Prompt: Dreams

At long last, Erik was able to sleep, he had found his lair...or was it really his lair...of course it wasn't, but he didn't care at this point. It looked like home and he would contemplate that later. He undressed and washed the dirt and dust off of himself, removing his mask, which was filthy from his sojourn in the dungeons below. He dressed himself in a nightshirt.

Surrounded only by the light of the candles that he always kept lit, Erik got into his bed. He pulled the covers over himself, after first removing the cover and setting it against the wall. He fell asleep almost immediately, but his rest was interrupted by voices.

Voices? How could there be voices in his lair....no one knew the way, except...except for a very few people.....Joseph Buquet was one of them, but he had done away with Joseph when he had become too much of a problem. It had taken only a quick jerk of the Punjab lasso to break the troublesome fellow's neck. He was an example to the rest of them, so that they knew that what the Phantom said, must be done...and that his words were not empty threats!

The other who knew the way to his lair was Madame Giry, the ballet mistress. As a girl, she had helped him escape the freak show where he had been held captive...and Giry had been a friend to him since then. She had been his courier, taking the notes to the managers and others stating his demands. There was no other way to run the opera house but by fear....the place was filled with incompetents. However, he did not think that Giry would betray his trust...

And of course, Christine Daaé and her lover, the Vicomte de Chagny. Would Christine have gone back on her word? He had let them go, on her account. Perhaps it was the Vicomte...he must have wanted revenge for what Erik had almost done to them....and yet...Erik had let them go...

And he had done a foolish thing. He had demanded that his own opera, Don Juan Triumpant be put on by the opera company. And he had found a way to sing on the stage with his beloved Christine. Ubaldo Piangi, the actor playing the lead, wore a cape with a hood that hid his face. Easily pulling the actor behind the curtains, Erik killed him and assumed the costume and the role. Christine discovered the ruse and unmasked him, to his horror, in front of everyone. So this was why he had to flee, and he had escaped...but to this horrendous Manor house where nothing was real and everything was twisted.

But the voices kept getting louder. Alarmed, Erik jumped from the bed and hurridly put on his mask. He put his coat on over the nightshirt, not realizing how ridiculous he looked. He slipped into his shoes hurriedly and picked up his sword. He ran out to the organ, which was situated somewhat near the lake. He hid behind a pillar as the voices grew louder. He could even make out what some of them were saying now...

...The Monster's Lair...so this is what it looks like.....Why does he burn so many candles? Does he love the darkeness because his soul is black? Did you see how ugly he is...what a horrendous face....he must truly be a monster for that face... The epithets kept coming. They made Erik angry, but also frightened. What would they do to him if they caught him?

He kept hiding behind the pillar and the crowd came into view. He knew he must escape, for they would surely find him. They were in several boats coming toward him across the lake. Erik leaped to a high platform in back and looked down on the crowd, hoping he was out of view.

The madding crowd, in a state of frenzy to find the murderer, rushed onto the shore. Erik thought he was out of sight, when suddenly a man with a wild look in his eyes appeared next to him. "You! You're the murderer!" he said in a low manacing, accusing voice, pulling the sword from Erik's hand. "You shall pay for your misdeeds!"

How the man got him down from the platform Erik couldn't remember. Erik's coat was pulled off, his hands were bound and his mask was yanked off unceremoniously, along with the hairpiece. His false nose fell to the ground. The crowd gasped at his appearance, then resumed their frenzied cry to hang him by his own lasso....

Erik wasn't sure whose scream it was that he heard, starting softly and rising in pitch until it died a strangled death. He opened his eyes and sat up in shock in his bed, realizing the scream was his own. He was covered with sweat from head to toe , but it had been only a dream....a dream caused by...a guilty conscience? Since when did Erik have a conscience? Perhaps since Christine's kiss? Since she had showed him the power of unselfish love? He hung his head in shame, tears forming in his eyes...he had truly escaped death by coming here. Was it a blessing or a curse? One could only wait and see...

Rest did not come swiftly. Nor was it ever peaceful. One could not call her nighttime visions as dreams or nightmares. But they were most definitely vivid! Often she would be exhausted when she woke. Leaving her without any want other than to continue sleeping. What brought on such nightly visual mind endeavors? No doubt all that she had been experiencing as of late during her conscious hours.
The most recent vivid night adventure was most disturbing.

It was the French countryside, near a small town. A grand house was being built. Many good people, as that is what it felt like, surrounding the fresh construction. Much chatter and cheer yet, there was no cheer or goodness. A terrible loss and void sudden made it so isolating. Distance seemed real as this new house still being built suddenly shot out of her view, likewise the French countryside. The whole of the green landscape and familiarity was taken away in an instant leaving nothing but a strange void.

Darkness it seemed and yet dark figures. Something of a swirling void with skeletal figures in cowls that flashed into view then out. Twirling around and around wondering how to get out, where could she escape.

Next she knew, she was in bed. Laying there with her Lover, a dark shadowy figure. It wasn't Raoul, just a dark shadow figure of a man whom she could not figure out. It seemed they were about to make love until the shadow man vaporized before and over her. She got up slowly, dressed in nothing but a sheer white chemise that reached to the floor. So silky, so thin, there was no part of her that was shielded, all of her body was on display for any who was near. but there was no one there in the darkness of the night. She strode forward away from the bed, uncertain of how she got out of the bed in the first place... the walking felt like she wasn't moving at all with white curtain sheers swirling, whipping, twisting, fluttering all around her now as she walked out to a balcony.

