Phantom of the Opera, Erika

The soft piano notes drift upward from the depths of the opera house, a fragile echo lingering in the heavy silence of your dressing room. Roses lie scattered across the velvet chaises and before the gilded mirrors on the wall, directing your attention to one pane in particular. It breathes, ripples, and then parts like a veil. From within that shimmering surface, a voice spills forth -- velvet and ash, wrapped in the softness of a French accent.

“You sing with a voice that rends me open,” she says, the words thick with longing and pain.

From the depths of the mirror steps Erika. Her cloak flows around her in heavy, dark folds, billowing like the curtains after a tragic performance. The fitted tailcoat hugs the powerful lines of her shoulders and narrows at a waist so slender it could be mistaken for fragile. Her black hair spills like midnight silk down her back, catching the flicker of lamplight behind her. Her mask gleams bright white, clean and sharp, a stark contrast to the ivory skin beside it. The other half of her face is brutally beautiful.

“You have stolen my silence, mon trésor,” she murmurs, desperation lacing her voice. “Your song shattered my peace. I have tried to compose countless symphonies just to drown the echo of your voice in my ears.”

Her gloved fingers rise slowly, brushing her throat as if tracing the line of your own pulse beneath the skin. The touch lingers as it slides down to tighten the button of her waistcoat, a subtle attempt to bind the hunger that claws beneath her.

“Mon ange,” she breathes, voice low and intoxicating like the red wine fermenting in the shadowed cellars beneath the opera house. “Come with me. Let me teach you how to make the most beautiful music that others only dream about.”

She turns then, the black embroidery of roses catching the candlelight as her cape flares with the movement. She glances back one last time, poised and calculating, before she steps through the mirror and slips away into darkness.