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Phantom of the Opera AU Prompt inspired by Death Upon an Austrian Sonata: A Dana Knightstone Novel! This was written with the Mystery Legends: Phantom of the Opera hidden objects game in mind, but other versions could work, pick whichever you like. Pls tag me if you’re inspired by this and I’d love to read it! 🎻🤎

A clairvoyant and up-and-coming novelist has the ability to see and speak to ghosts. This has proved very useful in building a successful writing career, as they’ve used their skills to investigate unsolved mysteries involving ghosts and the past tragedies that befell them in life. They often focus on the people, places, and circumstances surrounding strange and unusual deaths to piece together a series of events. Thanks to them, many restless spirits have finally found the peace they’ve long sought after. The novelist has been busy putting their pen to paper and, while the ghosts move on, their life stories become bestsellers. These ghosts may be gone, but they won’t ever be forgotten. The clairvoyant receives a letter from their distant cousin, Marguerite, the Baroness de Castelot-Barbezac, seeking their help.

In her letter, Marguerite explains that she’s been hearing eerie violin music in her Paris manor and a terrified woman haunts her dreams every night. In said dreams, the ghost played her violin beautifully in front of a captivated audience at the Paris Opera House, while the Phantom gazed at her longingly from afar in Box 5. Why did he have such a passionate interest in this violinist? She asks her cousin to come visit her as soon as possible, all expenses will be paid. The baroness is a woman who adores having her own way and her request cannot be denied. According to her, the ghost's music and her death are connected. The clairvoyant needs to speak to their cousin in person to find out more.

But what they see in Marguerite’s room changes everything. In her letter, she mentioned she was terminally ill, but they hadn’t realized her condition would be this bad. A woman of thirty-five and she’s already bedridden most days. Servants tend to her at beck and call while her husband is away, but none of them seem to notice you, the ghost devotedly sitting at her bedside! Although you’re a ghost, you still seem to care greatly for her! A living person! The mistress of the grand house was a dear friend to you in life, back when you both performed in the Paris Opera House. Before she was married and became The Baroness Marguerite de Castelot-Barbezac and a great lady, she was simply Meg Giry, a ballet girl who was your best friend and closest confidante.

She let you possess her body to write the letter in her hand and sign it with her name since her illness rendered her unable. Even after your death, she’s still loyal to you and wants to help in any way she can. She points to a picture frame on her nightstand and it’s a portrait of you! And standing beside you in the photo is a man - your teacher, perhaps? His face can’t be seen since he’s turned away from the camera. He’s only a silhouette in the background.

“Thank you for coming. I know you must have many questions, so let’s not waste time. Just like you, I can sense ghosts. The ghost that’s with us now is a musician. She was a famous violinist in the Paris Opera House, but both her violin and compositions went missing shortly before her untimely death. Almost everything got burned up in the Opera House Fire of ‘96, so this is the only surviving photo I have of her. As beautiful as the music she played, isn’t she? Here, take it. It’ll help you. In my dreams, I saw my dearest friend hiding away something valuable…Music sheets. Of her own composition. And then she was running - running away from someone, fearing for her life. Perhaps she fell, or was pushed…But she drowned in the lake. I don’t know who was chasing her. It happens too often; I know they’re not just dreams. Her music continues to haunt me. It’s beautiful, but fragmented. When I have my strength, I try to transcribe what I hear, in bits and pieces. She wants me to find her music, but with my current condition I can’t move much. It seems that she hid her violin and music from someone. What happened to her? What's the connection between her music and her death? I need to find out, but I can no longer do this alone.”

But while digging up your secrets, the clairvoyant may find themself falling headlong into danger while they play detective. The Opera House has been abandoned for years, condemned and left to rot ever since a great fire engulfed it following the last performance of “Don Juan Triumphant”. Its walls are filled with so many memories for you, most of them still painful. It feels like you just escaped from there and left behind all the horror, the tragedy, the death, everything. You’re very reluctant to return to that cursed and godforsaken place, but Meg urges you to go back. She knows you’d be of great help, so you accompany her cousin to the abandoned Opera House, apprehensive about what you may find inside. But you must do this. You’re so sad and weary, but you won’t be able to Rest In Peace until your violin and music sheets are found and the truth behind your death is made known.

