CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Christine's Choice

The Persian and Raoul had entered Erik's torture room. As Raoul stared at the terrible machines in the room, he heard a strange noise. It sounded like a door opening.

The Persian put a hand over Raoul's mouth to keep him from crying out. As they listened, they heard a voice.

"What will it be, Christine? You must decide! Will I play a wedding song, or a piece of funeral music?"

Both men knew it was Erik. Luckily, Erik did not know that the Persian and Raoul were close by.

"Christine, will you marry me, or not?" said Erik. "Now is the time. My opera is finished. I hate my life here, always hiding alone from people in this dark, underground world. I want a wife like other men. It's taken me many years, but I have made another mask—but this mask lets me look like other men. It is so real no one could tell the difference. You will learn to love me. I will make you the happiest woman in the world, my darling! We can live a life in Paris just like everyone else ... I understand you more than Raoul does!"

Raoul could hear Christine crying desperately now. "It doesn't matter whether you look like other men or not. You're still the same person inside, Erik!"

Erik paid no attention to her. He continued, "Please stop crying, Christine. I'm not an evil person. I only want your love. If you would just love me, you would see the man I truly am."

Christine would sob sometimes, but mostly she stood there silently.

Erik cried out the words, "You don't love me! You don't love me!" Then there was a silence.

Raoul and the Persian hoped that Erik had left the next room. They had to let Christine know they were there. Christine had to open the door to the torture room so that they could help her escape.

Suddenly, they hear a door bell ring. Erik left the room to see who had dared to enter his home. Christine was alone in the room! As soon as Raoul realized this, he called to her.

At first there was no answer, but finally a faint voice said, "Raoul, am I dreaming? Is it really you?"

They promised Christine that she was not dreaming. Quickly, she told them about the danger she was in. Erik seemed to have gone insane. He was promising to kill everyone in the Opera House, including himself, if Christine didn't marry him!

The Persian said, "This is what I was afraid of." He told her that he and Raoul were in the torture room. She had to get the key and open the door.

"I can't," she cried. "Erik has tied me up. I can't move at all."

"Why has he bound you?" the Persian asked.

"Before he left earlier today, I was so desperate that I threatened to kill myself if he didn't let me go. He tied me up so I couldn't do anything."

"Then ask him to untie you. He loves you, Christine. If you make him think that you are hurt, he will do this."

Suddenly Christine told them to be quiet. She had heard Erik coming back into the room. Christine pretended that the ropes around her body were painful. Erik took pity on her, and untied her.

Christine asked who was at the door. Erik said that it was an opera customer who had found his way underground. He couldn't have people around his house, so he killed him.

"I must play a song for him. I'll play a funeral song to mourn his death!" Erik laughed loudly.

While he was playing, Christine crept up behind him and took the bag with the keys. She went towards the door, but Erik saw what she had done.

"What are you doing with that bag?" he screamed.

Christine bravely turned and faced him. "I just wanted to see this room. You've never shown me what is in this room before," she said calmly.

Erik didn't believe her. He ran over and grabbed the bag from her hands. When he threw her to the ground, she gave a sharp cry of pain. Raoul heard this and cried out as well.

Erik heard Raoul's cry. He knew someone was in the torture room.

"I know what you want to do, Christine. You want to see who is hiding in my torture room!" he said. "Could it be the young Raoul? The young man you are so desperately in love with? Well, Christine, we can see who is in that room without opening the door."

Suddenly bright lights went on in the torture room. Erik laughed. "Now, we will begin to enjoy ourselves!"

The torture room started to heat up. Soon the Persian and Raoul could hardly breathe.

Raoul was in deep despair. He could do nothing but cry out Christine's name.

The Persian made no sound. He was feeling the wall, desperately trying to find the secret place that would lead to the exit from the room.

Soon the terrible heat began to affect both of the men. At last they were both overcome with fever and terribly weak. Both men would die if something was not done.

In the distance, they saw water.

"It's a dream," the Persian told himself, but his body would not listen. Already, he and Raoul were crawling over the ghostly water. They could hear the sound of water running.

They bent their heads to the ground and tried to drink. But it wasn't water they touched. It was a burning mirror that burned their tongues.

Raoul couldn't take it any more. He lifted the gun to his own head. He would have killed himself if the Persian had not shouted, "Stop! Stop, you fool, stop!"

The Persian had seen a lever that would let them out of the torture room. He quickly pulled on the lever.

The door opened. They saw a staircase and a cellar below it. The two men ran down the stairs to the cellar. As they looked around, they saw many barrels. They found that these barrels were filled with gunpowder. Now, the Persian understood what Erik meant to do. Christine had only had a short time to agree to marry Erik. If she did not agree, Erik would blow up the Opera House, killing them all.

It seemed there was nothing they could do. The Persian began to shout for Erik, and Raoul cried Christine's name over and over.

No one answered them. Soon Christine must decide.

Suddenly, above them, Raoul and the Persian heard Erik's voice. "I will give you 5 more minutes to decide if you will marry me," he said in a cold voice.

In the room above, Erik opened two black boxes. One had a beautiful metal scorpion inside. The other held a metal insect. "Christine, you will turn the tail of one of these creatures before I return here. If you choose the scorpion, then I'll know you agree to spend the rest of your life with me. If you choose the insect, we will all die. What will it be, Christine? Make your decision carefully," he said, and left.

Five minutes passed, and Erik returned. He saw that she had not touched either box.

"Christine," said Erik quietly, "I mean what I say. Turning the scorpion's tail will dump all the gunpowder into the lake, where it will hurt no one. Turning the insect's tail will kill us all. Now, make a decision! In two minutes I will turn the grasshopper for you."

Suddenly the Persian shouted to Erik in a very loud voice. He told Erik that what he was doing would only end terribly for everyone. It would not make him happy. But Erik laughed and would not listen to him.

"Quiet, Persian! I see that somehow you and that foolish Raoul, whom I hate, are still alive. Well, it doesn't matter now. Your lives are in my darling Christine's hands." Erik stared at Christine and could not look away.

Raoul did not want innocent people in the Opera House to die because of him and Christine.

"Turn the scorpion quickly," he cried. "I love you, Christine, always."

Then, Raoul heard a loud sound, and water began to fill the room. The Persian and Raoul knew they would drown. They tried to find things on the wall to hold onto, but there was nothing. Erik and Christine could hear the horrible screams as the two men fought for their lives.

(end of section)