VI - The Phantom's Story

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JOSHUA'S POV

~~TWO DAYS LATER~~

I spotted Giry hurrying across the stage, perfect, I needed answers. "Madame Giry. Madame Giry!" I cried, and she turned, her eyes full of stricken panic. "Monsieur, don't ask me - I know no more than anyone else!" She called, and moved off agin, but I stopped her, determined.

"That's not true. You've seen something, haven't you?" I asked, and she looked like she was hiding something. "I don't know what I've seen. Please don't ask me, monsieur." She said uneasily, and I pleaded once more. "Madame, for all our sakes!" I groaned, and she sighed in defeat.

Glancing around, she spoke softly. "Very well. It was years ago. There was a travelling fair in the city. Tumblers, conjurors, human oddities," She said, and I got excited. "Go on." I said, and she continued, retracing the past. "And there was. I shall never forget him: A boy. Locked in a cage." She said, and I gasped. "In a cage?" She nodded, wringing her hands. "A prodigy, monsieur! Scholar, architect, musician."

I pieced the jigsaw together. "A composer." I whispered, and Madame Giry sighed. "And an inventor too, monsieur. They boasted he had once built for the Shah of Persia, a maze of mirrors." I raised my eyebrows, mystified. "Who was this man?" Giry shuddered. "A freak of nature. More monster than man."

"Deformed?" I murmured, and she nodded. "From birth, it seemed." I sighed. "My God." Giry frowned. "And then, he went missing. He escaped." I gasped, and she nodded. "They never found him, it was said he had died." I sighed, and then spoke darkly. "But he didn't die, did he?" Giry shuddered, and spoke again.

"The world forgot him, but I never can. For in this darkness I have seen him again." She said, and I nodded. "And so our Phantom's this man." I said, and Giry started from her daze, turning to go. "I have said too much, monsieur!" She moved off into the surrounding blackness, crying out over her shoulder. "And there have been too many accidents!"

"Accidents?!" I wondered aloud, and Giry's voice came again. "Too many!" Before I could question her further, she disappeared into the theater, refusing to speak to me any more. I ran after her, shouting, "Madame Giry!"

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