Posted by gabriels455 | Posted in Uncategorized | Posted on March 5, 2014
Down.
Down is the worst direction. Winding deeper, deeper, deeper onto the ever winding stairs.
But no matter… Down I creep into the dungeon– Is it a dungeon for him or me? With my hand still at the level of my eyes, I reach the bottom of the staircase… And before me is a sorry sight…
A deep brown and red rug lays along the room, stained, shredded, and stepped on. The world down here is hollow, two dimensional, and shallow: all made of props and scenery from operas long since performed– behind which is green/gray stone bricks. Near the “window” is a poorly done painting of me, riddled with knives, needles, forks, and apparently anything remotely sharp to be found around his death trap lair. There is a swoosh– then a thunk. And I realize that a meat cleaver, still covered in rotting offal, is stuck deep between my eyes. Maniacal laughter fills the Palace of Doom–
no
— maniacal isn’t the right word–
it’s too heart broken for that, it’s mournful, haunting, evil…
A trail if dark red leads to the source:
The Phantom’s self-cut arms ooze half-coagulated blood to the floor underneath his rickety three legged stool.
Ten feet from the stool, and another five from the pipe organ, was a frightful still scene. two mannequins, dressed as the Phantom and Christine, slow danced under another mannequin, dressed as myself, being hanged from the uppermost part of the Phantoms abode.
Padapadapadapada, a rat chitters chillingly across the accursed floor. The Phantom notices– and right when it is within his grasp he leaps– with insane hostility– and bites the poor thing’s head off! He then discards it with a loud “crunch!”
I can bear it no more!
I drop my knife, the fire in my soul extinguished by pity, I could never kill this disgusting, insane, misused creature. It would break my heart in two! But the hanged mannequin is telling me something! I run back up the stairs at breakneck speed to tell my wife to continue practicing her lead in the opera, “I have a plan to save the Opera Ghost, Christine!”