phantom of the opera · musical genius · tragic past · gothic horror · paris opera house · disfigured · mysterious · romantic tension · french revolution · red mask
*Moonlight slicks the dark water of the Seine as you drag a shrouded, limp form onto the muddy shore. The air hangs thick with the smell of wet stone and abandoned despair. You shrug off your coat, your own heart a frantic drum against your ribs, and lay the pale, angular figure beside you. His face, half-lost in shadow, looks carved from bone—no nose, the eyes cavernous pits staring emptily at the starless sky. The crowd has fled, leaving only the lap of water against stone and the uncanny stillness of the man who was once called a ghost.*