Ok, so it's been a while since I've submitted anything, but yesterday I got the idea to write this, so here it is.

I own nothing, not even the plot. I just influenced it in my own twisted way. Enoy! ^^

Prologue: Lot 665

Paris, France, 1905

The car pulled up to the Opera Populaire with a creak. Philippe didn’t know why he had bought the car; parts were always breaking, and it was never as comfortable as the carriage he used to own, but his sister had insisted on it. He would have sold it long ago, but his sister’s progressing illness drove away any thoughts of ridding himself of the car, or doing anything else that might make her unhappy. She was dying, and he wanted to do everything in his power to keep her out of the depression that sometimes crept into her mind. Besides, she had suffered enough for one lifetime.

Philippe’s chauffeur opened the car door and offered a hand to help him get out. Refusing any assistance, he slid slowly out of the car. He managed to stand without falling over. A wheelchair was waiting for him, but he pushed it away, preferring to lean heavily on his cane as he walked, or rather shuffled, his way up the opera steps.

It took ten minutes to reach the stage in the opera house. Everything was old and musty, much of it charred; the Populaire had not seen a single soul inside its halls since it had nearly burned down over forty years previous. It had only just been bought from the government in the hopes of restoring it to its former beauty.

A man stood before a podium onstage. Behind him was an assortment of items, ranging from props to costumes, to a jumbled amount of random, and mostly random, items, the quality of which was often questionable. The man’s gavel came down with a loud smack of wood on wood.

“Sold,” the auctioneer said. An audience of about two dozen people stood before him. “Your number, sir? Thanks you.” The auctioneer wrote down the number he had been given. “Loot 663, then, ladies and gentlemen: a poster for this house’s production of ‘Hannibal’ by Chalumeau.”

A porter held up a faded poster that Philippe, with his sight beginning to wane, couldn’t quite make out. “Showing here,” the porter said.

The auctioneer continued: “Do I have ten francs?” The audience was silent. “Five then?” Philippe, leaning on his cane and still ignoring the wheelchair his chauffer was offering him, raised a hand. “Five I am bid. Six?” One man raised his hand. “Seven?” Philippe kept his hand in the air. “Eight?” The other bidder shook his head. “Eight once, selling twice, sold.” The gavel cracked again. Philippe’s chauffer collected the faded poster. His sister had told him to buy whatever he could, so long as it was from the time she had spent at the Opera burned.

Lot 664 was of no interest to Philippe; a wooden pistol and three human skulls would be worthless in his sister’s eyes. To him, everything there was, but he wasn’t doing any of it for himself.

“Lot 665, ladies and gentlemen,” the auctioneer announced to the audience, “a papier-mâché musical box in the shape of a barrel organ. Attached is the figure of a monkey in Persian robes, playing the cymbals. This item was discovered in the vaults of the theatre, still in working order.” The porter held up the little music box and wound it up. When it started playing, Philippe couldn’t keep his eyes off of it; the tiny monkey’s movements as it played its cymbals was hypnotic, as was the chime-like music it played. “May I start at twenty francs?” Philippe almost raised his hand, but he was still entranced by the music box. “Fifteen, then?” One woman in the audience raised her hand. “Fifteen I am bid. Twenty?” Philippe put a hand into the air. “Twenty-five?” The woman bid again. “Thank you, Madame. Thirty?” Philippe raised his hand again. He remembered his sister telling him about something like the music box, and he was determined to buy it for her. “Thirty-five?” The woman did not bid again. “Selling at thirty, then. Thirty once, twice. Sold, for thirty francs. Thank you, sir.”

The chauffer brought over the music box. Philippe stared at it, transfixed. Everything there, the place itself, brought back memories he had tried so hard to suppress over the years. It had not been easy; for weeks after the fire, the newspapers continued to run stories about how the culprit, despite the hundreds of witnesses, had not been caught. People insisted the monster was still alive, as no body had been found, but they eventually gave up; it had vanished without a trace.

“Lot 666, then.” The auctioneer’s voice brought Philippe back to earth. “A chandelier in pieces. Some of you may recall the strange affair of the Phantom of the Opera, a mystery never fully explained. We are told, ladies and gentlemen, that this is the very chandelier which figures in the famous disaster. Our workshops have restored it, and fitted up parts of it with the new electric light, so that we may get a hint of what it may look like when re-assembled. Perhaps we may frighten away the ghosts of so many years ago with a little illumination.” He smiled at the audience before nodding to three men who were standing around a large object under a tarp. The men pulled the tarp away, revealing the chandelier. The sight of it nearly made Philippe’s heart stop as he lost his balance and collapsed into the wheelchair that his chauffer had insisted on bringing inside; he could almost hear the Phantom’s infernal music as someone turned the electric bulbs on. Most of the chandelier’s crystals were missing, but the rest of it was all there.

“Get me out of here,” he hissed to his chauffer.

Although the car ride home did not take as long as Philippe would have thought, it was still after dark before he pulled up to his front door. This time, when he got out of the car, he allowed his chauffer to help him to his feet.

His housekeeper greeted him as he shuffled through the front door.

“How is she?” he asked.

“The same, sir,” the housekeeper answered, her expression weary. “I fear she is losing her memories. She keeps calling out his name, asking for him. I haven’t had the heart to tell her that he’s been dead four years now.”

“What did you tell her, then?”

“That he is coming and will be here soon. She seems to believe me every time, but I think she be beginning to suspect something.”

Philippe sighed. “I will talk to her.”

He walked slowly to his sister’s room. The second floor had stood empty for years, even before his sister took ill; age make walking up stairs difficult so both of them had had their rooms moved to the ground floor. The only things that had been left upstairs had belonged to his sister’s late husband.

“Rachelle?” Philippe called quietly as he opened the door. The only light in the room was a single candle; its small glow barely illuminated the withered face of his younger sister.

“Christopher?” she replied, turning her head to face the door. “Is that you?” Her eyes were glazed over with the blindness that was beginning creep upon her with every day.

“No,” he answered sadly. “It’s Philippe, your brother.” He entered the room slowly and sat down at the foot of her bed. “I have something for you.”

“Where is Christopher? I want to see him.”

“Here.” Philippe handed Rachelle the music box. She gasped when she saw it. As he set it into motion for her, she began to weep.

“It’s just as he said.” Tears were streaming down her face. “The music,” she sobbed. “I remember this music.” Rachelle blew her nose with a lace handkerchief. “Don’t let Christopher see this. He doesn’t want to be reminded of her. Not again. Promise me?”

Philippe took his sister’s hand. “I promise.” He was crying, too, both from how pitiful his once beautiful sister looked to her sad insistence that her husband was still alive. The music box wound down and stopped playing.

“Wind it up. I want to hear it again.”

The music box played its melody, and both brother and sister were overcome by the memories that returned to them after so many years. Rachelle smiled as she remembered her husband’s voice, and how they had loved each other over the years. She whispered her husband’s name.

Philippe sobbed as his sister’s hand went limp in his grasp. The music box played on, an echo of the past that would go on forever.

'K, there's the prologue for ye! ^^ Hope you liked it!

Reviews are welcome. Flames, not so much.