Phantom

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chapter one
● overture ●

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Everyone has heard of the story of the Phantom of the Opera, but no one could have ever thought that such an event could happen in modern times, especially in a jerkwater place like Twilight Town. It was an old abandoned theater, one of the first ever built in the area. And, it caught the attention of some rich tycoon who decided to fix it up once again to its former glory. Soon enough, it was the talk of the entire town. “The theater is being rebuilt!” people said to one another. Rumors flew around that it would only be used for real, live performers, not including musical groups of the modern age that teenagers raged about constantly. Even though there were many complaints and too many rumors to count, people were interested to see what the first musical would be.

But this isn’t a story about the rise of a new theater in a small town.

It’s about one girl who had to choose between her best friend and the boy who gave her the power to sing.

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“Isn’t this exciting, Hayner? The theater is trying out high school students tonight to become part of the performing arts group that will perform in front of the entire town on Christmas Eve!” Olette exclaimed, winded from the massive amount of words that poured from her mouth. She looked at her friend with her green eyes that glittered with excitement. Her chocolate tresses rested on her shoulders, trailing just past her chest. She was walking in-between her two childhood friends, Hayner and Pence with her hands cushioning her head as they trotted down the sidewalks of the town. Shop-owners were hustling and bustling all about, preparing for the hordes of teens that were being let loose from the school for the weekend.

“Woo-hoo…” Hayner stated bluntly. He spun his finger around in the air for emphasis. Pence laughed and shook his head. “What’s so special about this theater anyway?” Hayner complained. “Why didn’t they just tear it down and put up something really cool, like a gigantic arcade or something?”

Olette rolled her eyes. “Puh-lease. I would they waste good money doing that? I mean, come on. Isn’t it wicked? It’s like we’re going back to the times where opera houses were the coolest things around…not some arcade where you get gypped anyway because some stupid machine ate your twenty dollar bill.”

“You’re just mad because that happened to you,” Pence said with a chuckle.

Olette did her best to keep the fake scowl on her face, but it was quickly erased when she began to giggle herself. “Yeah, well, whatever. I still think it’s awesome.” The threesome continued to walk down the street, weaving their way through the clumps of people that littered the roads. Olette was debating whether to go home and change before making her way to the theater, but she didn’t want to risk being late. Hayner was begging her to buy him and Pence some sea-salt ice cream (because Hayner had been a dunce and spent all of his money on some bouncy ball from a vendor; he bounced that stupid ball once and he never saw it again). And of course, Olette, being the nice girl that she is, complied.

By the time they reached the theater, there was an incredibly and surprisingly long line before the refurbished front doors that were now trimmed with fine gold. What shocked Olette even more was the fact that it wasn’t only kids from the drama club that were standing impatiently in the line, but kids that she never thought in a million years she’d see before the theater. There were cheerleaders and jocks and goths and, pretty much, the entire high school population.

Hayner gaped. “Woah, is that Seifer in line!?” He ran off, leaving Pence with Olette. But, Pence soon followed after once he had managed to fish his brand new Polaroid camera out of his school bag. Now, Olette stood in solitude, waiting for the line to move.

She wrapped her hands around her arms, wishing that it wasn’t so cold. She shouldn’t have expected anything less since it was the beginning of November. She was never one who liked frigid weather. And now that she thought about it, she had given Hayner her sweater for who knows what reason. She sighed, her breath lingering in the air for a few seconds like smoke from a fire.

After a ten minutes, the line finally moved about two inches. Another sigh passed through Olette’s pale lips. She knew she should have come here earlier. Immediately after school might have been the better choice instead of letting Hayner drag her to the old back alley hangout these used to occupy back in middle school. But they stopped using it after…

Something made Olette’s ears perk up. A whisper, was it? She looked around her, wondering. A dark silhouette caught her attention for only a mere second in a window above before it disappeared. She blinked, wondering if the cold was drying out her eyes.

The line moved a couple more inches. She was beginning to wonder where her friends had run off to before she heard another whisper. The words were undecipherable, but they somehow managed to make the hairs on the back her neck stand up. She turned to look at the window again, but the figure wasn’t there. She was frantic, looking all around her before her eyes landed on a shadow in the alleyway beside her and the theater. Another whisper floated across the air to her. “Come here…” it said.

Olette wasn’t a stupid girl. She was the top of her class. But something, the tone of that whisper…enchanted her. It drew her in like a moth to a flame. She rounded the corner, following the shadow with a little more vigor in her step. What am I doing? she asked herself.

She stopped moving after the shadow disappeared once again. Olette found that she had come to a halt before an open window. She could feel the warm air pushing her bangs from her forehead softly. The light shined down on her, beckoning her to come forward. She took in a deep breath and placed her hands on the windowsill, pushing herself off of the ground and on through into the theater.

● think of me ●

Olette stood in complete awe. The theater was absolutely breathtaking. It probably could seat over a thousand people in its red, velvet, and cushioned seats. A brilliant crystal chandelier dangled above her head, spreading rainbows upon the floor below faintly. A golden arch engraved with cherubs and ribbons stretched across the mammoth stage. Now Olette could see why it was taking so long for the line to move. There were must have been five times as many people inside sitting in the orchestra section of the theater, waiting to go up on stage and show the directors what they had.

For a second, Olette had almost forgotten about the mysterious figure that had led her here. A shiver racked her body, making her wonder if it was because she was cold, or because she was slightly frightened.

She made her way slowly to the front of the theater, doing her best to keep her mouth from falling at the sight of the beautiful arch close-up. The details were so intricate, showing that the angels had irises and the ribbons had folds.

