Phantom of the Opera 1. I know he's there

Chapter one

**I know he's there**

I grew up on dreams of love, dreams that never came true. As I walked through the opera I sang softly to myself, I had no family. I was all alone, always alone in the world. I have been told that I am very beautiful, but you see I cannot say that I am. But than again I cannot say that I am not. You see I am blind, and therefore cannot say much of anything as to the way of appearances. My other senses, although good can be troublesome sometimes for I hear and smell things that I know I should not.

These things that I sense, these things that I smell and hear have only increased my ability to feel. And dear god did I feel, such things I felt indeed! You see my inability to see has increased not only my functional senses, but also my emotions. I have tears in my eyes most of the time; sometimes they are the sweet tears of joy. Other times my eyes pour the bitter liquid of saddened tears, like that of a whine fountain spilling its bittersweet contents into its base. I also feel pain, _Mon dieu _the pain can be so intense that it has been rumored that my screams sound like that of him.

Who is he you ask? Well to be honest I do not know exactly, all I knew is the stories. I have heard many roomers of a ghost that haunts these halls, not that I am afraid. I have never feared for my own health, in all actuality I never really found horror stories to be that frightening. Growing up I spent most of my childhood in reclusive areas; in fact I hardly ever socialized preferring the peace; the gentleness of quiet solitude.

I as a child often enjoyed things that many of my childhood peers found awkward, or strange. I love to read and am quite well versed in four different languages. This list of my tongues includes, English, French, Spanish and Italian. I am fluent in all of them, and I was very proud of myself upon completion of all my courses. I never found ghost stories frightening, only vaguely entertaining, Horror fascinates, me, and romance enthralls me. So of course I am not afraid of this opera ghost, only intrigued and very anxious to discover his or hers true identity.

"Gabrielle!" Henrietta calls, I turned my head and I looked at her. Well turned my head in her direction anyways. Yes my name is Gabrielle I am as confused as you are as to why I was called this particular name at my birth. No doubt by my mother whose name was Gabriella and my father's name was Aaron but he had loved her very much and had only two children, two daughters. Ones name was Lilly and then there was me. Lilly died just a year after I was born. She was swimming you see and then slipped in the pool and drowned.

Then one day I grew sick, with flu but thankfully made a full recovery. Being born a blind child in what the people in this theater would call a, "poor man's world." I grew to love the creative arts, such as music and painting. For you do not need eyes for your hand to see. And my hands do see.

Oh yes they see so very, very well. And such vibrant things they see, such brilliant colors they see, such wonderful sound they make. I am a musician, an artist and have no interest in the folly of the other young girls here. I want to one day, sing of the beauty of this world. And what better place to do so, indeed there is no other way for me than this lavish theater. My world may be dark, my past solitary, but one day I believe that the world can be mine. I will move the minds of the souls of Paris with my voice, just like the characters of my mother's lullabies. It sadden me that I only remember the first verse of one of them, and vaguely.

"Gabrielle!" Henrietta calls again, and I continue to ignore her. She is so bloody demanding, my roommate. I just want her to leave me alone, so I can have a conversation with people without having her nose in my business. I just wanted to go into my room and hide form them all. I hated them, so why should I be around them? Well the real question is or should be how do I get away? You know being a blind costume maid did not give you much time to yourself, if it allowed you a few hours to sleep you were lucky.

I walked over to her and asked her what she wanted. She did not answer me, but instead kept chattering on about how her hair was a mess. I sighed, and reached up to feel her wig. I then began to laugh and told her that of course it was messed up because in was lopsided and falling off. I pulled her head down to my level as I carefully and gently repositioned it on the top of her head. She then snapped her fingers and said taking my wrist put in on her perfume bottle ordering me to spray it on for her.

I obeyed and mocked her inwardly; I did not like the airy tone in her voice. She had no right to order me around, she was no diva and I was not her maid. She was not the manager of the theater and had no right in anyway to order anyone around. Not that she was rude or unkind but she was very snobbish and I strongly disliked, no the phrase, "strongly dislike," was not the right word to express how I felt hated was better. I hated how very snobbish she was.

