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Meg screamed a horrible wail. Some ballerinas came over and huddled around her. Then they went screaming backstage.

" Mama!!! Mama Giry!!!! Mother! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

Meg was hysterical.

((This will be my last post until it's time for the All I Ask reprise. Until then it will be up to our Christine *looks at Celestial Death* and our most excellent Raoul *looks at Fuokohopin* to keep things moving.))

He ran. His body was tired from fighting with Buquet earlier, but he forced himself to keep running up the stairs despite the mounting fatigue. Once or twice he stumbled as he fled ever upward. He was slightly dizzy from the head injury, so he was lacking some of his normal balance and grace. If someone were to happen upon him, he would be in a sorry condition to repel any attacks.

Running up the stairs, Erik unconsciously began to recall memories of the night he'd killed his 'master'. He remembered the man's shocked expression as the make-shift noose tightened around his neck, and he remembered with incredible clarity the sight of the man's lifeless body slumped down on the ground and his feeling of disbelief at what he'd done. The man was dead. His greatest tormentor was gone, but he sis not know what to do with his new freedom. There was nowhere for him to go. He had known that he could not return to his mother even if he'd been able to remember how to find his way back to her. She had hated him just as much as anyone else. Maybe she had hated him most of all be cause he had come from her. The day of his birth had been her greatest shame

He hadn't noticed right away that there was still another person in the tent, and he had been terrified when he finally had noticed the girl standing near the opening of the tent. He'd expected her to start screaming and to run out of the tent to tell everyone what she had seen, but that wasn't what she had done. She had walked up to him looking at him with an expression on her face that he wasn't used to seeing directed at him. When she had reached out towards him he had been certain that she meant to beat him, and he had flinched away like an abused animal would from its owner. Instead she had taken his hand and begun to lead him away from the cage.

It had been at about that moment that people had come into the tent. The looks on their faces when they had seen the gypsy's dead body had set him to trembling so violently that his legs had almost given out beneath him. He'd been fortunate that the girl, Antoinette had managed to retain enough sense to run.

Bursting through the door onto the opera house roof, he was hit with a blast of icy air. Ignoring the shiver that went up his spine, he looked around to find somewhere to hide just in case someone else did decide to come up to the roof. There was no especially good hiding place up here, but the statues looked as though they would be able to provide enough cover should anyone else come up. Wiping away blood from his forehead as it threatened to trickle into his eye, he quickly ducked behind one of the statues. How long would he have to wait up here before everything had calmed down somewhat? It didn't matter. He would wait up here until morning if that was what was necessary.

"I tried not to kill him, Antoinette," he whispered as he wrapped his cloak around himself for a little extra warmth. The last time he'd killed there had been someone to take his hand and lead him to safety, but this time there had been no one. This time there was no safety. "I promise that I tried." Raising his hand he wiped at his forehead as the blood slowly continued to trickle down his face.

((I hate this post, but I felt that I needed to write Erik getting up to the roof and putting him into position to overhear Christine and Raoul.))

(Adventure it will be. Should I just give you rights to playing Christine until that certain part at Raoul I've been there?)

Christine gave a bit of an aggrivated tug on his arm as she continued to lead him. "We can't go back there.." As they made their way up through the staircases, she took the quickest route possible to the roof. "He'll kill you, his eyes will find us there! Those eyes that burn!" In her other hand, the one not desperately, terror-strickenly*sp*, clinging to Raoul's arm, she still held the rose, a key to her.

She looked around her as the crowds began to disappear as they became closer to the roof. She looked over at him and returned her gaze ahead of them as quickly as it went behind her.

Christine truly had stopped listening to Raoul once they got onto the roof. Still clutched in her hand was that single rose, which she now focused her attention to before she closed the door the roof behind her and turned to sadly turn her attention to Raoul as he stated there was no Phantom of the Opera. She rushed quietly down the step and walked to Raoul, singing, partially terrified.

"Raoul, I've been there! To his world of un-ending night.. to a world where the daylight dissolves into darkness.. darkness. Raoul, I've seen him! Can I ever forget that sight? Can I ever escape from that face so distorted, deformed, it was hardly a face in that darkness.. darkness.."

She turned away from him, looking back down at the rose that was in her hand. She gave a small smile, remembering her night with Erik down in 'that darkness'. How they both sang and stayed with each other. Just recalling his voice made her smile softly and she continued.

"But his voice filled my spirit with a strange sweet sound, in that night there was music in my mind.. and through music my soul began to soar! And I heard as I'd never heard before.."

Looking over her shoulder at him for a bit, she sighed softly before looking back to the roof's floor.

"Yet in his eyes.. all the sadness of the world, those pleading eyes that both threaten and adore.."

She quivered slightly, just thinking about it. She pitied him, but she didn't know yet, how she truly felt. She knew she was frightened, but she didn't know whether she loathed or loved Erik. She shook the thought from her head, sighing softly.

[ Message temporarily off-line ]

(Hm.. lets stick to Bravo, Monsieur. I found it a far-better ending to Wandering Child. o_O The swordfight was like, "Uh..? Wha?" I'll be back after I'm done baking, and I"ll post.)

(( What about a compination of both of them? ))