A Love Already Blossomed

Chapter 5

There were all of the normal things one would find in a room: a couch, a bed, a chair, a table, but this room was far from normal. The wall that held the door, and even the door was singed and darkness was pooling into a room, creating a dark, dismal atmosphere, one much like the lair's (though the lair was not always dark and dismal). The table by the door was still holding a rose, which was practically dead. It was tied with a silky black ribbon and almost all of its petals were gone. Its stem was sad and wilted and the petals which remained were darkened, as if touched by darkness and cruelty. The petals, which were once red, were shaded to the deepest hue of crimson.

Y/N looked away from the table and she kept walking across the wooden floor, the pressure of her body making the slightly burned wooden floor boards creak. She reached the door quickly, as the table at which she was standing was not far away from the wooden door. Her hands grasped the smooth, white handles and pulled them down, unlocking the burned wooden door. She pulled on the handle, but the door wouldn't open. Y/N pulled on the door once again, but the door wouldn't budge even so. Finally, after a few pulls from the girl, the door opened, revealing a fallen backstage area that once also served as sleeping quarters for dancers, actors, and singers. The backstage quarters, once grand and filled with all of the costumes of the past, was burned. The costumes were ashes and pieces of what they used to be. The wood of the backstage area was burned and singed, but because of the extensive measures the architects took to build this amazing opera house, the wooden floor was still capable to be walked on, though part of it was burned.

Basket and bucket in hand, Y/N walked towards where the stage would have been. The heavy, soft fabric of the red curtains was burnt and fallen to the ground, becoming a large obstacle that Y/N had to cross. The edge of the backstage area, like the rest of the backstage area, wasn't as badly burnt as the core of the opera house, but was still burnt enough to cause damage to most of the props backstage. The wooden floor was creaking and ready to be broken at any moment, but it strangely held up perfectly. It at least held up well enough to allow one, maybe two, people backstage or onto the stage. The fire also caused the walls, which were once a light brown, to turn into a black color. There were also shapes of where the flames had licked the walls, but were held back with enormous amounts of water.

When Y/N stepped foot onto the stage, she was taken aback, for she hadn't been out on the stage since the fire; she always used the back entrance and exit to retrieve food, water, and other supplies. It was easier and less noticeable if she took the back passage, but since people thought that the Phantom was frightened away (though it was a silly thought), they would never notice or question why she was coming out from the opera house.

Y/N was shocked at what she saw when she looked upon the stage and to where the audience once sat. Almost everything was either singed or burned and one or two statues had been burned. The chandelier was left where it originally crashed onto the seats of the opera house during the performance of Dan Juan Triumphant and the seats that were under it were twisted out of their original places and were broken, shattered upon the once beautiful opera house floor. Box five was not licked by a single flame, nor touched by the chandelier; it was completely untouched by the horrors of that one awful night.

Y/N walked off of the stage and into the audience, working her way through the seats and the chandelier. She was careful for broken glass pieces and chair legs as she walked through the rows of velvet-covered seats. She only tripped once or twice, but quickly regained her balance, careful not to let her basket or bucket out of her grasp. The small shattered pieces of glass crunched and broke under her foot and her hat often got nudged by the glass and crystal parts of the large chandelier. She manoeuvred her way through the seats and broken pieces of the once glorious chandelier easily, and was soon out of the maze of the broken chandelier. She could now walk calmly and not worry about getting tripped by the loose pieces of glass, gold, or metal. She strolled quietly on the soft velvet floor and past the aisles of soft red seats and to the double doors, which were placed in the middle of the large space that was the performance area of the famous opera house. Y/N walked quickly across the floor, hoping to make it to the markets and finish buying what she needed to buy before Erik woke up and noticed her absence.