Fallen Angels - Chapter One

"AHHHHHHH......" the sound jolted Christine Daae as she slept. She sat up quickly now learning to be more vivid in the night. Ever since her father had died when she was seven, she had had strange dreams of death and pain, she would always awaken to the sound of herself screaming, but tonight, her mouth was not opened. She did not utter a sound, and she had not been dreaming.

Her feet gently met the floor, and she lifted herself up moving as a ghost trying not to awaken her friend Meg Giry who slept just five feet away. "Why did the sound not wake her?" Christine thought in her mind as her friends petite form slowly moved up and down under the covers. Her confusion was then interrupted by the low moan that followed, slowly dragging out to meet her.

She then began to think that this was a dream, that her death and pain stories of woe were only continuing to torture her in her sleep, but, then why did it seem so real?

*whoosh* A silent wind blew out the single candle that brought light to the darkness, Christine raised her hand to her face to stifle the scream building up inside her. If it was a dream it was not of death, but of a strange ghost story unraveling in her bedroom. Unable to see, she reached out blindly in the darkness, her hand tingling for the touch of wood. She had to find the matches. Whatever that noise was, she did not want to encounter the source in such darkness. Her heart thumped in her chest as if trying to break out, sweat dripped from her nose and hit the floor with a sickening splat.

She felt that she was making herself to obvious, that she was becoming the victim of a terrible joke. All these explanations went running through her mind as her sense of touch could still not feel anything beneath it. Christine wanted so much to hear something, dreading as to what it was. But everything lay silent, making her feel confused and vulnerable. The most horrifying sound is when you can hear nothing at all, and that terrified her. Not the sound of her friend breathing, or the deadly moan from just seconds before echoed through the room.

The girl stood shivering, wringing her hands, praying that her eyes would soon adjust to such darkness. There was not a window that could show her if the moon was shining to guide her through the dark. But still, in all the silence and all the night, she felt a presence, not only in the room, but in her mind. She felt it in the walls, coming down from all sides of the darkness, grasping its way into her soul, without even making itself known.

She wanted so badly to hear something, not really caring what it was, if only something would make a sound, she would feel a little better. She now could feel splinters edging their way into her feet as her toes clutched the wood of the floor; she had not realized how scared she truly was. How the mind was thinking one thing as the body was feeling the other. She knew that the door had been locked, that the key lay just beneath her pillow and that the only spare one was in the pocket of her adoptive mother's practice skirt. No one could have entered the room unnoticed.

As Christine waited for something to happen, she went over in her mind what the room looked like before the light went out, what had changed in those few seconds that she had been awake? The clothes rack still sat in the corner, holding her few belongings, the desk with the picture of her father and his violin lying on top still rested on the wood floor. Her eyes widened, she let out a silent gasp. She remembered that from the corner of her eye, the life-size mirror that they looked into while getting ready for practices lay on the wall in an awkward angle. She had thought nothing of it before, but now felt very nervous as to how it had moved.

Ever so slowly a deep voice seemed to grow out of the gloom, and as it did so, one of the candles by the mirror began to flicker sending shadows dancing across the walls. She looked towards the light, burning her eyes with concentration, but she saw nothing. Still the voice went on, moaning its woeful tale and never ceasing. Slowly Christine picked up her feet and began to walk towards the mirror, her breathing hastened, her ear-drums thumped with each echo of her heart beating. And as she crept closer, she could feel a cold wind brushing against her face. The moaning then changed into a sort of whispering making Christine even more intrigued. She had never felt this way in her life. The voice seemed to call to her, it controlled her footsteps, her movements, but still, in a way, she was choosing to make them.

For a split second she closed her eyes, letting the sound course through her body, vibrating her thoughts, but when she opened them again, all sounds ceased, and she was lying in her bed while Meg lay in her's still sound asleep. Christine moved her gaze towards the mirror, it stood as it always had, more confused than ever she rested her head on her pillow and jammed her hand underneath to find the key still safe.