I helped her get ready for her minor role in Faust as Ce'belle and then went about my daily chores with ease. My job was simply to do the chores around the place. You know things such as scrubbing the curtains, and swabbing the stage, and sometimes cleaning the opera stables. All disgusting jobs in my personal opinion. Well the stage job wasn't that bad that is unless the stagehands had gotten too snookered and decided to vomit all over the place. I really mustn't complain though, it is out of the kindness of the managers that I did these things.

If I did not I would certainly not be here, in the past I have received no money for my work. But then again there are other rewards, such as getting to see each and every performance up close. The added bonus of free room and board is nothing for me to be complaining about. If it were not for the jobs and all the hard work that I do around this place I would be nothing. Nothing but a poor and homeless blind girl, crippled and shunned and begging the passersby for a few alms so that I could buy a crust of bread

So I do my work well and do my best to stay in the good graces of my superiors so they do not turn me out on the street. It seems to be working splendidly actually. As a matter of fact they have been so impressed as of late that they have started to pay me a total of five francs per hour. It is not much I know but it is good enough for me for sometimes I work for four or five hours and make twenty or twenty-five francs a day and I often buy new cloths or some more supplies.

Or sometimes I'll go to the only bookshop in town that is run by a blind store master and but a nice brail book. One of my favorite stories is_ Oliver Twist _a touching story of an orphaned boy living with thieves in the London slums. I love the way that Charles Dickens describes the bonding between Fagan and Oliver and the last prayer that the twelve-year-old boy utters in the jail as the wretched, old, and loony Fagan pleads with him to help him escape his dark and lonely prison.

So I while thinking about the story that I have just described to you in the smallest of details I think of my dreams. All my life I listened to my mother's tales of seeing blue skies and green meadows, and my father's tales of fishing on a sunlit river in springtime. I will never see these things, but even so I can imagine them quite vividly. And in my mind's eye I see more vividly than the naked human eye for my vision is not obscured by the fog or blurred by the rain covered glass of a window.

Not unless I allow them to be, and often times when I am sad I picture these happy things to cheer myself up. The other workers do not understand why I am so bloody cheerful. You have nothing to be happy about. They say. On the contrary I believe that I have everything in the world to be happy and cheerful about. I am very optimistic, and as long as I have a roof over my head, my good health, and my imagination I am usually quite contented. Notice that I said 'usually' and not 'always', for lately I've been longing for something deeper. I've had deep feelings of loneliness and bereft. Nonetheless I am smiling for I live in a different world.

**- At and after the performance-**

I listened with a mixture of disgust and awe to the great and beautiful sounds of the music. Followed by the horrid sounds of Carlotta's voice. God I hated that woman, she sang horribly like a screech owl. She was a pain to dress in the mornings for rehearsals and even more of a pain to dress for the performances in the evening with her constant squawking and wailing god I hated it!

Once my shift was over which was during intermission I slipped away leaving Jane to take over. I slipped down the hall and turned the corner to an old abandoned dressing room. I took off my hairpin and slipped it into the keyhole. Once I had picked the lock I slipped inside the room and lit a stray candle I had found lying there on the table with a match I kept behind my ear in case the power went out and I could not find the costumes.

No reasons for this of course I am blind anyway but still the managers were insistent that all us costume workers do this. I began to search the room with my fingers and soon found what I had been searching for, my violin. You see I took this from the chorus master two years ago, he had deemed it broken and I had offered to fix it. He assented offering to pay me extra for my work. It had taken me three weeks to do but soon I had done it. I tried playing it to make sure it worked and grew to love it so much that I lied to the chorus master saying that I could not fix it so that I could keep it.

I took it put and began to play softly; I was glad that no one ever came in here. You see the other people in the theater said some Phantom had haunted this room's previous occupant four years before I had come to work here three years ago. I did not believe them and liked this room for the privacy it provided me. I began to sing softly a song that I made up in my head.

