Page 98 of Angel's Fall

He had looked so huge and fierce just moments ago, like a billowing sail filled with a storm of rage and hate. Now, he was deflated and bent. His shirt was so wet Christine could see through it to make out his scars and the new wound on his arm. “You’re going to catch cold if you don’t get into some dry clothes...”

Erik’s shoulders moved as he gave a hollow laugh. “I don’t think that matters anymore, my dear,” he said so hopelessly it made her heart ache. “It’s all over.”

“Erik, please. I need you to tell me what is going on.” He did not pull away when she gripped his arm and forced him to turn. “You were close to letting go and believing me when you went out. Who was out there?”

“He’s dead now.” Erik looked at Christine with wide, sad eyes in his corpse’s face.

“You killed someone?”

“No. Itold you,” Erik protested, breath labored. “It wasn’t me. It was the shade. It pulled him under and drowned him!”

“What shade?” Christine demanded, taking Erik by the arms as if she could bodily pull him out of this madness.

“The other ghost, the other me who has been haunting us! The one who hurt Jean-Paul and—” Erik stopped, shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter. He’s dead because of me. Now that boy will never forgive me.”

“Who is dead, Erik? Tell me!” Christine’s pulse quickened as her mind rushed to an inevitable guess.

“Philippe de Chagny.”

Christine covered her mouth to stifle her sob, letting go as she did. It felt like releasing her grip on the one thing stopping her from being swept away in this flood of grief and pain and regret. “No...”

“Now you understand. We can’t run, even if we wanted to. Your young hero will chase us down to the ends of the earth for his revenge.” Erik said it so simply, as if he wasn’t burying the last of their hopes. Or maybe, they had only ever been Christine’s hopes. “Unless you let me kill him, that is. And the Daroga.”

“No...” Christine shook her head as the world lurched around her.

“One man is already dead, my dear. What is a few more added to that number?” Erik went on, his voice dull and dreamy. “But you won’t let me do that. Because it will kill you, to have so much blood on your hands and to know they died so that I could live and keep you. You and your dreams and hopes. Did you know I had given up dreaming before I met you and I was quite content? It was easy as a ghost. It will be easy to be a ghost again.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s simple, my love,” Erik sighed. “Either they die or we all die. Yes, us included. I promise when we do, it will be quick. I don’t think we will feel a thing.”

“That is not the only way!” Christine cried in terror.

“Isn’t it though?” Erik took her tenderly by the shoulders. His golden eyes were bloodshot and wild, even though his voice was sweet and calm. “If I kill them, we must both become phantoms. We would hide here and wait and forget the world above. And you would die, slowly fading and losing your light; growing to hate me, missing the sun. Because you cannot be here always, my Persephone, even if you can never truly leave. Going down that road will destroy you, and in turn, it will destroy me. Day by day, we will die together if I let them go.”

“And you think the only other choice is todienow?” Christine shrieked. “Erik, no! You told me that, whatever has happened to you, you always wanted to live. You wanted to keep breathing! You can’t mean this!”

“But I do!” Erik nearly laughed in return, smiling as if a brilliant idea was blooming in his mind. “I have held onto my miserable existence for so long, my darling Christine, just long enough to find you. But I can’t live if I lose you, and I will lose you. I know I shall. So why not end it now? We will be together forever on the other side. It will be perfect! We will haunt the ruins together!”

“Ruins?” Christine echoed in fresh horror.

“It’s the great finale! Don Juan’s final triumph over all those who shunned him for his sins. He has the last word as he brings the theater tumbling to ruin around them! Oh, it was meant to be so glorious... Laurent would have been so proud of how I meant to do it, how I used all his supplies.”

“Erik, you are talking madness!” Christine shook him, trying just to bring him back to her and exorcise the demons that had filled him with such awful thoughts.

“No – I’m finally talking sense!” he cried as he threw off her hands and ran towards the parlor. “I’m finally showing the strength of my convictions and doing what I was always meant to do here: tear it down, all of it, and leave this gaudy palace in ruble when I turn the grasshopper. He hops so jolly high!”

“The grasshopper?” Christine echoed as she rushed after him.

“I thought it was funny, making such a little thing the instrument of their downfall. It’s right there on the mantle if you’d like to look.” Erik smiled as he nodded to a small casket above the fire, innocuous among all the other detritus and knickknacks he had hoarded there.

“I don’t want to...” Christine exhaled, looking at the man she loved and seeing a stranger full of hate and madness.

“And yes, the scorpion is there too. I always meant to use it, but I never could. I never could forgive them enough. And now, I’m so glad I didn’t! I wanted them all to pay, in my heart, and now they will. Or some of them. The Opera is surely empty by now. Or maybe it isn’t. The Daroga will know! Daroga, are you alive in there?”

“What madness now, Erik?!” Shaya’s voice came through the wall.

“Erik, please, stop! Listen to me and calm down!” Christine whimpered, stepping in front of Erik as he darted towards the mantle. Her body was ready to give out with the absolute fear and panic filling her, but she pushed it down and away, gripping Erik for dear life. “You cannot do this! I will not allow you! One person is dead already! It is enough!”

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