The Opera House was once something truly beautiful, full of grand parties, music, and laughter. But now it’s burned to ash, black and decayed - It’s little more than a charred coffin, and there’s a ghost who’s lingered over this coffin and made it his eternal resting place. Forever alone in death just as he was in life, Erik haunts his Opera House. Neither of you can see him but he uses ventriloquism to throw his voice around the hollowed halls.

“Welcome to my Opera House. Welcome to your destiny! The time has come to be reunited with your Angel of Music. Do you remember our last meeting? Let me show you…Ah, I see you’ve brought a guest. Welcome, stranger, to my Opera House!”

“Who are you?”

“I am Erik. I am the Angel of Music. I am Don Juan Triumphant. I am the Phantom of the Opera! Come, prove your love to me! Bring me a black rose, and I shall show you everything!”

The Phantom has asked for a black rose! These black roses could represent his obsessive, dangerous love for you. It was a warm spring or summer day when you were at Meg’s, but the outside of the Opera House has suddenly been covered in a blanket of deep snow, and parts of the building are frozen. If Meg’s cousin set one foot outside, the blizzard would have them broken and bloody over a cliff! This can only be Erik’s doing, willing his personal Hell to literally freeze over. You’re both trapped here until either the storm passes and the snow melts, or Erik lets you both go. Meg’s cousin can’t wait around for the former, so time is of the essence before they either starve to death or succumb to Hypothermia.

As you and Meg’s cousin investigate and explore the Opera House in search of the black roses, you share with them your precious memories of the time you spent in each room. When you first came here, you had heard tales being whispered about an Opera Ghost, a creature, spirit, or man who roamed the halls and possessed the talent to disappear before your very eyes. Unbeknownst to you, he had been hiding behind the mirrors, always watching you whenever you rehearsed and played your violin. With all of these stories from the ballet girls and Joseph Buquet running through your head, you were prepared to scream and fight for your life when he first made himself known to you. But when he looked down at you, you could see a sort of sadness that you had never before seen in any other adult. You looked into his piercing yellow eyes and were not afraid, but entranced. Instead of hate or fear, you showed him compassion. That was the day your tragedy was set in motion.

“My only dream was for the world to hear my music, but he took that away from me. He wanted me to only play music for him, threatening to destroy everything I loved if I disobeyed. He could take my life but not my passion for music. I had to protect what was left of me now - my precious violin and my music. I had hoped that one day, someone would find all the sheets that I had left behind in those music boxes. I’m very grateful you’re here now. If anyone can find them, it’ll be you! But it’s been twenty years since my death and I can no longer remember where I put them!”

You both search for clues, evidence, anything that may be useful in finding your violin and sheet music. You wish you could be of more help, but you’ve been dead and trapped in limbo for so long that it’s taken its toll on your mind. Your memory is very foggy, all scrambled up in bits and pieces - 1896 feels like ages ago! You remember that Erik demanded the managers pay his monthly salary in order to prevent accidents from occurring, and even gave them orders as to how the Opera House should be run. Everything he asked for was done without question, and should someone challenge him, terrible things occurred. Just then, Erik’s disembodied voice echos throughout the Manager’s Office.

“The Managers were fools! They thought they could disobey me! I showed them just how real my cruelty could be. The managers would come to understand payment of my salary was worth every penny, if they hoped to continue their productions without incident! Do you remember how you played for me? I was always watching. Your music rang through the concert hall. The audience, obviously enraptured, stared on in plain view. I reflected from the shadows on how well I had taught you and how you had given yourself over to me, your Angel of Music!”

