Phantom Child

10. He's not mephistopheles, you know

A little trigger warning for this chapter: murder. But I assume that, since you have watched or read the "Phantom of the Opera", you're familiar with what Erik is capable of... So let's just get on with the story.

I helped Erik clean up the mess that he had made. Obviously, we set the place to rights as much as it could have been set; it has always been one hell of an 'artistic disorder', as Erik liked to call it. We threw the curtains over the doors to other cellars and put the candlesticks back in their place, so that it at least looked like before.

Before I lit up the candles again, it was pretty cold, so Erik put his cape around me. It felt great; warm and safe and I realised just why he liked it so much. At some point during the cleaning I sneaked closer to one of the sculptures, which was wearing one of Erik's masks and snatched it from its place.

"Erik!" I called out.

He turned around. I had his mask on my face. He laughed as I sung:

"I'm here, the Phantom of the Operaaaa."

I made several attempts to flip the cape just like Erik was always doing, yet every time I ended up tangled in the piece of material. It made both the Phantom and me laugh like children.

"Actually," he said once we calmed down a little. He came up to one of the chests in the corner "I think these ones will suit you better."

He moved the lid and took out a cape, which was dark blue, matching the rest of my attire. He was also holding a mask, a smaller one.

"I used to wear this as a child." He handed me both. "Well, now I grew out. But I've never thought that there will be someone to wear them now." He looked at me, his smile getting a little faded out as he did "Of course if you want to."

I grinned at him. Of course I wanted to. I returned his black cape back to him and put on the blue one. I put his mask back on the sculpture and tried on the one Erik had given me. It was perfect.

"I am a little Phantom now." I smiled childishly.

"You are a Phantom Child." He summed up, petting my hair.

It really did feel like he was my father; but at the same time like a brother and a best friend. He was all the family I had. And I was his only companion. As little time as we had spent together, we had grown closer and began to treat each other like some kind of a family, as weird as our relationship was.

This night Erik didn't go to his lesson with Christine. He was aware that she would still be scared of him and didn't want to hurt her. Instead he was preparing plans for tonight's opera. He was going to make sure, that the managers would regret disobeying the Phantom's orders. Of course, he shared none of them with me. But I didn't need to know them. I was fine with that. I knew that if Erik needed me, he'd ask. When the evening came, Erik and I were ready to go. I went in his cape and mask; I was enjoying myselft in them.

"Look, do you know what this is?" Erik pointed at a little bottle standing on the night stand in the primadonna room, as we were watching from behind the mirror. "This is helping this..." he took a deep, angry breath "...this primadonna, sing."

I nooded in understanding.

"And you," he looked at me "you have to replace it with this." He showed me an identical bottle, that he had just produced out of his pocket. I eyed him with suspicion. He sighed:

"No, it's not poison, don't worry."

It's not like I cared about Carlotta's life that much. I just cared more about Erik's concience. But I was soon to realize, that he doesn't necessarily care about it himself.