"_Your eyes see but my shadow._

_My heart is overflowing._

_There's so much you could come to love!_

_You've got my heart glowing._

_Tenderly you could see, my soul!"_

**(Disclaimer: Those are the lyrics to Erik's Opera from the 1989 version of POTO)**

As I finished singing my silence was broken by a long wail of… "_No!"_


	2. The voice

Chapter two

**The voice**

"_No!" _ The voice wailed and leaping to my feet I felt a shiver running down the column of my spine. _"You must never come here again!" _the voice ordered. I began to laugh aloud, thinking it was one of the stagehands playing a practical joke on me. Probably Christophè, he and I are close friends and of you ask me he is trying desperately to court me. I did not want his advances you see but still he persists in his hopeless flattery and mindless attempts to woo my heart to his as he called it irresistible charms.

Well Christophè was quite wrong indeed for I did not love him that way. I never will and never had on any way shape or form loved him. I cared for him yes, but love was way to strong to describe my friendly feelings for him I continued to giggle and laugh as though whoever this was had just told a very good joke. This in truth did not frighten me at all and in my opinion this person needed to find some new material I mean this whole, "Opera ghost" thing was so overdone it bored me.

_"Go back Christine!" _I heard the voice say and for a moment I was confused. I had absolutely no clue as to whom this Christine person is but something told me that she had something to do with this man, thing, or whomever he was or is. _"Go back to your love Christine! Forgive me and torment me with your presence no longer." _The man's voice wailed pitifully and I just stood frozen.

When at last I found that my voice was working I decided to try and talk to whoever this was. "Go back? To whom do you wish me to go back to?" I asked him and for a moment I just held my breath, waiting for a response. When none came I thought that I was loosing my mind. The voice had said for me to go back. He obviously thought me to be someone I was not and that was certainly not a good thing. It was evidently causing him great distress and his wailing was really starting to creep me out beyond all possible sense. He does not even seem to realize that I am not this person that he seeks so desperately and weakly.

My answer to the question that made me so confused came sooner than I had expected it to. The voice that spoke with sorrowful cries for this seemingly very dear one spoke. His voice was harsh and the pain was there, I could sense it. His agony was very strong, the anguish deep as he spoke in a very bitter tone. _" You dare ask me this? You know where your heart belongs. Go back to the Viscount De Chagny!" _he cried and now I was really confused out of my mind. I stood for several minutes in silence riveted.

I listened to his sobs and felt my firm heart crack open like an egg in a frying pan. A moment went on and on for what felt like an eternity, a breath was breathed and the world seemed to stop. My life was moving my heart was beating so loudly that I had to hold it with both hands to make it stop. He sobbed aloud again and I felt myself beginning to silently cry with him softly. My tears felt warm on my cheeks, but I knew his were cold and broken. I had not felt those cold tears since my parents died.

I had no idea why, but my mind's eye was wondering why this stranger was crying. Still I remained silent and let him cry without saying a word. I felt it best that he have his cry, for often when I had been a child and not so optimistic about my ability to see I always felt better after a good, long cry. I was not exactly sure however as to whether my silence was right or wrong. This man seemed so broken and so wretched that it seemed a sin that I did not go to him.

I did the only thing that I could think of I raised my violin and began to play for him. It seemed to work at first, for his sobs broke for a brief moment that lifted my head. I heard him cough and sputter violently as he broke down again. And I swear that at that moment if I had known where he was, if he were tangible I would have ran at the poor man and hugged him so tightly that his head would have popped off his shoulders. But since I did not I simply breathed deeply and continued to play.

He let out a sound, which seemed something between a moan and a sob. I began to sing to him softly.

The man's voice roared in a voice that seemed to be a voice filled with all the pain that the world possessed. So terrible, so broken and yet so beautiful that it brought tears to my eyes. My voice was silenced as if someone had stuffed a cork down my throat. I breathed deeply to steady myself once more as I heard him moaning and groaning. He sounded as though his voice would shatter at any moment now.

The air in the room was so still that the heavy breathing of the two figures, myself and the one as to whom the voice belonged seemed loud in our ears. Yet at the precise moment I felt my ears begin to pound, for as painful as his sobs were they were so beautiful that it awed me. I wanted to hear more despite my compassionate nature and myself, being far too skeptical to believe in strange voices as anything other than freakish hallucinations.

