The Night Will Only Know

A Pain Worse Than Death

Erik's POV

It began when I was fourteen, almost an entire year after I smuggled the organ down to my home. I was in the practice room searching for new music to play on the smuggled organ of which I now owned, when I heard people approaching; I began to frantically look for a place to hide, finding nothing on the floor, I was forced to climbed. I clambered to the top of the upright piano, reaching desperately for the rafters a few inches from my fingertips. I dared one jump, and I made it, I pulled myself up and into seclusion and safety. 

I clung to the rafters of the lofty practice room for nearly two hours, listening to a fine baritone chorus member sing. I remember wishing I could sing like that, I was already talented in music, why not expand my field?

For the next two years, I sat cramping up in the rafters, sometimes up to six hours a day. I would listen to the Maestro, to the singer, and I would remember. I watched some of the finest English sopranos and the richest tenors train. When it became late I would slip back down to my kingdom and practice till my voice was hoarse and I was sure the sun was about to rise. 

Each week my voice grew, it changed, it became refined like the elegant novels Antoinette snuck me. I found myself wandering the shadows of the Opera House's most forgotten halls, singing softly to myself any aria that came to my head.  I often sat in Box 5 when it was nighttime and everyone was asleep, it had a perfect view of the stage and I would pretend I was watching an opera. An opera that I could never watch in the light.

Antoinette came to me awhile later, proclaiming that some ballet rats had heard a mysterious and beautiful voice singing in the corridors and in Box 5, I wondered cruelly if they would find my face as beautiful as my voice.

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It was autumn, of my sixth year at the Opera House. I was looking for a winter cloak to keep me warm, as the catacombs sometimes grew chilled when it became exceptionally cold. I was tired and in a rather unpleasant mood, my search having turned up empty. I retreated to my lair in the cold cellars in which I lived. 

When I arrived, I only wished for sleep, but upon entering my sleeping chamber, I noticed something on my bed. When I approached, I saw it was a long black cloak, made of thick cloth. The inside was lined with a deep red velvet. I loved it immediately, I swung it over my shoulders, it fit perfectly. The shoulders of the cloak hugged mine comfortably, not too tight nor too loose.  

A note slipping out of the folds of the cloak, written neatly on crisp parchment, fell to the floor. It read,

To The Opera Ghost,

I hope you enjoy the cloak. The cold is seeping into my bones, France is usually mild in the autumn.  The cold is coming quickly this year, and with it many illnesses. My friend, Gustave Daae, is ill and I must go and tend to him. He once saved my life, as I had saved your's. I won't go into details but when I was visiting a little house by the sea, I fell through the ice on a river that lead to said sea. 

A man, tall and with wild dark hair pulled me to safety, this was Monsieur Daae. He had saved me from a watery grave. How ironic that eight years later, he would be facing a watery grave as fluid enters his lungs. I will be back with the spring flowers, have you ever seen spring flowers? The indigo bells and lavender grow wild and free in the countryside, perhaps I shall bring you some.

While I am away, please keep out of sight and out of mind.  Monsieur Lefèvre is growing tired of your endless tricks. The items being moved, lights going out at random, torment of the soprano Carlotta. Remember, an Opera House is not a playground, but an artistic domain. Be careful, please.

Antoinette

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Winter was cold and lonely, much like my previous time in the circus. Only now, I lived in a whole other prison, this one I had constructed with my own hands. I had built my own cage, lonely days and nights passed. The ache was worse than death, but I did not go above the trapdoor on the plaster level, I had to wait till Antoinette came back. She was my only connection to the light and she was worried for me, I wouldn't go against her request.

Weeks passed, or had it been months? I knew it was spring because of the noise. The noise of chittering ballet girls floated down through miles of grates and halls. Their happiness teased my ears and mocked my lonesome fate. 

I waited.....for Antoinette...for anyone to comfort me in my loneliness, but no one came. Spring passed, soon the leaves were falling. I dared to go to the surface, Monsieur Lefèvre  hired a temporary dance instructor. What was worse was I could feel my heart sinking as I heard the crunching of leaves that skittered in on autumn breezes. Soon the snow would be swirling in and I would feel the cold ache that was more than winter's chill set in my bones. 

A year passed.

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