Phantom One-Shots

Safe

Another set of keys hitting against each other rings in my ear and I sit up abruptly from my never ending nightmare. I am sweating, and I can't seem to steady my breathing. I am sore in more places than I can count and I can't even remember how I ended up like this. A candle is lit in the back of the room and a little more than half of it comes back to me.

"Time for the show, freak." Those four words were what I lived for now, even as I wished I was dead. I recoiled to the very back of my cage until my back hit the bars. I had attempted suicide more than once but now they kept me chained in ways it would be impossible for me to do such a thing.

I heard the keys again, except this time they were real, and then the door opened. 'Please, please don't,' I begged silently and held the old sack of flour tightly over my head. I dreaded this moment of the day...well night, but then again, I never knew when night came as I spent every minute of the day in my cage, in my tent. My master came in and whipped me a few times to have me ready for the show.

The show went as usual, beating, whipping, humiliating, beating again. However, instead of locking my cage again, my master began to count the money he'd made. I knew it was my chance. When he was distracted I took hold of the rope my feet were tied with and slowly approached him.

Five minutes later I was running through the streets of Paris with a mob following me, leaving a murdered man behind. I couldn't believe I had become a murderer. However, my train of thought was interrupted when I bumped into a girl in a ballerina outfit. She had reddish curls hanging from her head and sparkly green eyes. I looked at her and she said nothing but instead grabbed me by the hand and took me to a huge building. I had read about it, it was the Paris opera house, the Opera Populaire. She hid me in a chapel and met me minutes later. "I'm Christine," she said, "I'm here if you need anything."

"Erik," I grinned.