A secret passage opened up where the wall used to be, cold air washing over us, "I must be going. I have to get to working on my opera immediately," he turned back towards me, "I trust that you can keep this passage a secret as well. You can use it any time that you would like. But be careful where you step," he said with a smirk, "I don't want to give you any more stitches."

I couldn't help but chuckle. I nodded as he stepped into the passageway and shut the door behind them.

"Well, shoot," I whispered, looking down at the floor and running my fingers through my hair, "How am I supposed to change the story to help Erik when the damn story won't let me?"

XxX

"What should we do, Firmin?" Andre asked, "Everything is a complete mess! Should we leave?"

Firmin turned around and faced him, "Absolutely not," he said, then walked over to a large cabinet. Opening the doors and reaching inside he grabbed a bottle of wine and a crystal glass, "We are not going anywhere. We run this opera house now. We can't just jump ship at the slight sign of chaos."

They were in the Manager's office. It wasn't very big, but it was big enough. With hardwood floor and soft blue wallpaper, it almost looked cute at first glance. When you would walk in the first thing you would see would be a small desk covered in papers, and two chairs squeezed in behind it. One of the papers on the desk was a newspaper that was flipped to a page, the sentence 'DESK FOR SALE' circled in black ink. Behind the desk was a large window overlooking the city of Paris. If you turn to your right you would see the large cabinet full of wine bottles and crystal glasses. To your left would be a beautiful painting of the countryside. In the middle of the room was a light blue carpet with roses embroidered on it. The room would have been a lovely place to look at if it weren't for the large amounts of papers strewn all over the place. They were under the desk and on the floor. Under the rug and even lodged in the window. You could definitely tell that this was the first true business that the two had run, and they were not prepared in the slightest on how to run such a business.

"But what about that boy who died? What are we going to do about that? It's bad publicity. People have already started to talk."

"We're not going to do anything about it," Firmin confirmed as he started to pour himself a glass, "That woman told us what happened. It was just an accident."

"But she had to have been lying! Admit it, Richard. It must have been the Opera Ghost! Ten people have already quit out of fear. What are we going to do about that?" Andre sighed and walked around the desk. He grabbed his chair and sat down in it. He groaned and rubbed his forehead, "Maybe we should have just stayed with the Scrap Metal Business."

Firmin stopped drinking mid drink and slammed his glass down on the table, "'Just stayed with the Scrap Metal Business'?" He walked around to the front of the desk, facing Andre, "What are you talking about?" he asked, smacking his hands on the desk, "This job is giving us more money than we could have ever gotten with the junk business-"

"Scrap Metal," Andre corrected, not looking up to meet his gaze.

Firmin waved his arms, "It does not matter. What does matter is that we're here. We made it this far. And we are not going to back out of this grand opportunity just because of an idiotic ghost story. We're the managers now. This is our Opera House. And we are going to show the 'Opera Ghost' who's boss." he walked back over to the cabinet and grabbed another glass, "Let's get some alcohol in you and then we can start thinking up new ideas for our next performance," he poured Andre a glass and handed it to him, who was now sitting up and paying attention. Firmin then grabbed his own glass and held it up to Andre's, "A toast! To our newly found wealth!"

Andre smiled and clinked his glass against Firmin's, "Yes. To our newly found wealth."