"Say you'll share with me one love, one lifetime. Lead me, save me from my solitude. Say you want me with you here beside you."

I couldn't tear my eyes away from the couple. The opera ghost had his arms around my sister. Christine was stroking his face lovingly. To the untrained eye, they would appear to be madly in love with each other. Only one of them had genuine feelings for the other.

"Anywhere you go, let me go too," Erik bellowed.

I glanced up at Raoul, not really wanting to see the sad mess of a man. To be honest, he was holding himself together better than I was. From where I sat, he appeared fine. His back was straight, but this was an intense opera. Most men in the audience sat with a similar tension. In fact, there was a thick tension blanketing the entire room.

Christine looked up at the ghost.

"Christine, that's all I ask of. . ."

Christine pulled the mask from the ghost's face. The audience gasped in unison. The ghost's face was mangled and marred on the right side.

After that, it all happened so fast. The ghost cut one of the supporting ropes to the chandelier. He and Christine fell through the floor. Then the chandelier swung down and towards the floor of the stage. It scraped its way across the flooring. People began running for the exits.

Someone shoved into me and my face hit the floor. I breathed in the smell of the floor. Feet rushed passed me. They began to blur together. My head spun and I couldn't find my bearings.

When my feet finally found the floor, I reached for the nearest seat. My nails dug into the cloth desperately. I pulled myself up. The majority of the audience was gone now. Only the last few stragglers were still shoving their way through the door.

I looked towards the stage and nearly lost my balance. Flames were licking their way down the front of the stage. The heat was emanating towards me. I needed to get out of there, quickly. My eyes jumped to the box where Raoul had been sitting. He was gone.

There were two choices. Leave the Opera Populaire like any sane person would. The other option was to go find Raoul and ultimately Christine. It didn't even seem like a choice. Christine was my older sister and I owed everything to her.

Raoul wasn't too hard to find. He and Madame Giry were standing in the hallway talking. As I caught a glimpse of them, they began walking hurriedly away. By the time I caught up to them, they had entered a secret passageway. I was still having balance problems and my high heels were not helping at all.

"Raoul," I called.

He whipped around. In the dim lighting of the passageway, his face looked almost demonic. The shadows cast an evil light on the face which was usually so sweet and caring. It made me stop for a moment. "Charlotte?" he questioned.

I stepped closer to them. "I've been trying to catch up with you for a while," I stopped to gasp for air. My body was so thrown off. I was worried.

Raoul knew. He pulled me into a tight hug. I appreciated it. The back of my mind kept screaming that there wasn't time. We needed to find Christine. However, I needed this embrace. Too often, I was overlooked by our friends and family and especially men. It was hard being overshadowed by Christine. Especially with what I was going through. No one understood the daily pain that I was fighting. That is why I knew what I had to do. And that is why this hug was so very needed.

I pulled away from Raoul and turned my head to hide a stray tear. We needed to go. I looked to Madame Giry and she knew. "Follow me," she said, quietly.

Raoul and I looked at each other one more time, before we followed the older woman.