No, not a balcony. But a stone rampart that was like a ledge. Flat out to the edge, as she walked there uncertain as to why she was going there. Her toes just barely on the edge as the bold winds beat over her body, caressing her, whipping her, thrashing and grabbing at her sheer chemise, threatening to either catch her up or throw her off the rampart. Likewise her beautiful hair was lost to the wind's caress and playing. Gazing down at the void and darkness. The out at the void and darkness. Hearing voices. And yet, not feeling the wind either. It was strange and unreal. Yet felt real.

Felt very real when the rampart crumbled from under her, dropping her into the great dark abyss. She continued to fall, it was never ending. And though she was falling, she felt peace until she felt the dread so suddenly.

In a vast spacious room of white plaster walls, a dim light that illuminated the room but came from no where. That room moved and caused such incredible vertigo as the walls shot away from her, making it look longer and larger than what it was. Or her become larger to the point the room was tiny and she saw it in a different perspective.

Nothing made sense. As now she was in a town, plenty of people whom she did not know and yet they were familiar. Daily routine it seemed until some 'friend' decided to fancy and marry another gal who was selfish and spoiled. Suddenly she became the victim of circumstances as she tried to protect friends but was accused of sins. Finally, she felt herself fall apart and weaken. No longer the beauty she once was. And she sank.

That is when she heard His voice call out to her "Christine. Christine," and a shadowed, cloaked hand reaching out for her. "Christine."

Snapping out of the dream her eyes opened a moment after she became aware that she was in her room, that she had a dream. So vivid and strange were they, she dared not to think about them at all.
This Manor gave her wild and vivid dreams. No, she won't ever think about them even though she could never get them out of her mind.

Took some time as she laid there to go back to sleep. Trying to think good, happy thoughts. Before her next vivid dream whisked her way to another realm of thinking, a new dimension of realism.

Erik went to bed early that night, feeling tired from doing nothing in particular.
And in his dreamland.....

Erik was in a vast white room filled with emptiness. It looked just plain white, as far as the eye could see. He started to walk in a random direction for each direction looked entirely the same. And for what seemed like quite a long time, he finally saw a person up ahead. He began to run towards the figure, little by little could he tell who the person was. The person was turned around.... had blond hair that kept down... and Christine! Erik finally got up to her and turned her around and..... it was the wrong Christine! It was the Christine he first met in the manor. She looked at him with a look of annoyance and slowly Erik began to back up, only to back up into another person. He turned around and it was another blond woman that was not Christine. Then more and more and more began to show up out of nowhere and he was being swarmed by blonds that looked close to his Christine, but they all looked annoyed and upset with him, but the worst part was that all was silent. The ear painful silence, not a single sound!
There then was his last hope to see Christine, was a girl who was turned around just as the first Christine had been. Frantically he pushed away the other blond haired Christines out of his way, trying to reach the Christine who was slowly beginning to walk away from him as he walked forward. He tried to yell to her, scream out her name and get her attention but there was only silence. Finlay he was able to push his way out of the crowd of Christines and reached the strayed Christine and turned her around. He had began to lean into a kiss for whom he thought was his Christine but then suddenly jumped back.
The person then suddenly turned into Carlotta who looked at him and the only sound he heard was her banshee scream!

"OH GOOD GOD! NO!" He yelped out when he woke up. He could have sworn that he could still hear the horrid scream of that awful woman. Little did he know that it was the night that Carlotta had arrived to the manor.

~THE END~

Carlotta was back in Tuscany, sitting out in the vineyard with her canvas and paint pallet, trying to picture the world through an artist's eye, as Signore Giapetto had often told her to while painting. The way that an artist viewed the world, there were not simply objects and their colors – there was the colors of the light and the air, and each of these colors had its own emotion attached to it! They were all around – one only had to look. It was the ability to observe and take in these extensions of the reality's existence and to funnel them into ones art that made one truly a great artist. This was what Signore Giapetto had taught her was the most important aspect of painting, and the same theory applied to her singing as well. It was what one must do in order to truly be a great artist.

The sun was beginning to set and the light growing dim when Carlotta spotted a figure moving toward her in the distance. Upon closer examination, she could see that it was none other than Signore Giapetto himself! She went out to greet him and saw that he was holding something – an envelope from the looks of it – in his hand.

“Buona sera, Signore,” she said, greeting him, but he just shook his head and smiled at her, holding out the letter. Carlotta was confused. Could he not speak? It was quite unlike him not to greet her with his warm, loud, Italian fondness, calling her 'bambina cara' and planting a sloppy kiss on her cheek. But there he stood, without a word, just holding the envelope out for her to take.

Although still confused, she reached out and took the envelope from him. It may have been very strange, but she trusted Signore Giapetto above anyone else. She opened the envelope and took out the message inside and read silently. What it said bewildered her to say the least!

La Carlotta,

Your days at the Opéra Populaire are numbered. Christine Daaé will be singing on your behalf tonight. Be prepared for a great misfortune should you attempt to take her place.

Why, it was the exact note she had received only the morning before! She looked up to ask the old painter why he was giving this to her, but saw that he had vanished! How very odd this whole thing was.

The sun continued to set, and it was beginning to grow dark, so Carlotta went and gathered up her painting supplied then headed in toward the home where she grew up as a child. When she entered the place however, it was not in her old home where she found herself, but instead in the foyer of the Opéra Populaire, just in front of the grand staircase.

Confused, to say the least, the diva trudged up the stairs toward the manager's office. When she arrived, she saw the two new managers there. The shorter one, Monsieur Firmin, was sitting on his desk and appeared to be either drunk, hung over, or both. The taller one, Monsieur André, seemed to be quite upset about something. She diva cleared her throat in order to catch their attention and the par turned to look at her.

She took a few steps forward, opening her mouth to address them, but a trap door opened in the floor directly beneath her and she plunged through into the abyss.