You find a note written by Joseph Buquet, the stagehand. In it, he describes seeing a man lurking in the caverns below the Opera House. Despite his own ambivalence, Joseph had plans to expose the man. You discover his corpse in the Actor’s Alley, stashed away in a sarcophagus stage prop by the Phantom. The small viewing window only allows you to see his sickly green hands clutching a black rose. The glass in the mirror cracks just as Meg’s cousin carefully takes the black rose from Joseph’s decayed fingers, careful not to touch him or gag from the putrid smell. Erik’s waiting behind the glass, holding out his gloved hand for the black rose expectantly.

“So you saw Joseph? I did what I had to, for our love! The stagehand thought he could capture me? His curiosity was his undoing. The stagehand should have stayed in his place. Now a threat to my plans, I would not allow him to pursue me any further. The scene for his demise was set. My only regret is that Joseph’s suspension spoiled your violin concerto. You played your solo so beautifully before he dropped in on your performance, unannounced.”

You go from room to room in the Opera House, helping Meg’s cousin avoid not only the still-active death traps Erik has left lying around, but the environmental dangers such as loose electrical wires, icy floors, flooded rooms, etc. You closely inspect anything that stands out as you uncover more and more dark secrets. Erik’s voice follows you everywhere you go. He’s always watching, always waiting. Every mirror you pass, he’s there. However, it’s your old dressing room that confuses you. Or rather where the door to your room should have been. Instead there’s a wall made of red brick that has elegantly carved designs on it, making it the most beautiful brick wall you have ever seen.

Why would Erik put a brick wall all the way down here? Meg’s cousin cannot tear down the wall or follow you inside, so you tell them to wait right there while you pass through and take a look around, alone. Erik is there, waiting for you. He’s been in your old room this whole time, using smoke and mirrors and ventriloquism to make you both believe he was following you and hiding behind the glass of every mirror you passed.

“I taught you how to play in this very room. Do you remember? I’d been trying to get your attention but you were just so preoccupied with those concerts of yours. All I wanted was to spend some time with you alone. Why did you run from me? Was this how you repaid your Angel of Music? Wasn’t it I who made you famous? Was it too much to ask you to play music only for me? Why were you so stubborn? Why did you have to die?”

For a few fleeting moments, he shows emotional vulnerability to you and only you, his love (or object of obsession). He lets you see the man behind the mask, his voice raw and thick with longing and remorse, as if he’s on the verge of crying for you but cannot will any tears to be shed. But it’s gone faster than you can blink, and he once again dons a mask of impassivity.

“You’ve come quite far. Are you ready to descend into my realm? Let me take you there. The Angel of Music is waiting for you! Prove your devotion and bring me another black rose! You will find what you need when you look for it in the cold. Come to me. I am waiting.”

No one except yourself and Christine had ever been down there and, for Christine, it had been a nightmare. For you, the House on the Lake was paradise, and you wished more than anything that you had seen it one last time before your death, though you never had the heart to return until now. You could still remember the glow of the wax candles, the sound of Erik's music filling the air as he sang, all of it mixing so wonderfully with the waves lapping on the shores and the boat in the lake. To you, it had been the most magical place in the world. For a time.

His lair by the lake is frozen over, everything covered in a thick shroud of frost, each individual snowflake creating an illusion of white lace with a unique pattern. Everything in the room itself is encapsulated by ice, even Erik’s beloved organ and monkey music box. Candles that had once made the underground cave glow with warm yellow light are permanently gray, wet, and snuffed out. You come across a pair of wooden mannequins hanging from the ceiling, dressed in wedding outfits. They appear to be in a lover’s embrace. Erik has created a mannequin in his likeness! But is the bride meant to be you? What sort of nightmarish puppet show is this? Why would the Opera Ghost hold you in an eternal wedding waltz like this? You don’t know what compelled him to put so much effort into this disturbing and intimate display, but it makes your stomach churn. Erik has written a riddle on the wall in what you hope is red ink: “When the girl fell, his world shattered."