“You, there, girl!”

Oh no, she was busted. Olette turned around, clenching her teeth. A man with fiery red hair and emerald eyes similar to her own stood before her with his hands on his hips. “What are you doing out of line?” he asked.

“Uh…”

“She’s with me!” came another voice. The man and Olette faced the girl who had spoken up from the front of the line. Olette was overjoyed to see that it was Naminè, her best friend from dance class and choir. The pale girl with blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes waved her over. Olette slit her eyes in the direction of the man, trying to look unsuspicious as she made her way to the front of the line where Naminè waited.

“Thank you,” she said when she was away from the man’s hearing range.

“How long have you been here?” Naminè questioned. “I’ve been here since school let out.”

“Oh my gosh! I just got here, like, thirty minutes ago with Hayner and Pence!” Olette told her.

“Umm, yeah, about those two…security kicked them and Seifer out because Hayner had been dared by Seifer to grind the rails along the rows,” Naminè spoke, trying to hold back a laugh.

Why did this not surprise Olette?

A sudden silence fell upon everyone in the theater as someone approached the stage. Olette peered out from behind Naminè to see that a girl with bleached blonde hair and black eyes stood before the directors. Her frosted pink lips were curled into a smirk. “That’s Larxene!” Olette heard hushed whispers from behind her. “Yeah, I hear she’s amazing!” came another comment.

The girl appeared to be a couple grades ahead of Olette and Naminè, which would make her a senior. She stood there with her back arched and her head held high, her lips still pressed into a smirk. She brushed a strand of her hair away from her dark eyes, her long, manicured nails barely brushing across her pasty skin. Now that Olette thought about, she remembered who she was. She was always the talk of the school whenever school plays rolled around in the high school. She was always the one who got casted as the lead role. She was a crowd favorite and recognized by every artsy adult out there.

She inhaled slightly before beginning to sing. “Think of me, think of me fondly when we’ve said goodbye…Remember me once in awhile, please promise you’ll try.” Her voice was bold and held the perfect pitch. But she put an over-dramatic opera-singing twist to it that caused it to echo off the walls. It was such a ridiculously high octave that Olette had to clamp her hands over her ears so they wouldn’t bust. “When you find that once again you long to take your…”

A loud crash came from above Larxene, causing everyone to jump out of their skins. “It’s him! THE PHANTOM!!!” a girl cried from the doorway. “The Phantom of the Opera is here!”

The line of people began to talk loudly, arguing. “There’s no such thing!” someone said. “Of course there is!” another said.

“SILENCE!” the man with the red hair spoke up after he had risen from his seat before the stage. He had been sitting next to his two companions, a young woman with auburn hair that Olette recognized to be Naminè’s older sister, Kairi (who was a senior) and a man around the same age as the other man was. Olette had to stop herself from giggling after she spotted that he had a dirty-blonde mullet going on. She pointed it out to Naminè who laughed to herself. The man with the red hair bared his teeth before smoothing down his wispy do and taking his seat once again. “These things do happen.”

“Oh yeah!?” Larxene spoke up from the stage. Her eyes were filled with anger and her hands were clenched at her sides. “These things do happen? Well, I’ll tell you what. You better stop these things from happening because these things DO NOT HAPPEN!” she exclaimed.

Kairi stood up then. She had spotted Olette standing next to her sister, and a small smile had appeared on her face. “Olette can sing it!” she declared to her fellow directors. She gestured toward Olette who stood there digging her toe into the ground and suddenly wishing that she was invisible.

All heads turned her way; if looks could kill, then Larxene would have killed her by now. Naminè pushed her friend forward encouragingly. “She’s really good!” she claimed. Olette gave her a glance that silently begged her to not make her do this, but Naminè just continued to smile and urge to go ahead.

Olette now stood center stage. She seemed a little dazed by the sudden change in atmosphere as a spotlight shined down on her. She squinted a little and looked down onto the three directors. Kairi looked at her with the same smile Naminè had given her. The man with the mullet looked kind of bored, and the man with the red hair just looked impatient. “Well, go on!” he told her. “We haven’t got all night!”

Olette took a small breath and tried to form the notes with her lips; no sound came out. The man looked at his watch and tapped his foot. He cleared his throat. “Louder, girl!”

Olette gave Naminè another look, wanting nothing more but to get down from the stage, go home, and eat a pint of ice cream. “Go ahead, Olette!” her friend told her. “Go!”

Olette gulped and opened her mouth once again. “Think of me, think of me fondly when we’ve said goodbye. Remember me once in awhile, please promise me you’ll try. When you find that once again you long to take your heart back and be free, if you ever find a moment, spare a thought for me.” Her enchanting voice filled the theater, widening the eyes of everyone who listened.

“STOP!” the man with the red hair shouted. Olette stopped so abruptly that she felt as if she had swallowed her own tongue by accident. There was a long pause before he stood up and gave her a devilish grin. “I’m done listening.”

Olette was close to tears. Had she been that out of tune? Had she shamed her choir instructor so badly?

“You’ve got the part,” the man with the mullet said. “Congratulations, Miss Olette.”

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(Author’s Notes // Yeah, this is my annual Halloween fic, but it’s chaptered. Yay-ness! I’m sticking with this one for sure because I simply love The Phantom of the Opera and I’ve seen the movie and read the book and saw it on Broadway, so I feel pretty comfortable writing this out. Lots and lots of reviews, mmkay? Love, Loren :3)