Still as an Egyptian girl born and raised on the desert plains I find myself too fond of fantastic things to simply ignore them. I found myself curious as to who this person was, is or might be and also who this Christine was. Still I did not speak and soon was sure that I was loosing my mind. The voice was no longer there, and I was soon becoming drowsy. My work had made me very tired and now I felt that my mind was just playing tricks on me. Either that or I seriously needed to lay off the wine. Probably both of the two options mentioned before hand.

I did not know what else to do besides stand there and listen to him cry and moan. I was reminded forcibly of the legends in my country. There was one in particular that made me sigh whenever I heard it. The legend of the death of the high priest and then due to customs he was mummified and placed in a casket and locked away. It was said in the old legends of my country that his lover had been promised that he would marry her when she returned.

So grieved was she when she to find out of the death of her love that she kills herself that very same night. It is said that once a month when the full moon rises they are reunited in love. They sing a song if their feelings for one another in a song that sounded to their ears both horrible and beautiful. A mixture of the likeness of the supernatural and the undead. A powerful mixture of love and despair for they could never be together in this life. So the legend ends that way with the lover's song. He sounded to me now like he was singing that song.

I began to play again as I hoped to calm and soothe him and for a few moments it seemed to be working. So I played a soft and gentler tune to a lullaby. I was hoping that I could lull the poor voice to slumber land with a peaceful method and not to anger it further. It only worked for a moment and then the voice out angrily again, _"No, go back to your husband and torment me no longer!" _I opened my mouth to speak when I realized it was pointless to argue with a voice that I could not see.

I ran from the room and for some reason ran into the ballet room and straight down to the stagehands courtiers and down to the attic. I took out my hairpin again and began to fiddle about with it in the lock. It clicked around a few times and then the lock gave way to release the latch. I suddenly was very grateful to my grandfather Joel for teaching me such useful tricks when I was growing up. Though grandfather was rather like a child in more ways than one and there was no doubt in my mind that he had just intended to enable me to cause mischief or at least to make it easier to do so.

It really did not matter at the moment whether my grandfather for mischief and secrecy or whether or not he had honorable intentions used this trick. I was just so glad that I knew it and knew when to use it. As I released the lock and turned the knob it clicked but did not budge. Oh joy! As my poor luck would have it the door was stuck tight! I exerted more pressure and gave it a little shove.

Still nothing happened! I groaned and shoved again and a third time and at last I began to move. I moved down and pushed it with a little more force than was necessary and the door budged a little further but then got stuck again. I muttered to myself irritated," _Maledizione." _I cursed in Italian and gave the door another shove. It moved again slightly but it never moved more than an inch. I dropped to my knees and reached my hand into the opening and felt around. I found the source of the 'thorn in my side' so to speak.

A cinder block had been placed in front of the door and was thus blocking my entrance. I crawled as close as I can get to the block and tentatively pushed at it so as to move it out of my way. It made a slight scrapping noise as to slid away and as I moved it I began to rise to my feet. This was a big mistake on my part, as I have said before I am blind and therefore have no way of seeing where I am or for that matter which direction I am going.

So as you can probably guess I took a step in the wrong direction and tripped over my feet falling down and scraping my mouth and bruised my lip, causing it to bleed. I rose to my feet and attempted to feel around in the dark room and upon touching the wall felt the tickling of little feet on my hand. I shuddered a bit, and then relaxed realizing that it was nothing but a little stray spider. I breathed deeply with my relief that it was just a spider and not something else. I put my hand to the windowsill and let it crawl off.

I then knelt down and felt around the room to see what I could find. I found two old tarps one on you of the other and lay down on one of them. I pulled the second one over me as if it were a blanket and laid my head on my shabby little coat as a pillow and closed my eyes. I moaned deeply and turned over as the voice wailed and wailed and screamed and cried with pleading and begging tones in his beautiful voice. Soon sleep took me but still he cried and cried.

The last thing I remember was hearing another voice, not the one in my head, nor my own. A man's voice, gruff and rugged saying, "'ello who's in here?"


End file.

Phantom of the Opera, Romance