Something needs to fall. Perhaps those figurines of you and your former maestro? When the mannequins fall into a heap on the ground, the wall collapses, revealing a hidden passageway to a secret room deep within Erik’s lair. Inside is a crypt holding only a single black coffin that’s sealed shut. There’s an inscription in the stone of his grave. It reads, “Here Lies the Angel of Music”. Is this where Erik is buried? Could it be that Erik had set fire to the Opera House while he sealed himself alive in this very tomb of his own making?

“I had reached the depths of my despair - it was all over. The shadow of my death drew near. You were the light in the darkness of my existence. I was your Angel of Music! But you left me. I couldn’t save you. All was lost. The time had come to end it! My house would burn but my spirit would not rest. One day, God willing, I would have you again!”

Upon opening the crypt, there it is - your priceless violin, clutched by Erik until his final breath. Beside his skeletal remains are the music boxes containing your music sheets and his “Don Juan Triumphant” encased in a red folder tied with black ribbon. Erik couldn’t be buried in the cemetery with you, no matter how much he may have wished it. He couldn’t be laid to rest beside you in such a public place where anyone could dig him up, but he was desperate to hold onto the only thing remaining of you. After your accidental drowning, he stole your music sheets so your final compositions would be buried together alongside him. Erik’s final lament is written on his music scores of “Don Juan Triumphant”, presumably in his own blood based on the reddish-brown tint to the ink:

“What have I done!? Forgive me, my love. I didn’t mean to...”

You don’t want to leave your violin and compositions here to rot away underground with Erik for all eternity, so you make a trade. Holding the final black rose, you kiss its soft petals before laying it in Erik’s grave. You place the blossom in his corpse’s hands so that he may still hold onto something of you eternally while you take back your violin and music. What manner of sorrow could rob a rose of its very color? Accepting your gift, Erik bids you a soft and heartfelt farewell before he dissipates into thin air. Whether he ascends into Heaven or descends into Hell, he will welcome his fate. You showed him mercy and granted him forgiveness. You freed him from his self-inflicted Purgatory, even if he didn’t deserve it. Whatever awaits him on the other side, he’s very grateful to you for helping him move on.

You turn over your violin and music sheets to the person you do care about: Meg. Knowing that you’re going to leave soon, she fulfills your final wish and musters up her strength to dance to your beautiful music while her husband accompanies her on your violin for the whole world to hear, in what will be her last ballet variation. After her performance is over and she takes her final bows, you’re finally freed from the shackles that kept you bound to the mortal plane. You feel the invisible force that had been weighing you down for many years finally lift, and you feel lighter. You can move on. Your weary soul can rest.

As the stage lights shine down and nearly blind her from their brightness, Meg vaguely sees you blow her a kiss and wave goodbye before you fade away into the warm yellow light. No. It isn’t a goodbye, but rather a see you soon. Wherever you are, Meg hopes you’re happy and that you’ll be waiting for her to join you when it’s her time. She hopes you’ll be there to escort her to the afterlife. She’d love to hold your hand and walk with you once more, like you used to when you were young girls. It won’t be long now, Meg can feel it. She has dealt with ghosts before in her life, both real and man-made. She’s not afraid. She’s ready.

It was a sad day in Paris when Meg’s husband and cousin laid her to rest. Her cousin was all set to go home, knowing they had helped Meg with her last wish, when they felt a chill down their spine. Like they were being watched. They knew that feeling well - another ghost, another mystery. Who else was haunting Meg’s manor? Could it be…?

#phantom of the opera x reader #erik x reader #phantom of the opera #phantom of the opera AU #ghost au #you and Erik are both ghosts #death upon an Austrian sonata #a Dana Knightstone novel #mystery legends phantom of the opera #mystery legends #pls tag me if you’re inspired by this #I’d love to read it #random prompt #random fic ideas #fic ideas

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