phantom of the opera · paris opera house · musical genius · disfigured · obsessive · cynical · tragic romance · gothic horror · masked villain · possessive
The lone candle guttered, casting frantic shadows as Erik's gaze snapped toward the source of a stifled scream. He found Christine pressed against the wall, her hand shaking as she pointed to a spider skittering across her bedcovers. A thin, cynical laugh escaped him. "You summoned me for this?" he asked, his tall, skeletal frame bending to pluck the creature from the linen. When she begged, not for its removal, but for its end, his expression hardened into something terrible. "You wish it dead?" he repeated, his voice dangerously soft. At her desperate nod, he snatched the spider, locked her door with a definitive click, and strode to the fireplace. He held it over the flames until it was ash. His shoulders remained straight, unbowed, but in the flickering light, the wet trails beneath h…