Mask of Red Death (A Phantom of the Opera Phan Fic)

The Face of Death ~ Chapter 2

Angeline sat up abruptly. "The Phantom is real!" She yelled. Everything began to spin and she fell back on her pillow. Angeline stared at her ceiling, trying to replay last night in her head.

It all seemed like a dream now. Had it been? She looked over at her black trench coat that lie on her desk chair. Still where she had left it. Her black tennis shoes lie by her door. They had a small puddle of water around their bases. Perhaps she had gone out in the snow last night.

"Angeline! Are you awake dear?" A older woman's voice called through Angeline's door.

"Yes, Grandma. I'll be out in a minute." She replied.

She slowly got out of bed and put on some jeans and a t-shirt. She brushed her long dirty, blond hair and grabbed her coat.

She slipped out her bedroom door and down the narrow hallway, into the kitchen.

"How did you sleep last night, Angeline?" An elderly woman at the kitchen table asked.

Angeline grabbed an apple from the fridge. "Fine. And yourself?"

"Rather decent. My cough was not as bad." The woman replied.

"That's good." Angeline smiled brightly. She put on her coat and walked toward the door. Just as she opened it, a man stood ready to knock on the other side.

"Oh! Excuse me miss; I have package for a Miss Angeline Giry." The man replied.

"I am she." Angeline took the package. 

"Have a good day, miss." The man waves and left.

A new curiosity took place in Angeline as she began to look over the ornately wrapped package.

It was a cylinder like shape, wrapped in a red tissue paper. Delicate, yet exquisitely precise.

"Who was that?" Angeline's grandmother asked.

"It was a man from the post. He brought me something." Angeline replied. Her nimble fingers slowly removed the red paper. She gasped at the sight of a single scarlet red rose, perfect in every way. It had a small black ribbon tied to the stem.

"What is it my dear?" Angeline's grandmother was getting curious to what her granddaughter was getting into.

Angeline hesitated for a moment. She could tell her the truth, but then Grandmother would never let her go back. She had always told Angeline that the opera house was not a place to stick your nose into. It could collapse and kill you, then whose fault would it be? That was really just a way of saying that something mysterious was hidden behind the grand doors, and it was calling Angeline's name.

"Angeline, what did the man from the post give you?" Angeline's grandmother snapped her back into reality.

"Uh...he gave me a flower." That wasn't a hole lie.

"A flower?" Angeline's grandmother raised an eyebrow. "What kind of flower?" She got up to look at it.

Angeline wrapped it back in the paper. "Just a boring old flower. Nothing to worry about Grandma." She walked toward her room.

Her grandmother took a place in the living room in a comfortable easy chair. "Alright. As long as you stay out of trouble and that awful opera house." She sighed.

Angeline scowled as she walked into her room and placed the flower under her pillow. "The only reason she thought it was awful is because she never learned to appreciate it." Angeline mumbled. She had to see the Phantom again. Just once more; then she would never ever go back.