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"Forget it! I quit!" Elizabeth yelled at Oogie, panting from running. She had slowed to a quick walk, stomping her feet as she went. "I QUIT!" she yelled as loud as she could, making a few crows fly off in fright. She instantly regretted her words upon feeling his anger rise. Her face grew hot and her breaths became short, waiting for the certain explosion.
"What do you mean you QUIT?" Oogie roared. "You can't QUIT! I OWN you!" he yelled, making her body shake. Elizabeth cried out as she fell backwards into the cobblestone, hitting her head hard against the ground. She moaned in pain, feeling the back of her head. It was bleeding. Elizabeth winced, rolling herself on to her stomach. She stared the blood on her hands and bit her lip, holding back tears. What had she become? Nothing. Just a lowly creature lying in the dirt. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she wallowed in her self pity.
"You bastard," she mumbled to Oogie, for it had come to name-calling. With no escape-no way to lash back-it was her only defense, though it was a weak one at that.
Elizabeth reached for a near-by tree and used it to pull herself up. She clung tightly to the branches for support, resting for a moment. She closed her eyes in thought, crying softly to herself, not because of the pain, but over her desperation for a way out. But what was her only escape? Murder. And murdering someone she loved, at that! 'there must be another way.' she thought, and then it hit her. Her way out! Her escape! Another choice, bright and glorious, had finally revealed itself to her.
-x-x-x-x-
Elizabeth opened to doors of the town's library. The smell of musty books filled her nostrils, but it was a smell she had been looking forward to. Then again, she looked forward to every step of her plan. Elizabeth walked directly up to the librarian with a secretive smile on her face. The old woman behind the counter looked up in puzzlement.
"Are you alright, miss?" the librarian asked, terribly concerned. "Miss, you're bleeding," she told Elizabeth, reaching out her hand, but then recoiling it.
"So I am," Elizabeth spoke absently, feeling her blood-matted hair. She smiled warmly at the Librarian, "Could you point me towards the spiritual works, Ma'am?" Elizabeth asked. The old woman nodded, staring at the wild look in Elizabeth's eyes. She stood up and pointed to her right.
"They should be just past the non-fiction works, Miss," she said. Elizabeth smiled and thanked her courteously, then walked in the indication the librarian had pointed her towards. Her breath quickened with every step she took.
Elizabeth stopped in front of the row of books that the Librarian had mentioned, and started to pull books off the shelves, blowing off their dust-encrusted covers to read what was inscribed on them. She flipped through the pages of a few books, always seeming to find that the information and references she was searching for had been torn out of them. Elizabeth pulled a red book (now maroon from age) off the shelf and examined its cover. It bore nothing at all, but the title page held an intricate pen and ink illustration. She admired the drawing for a moment, then looked carefully through the pages.
Finding the information she needed, she closed it and brought it up to the librarian's desk. The woman stared at the book, then glanced up at her suspiciously.
"A rather.unusual topic for a young woman such as yourself," she muttered. Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders.
"I always find it good to learn a new skill," Elizabeth told her. The Librarian didn't look satisfied with this answer in the least. She pursed her lips, watching Elizabeth through narrowed eyes.
"A skill you won't be able to use?" She asked, "You are aware that this kind of 'skill' has been outlawed for more than twenty years, aren't you?" Elizabeth's face grew hot. What was she to say? "I'm afraid I'll have to receive adult permission for you to check-out this kind of material, Miss,"
"At nineteen years of age, you'll find that the law states that I am a legal adult. Now, I would like to check out this book, Ma'am!" Elizabeth stated, her voice rising in frustration.
"Keep it down!" The librarian whispered angrily, and with a hard thump, she had stamped the small grid work check-out list scrawled into the back of the front cover. Elizabeth quickly took her book and hurried out of the library.
-x-x-x-x-x-
Elizabeth walked through her front door, and was greeted instantly by the cat she had found the night Oogie had fist crawled under her skin. The cat rubbed it's black fur against her legs, meowing for attention.
"Stop it, Thatchet," Elizabeth told the cat in an absent whisper. She walked past it and into her living room, where she immediately pulled the rug off the ground, sending a small table toppling over. The oil lamp that had been sitting on top of it shattered, but she didn't bother to pick up the shards of glass, or clean up the oil. Instead, she took some candles and a match from atop her kitchen table, and placed them on her living room floor.
Elizabeth picked up her book and stared nervously at the title, "Guide to Spirits and Exorcisms". After a moment of jitters, she opened the book to a page of diagrams. She examined the top one on the first page, counting corners and calculating angles. When she was sure of the exact shape, she took one of the glass shards from her oil lamp and sliced her hand, using her blood to draw the shape indicated by the book on the floor. Once that was done, she placed a candle on each corner while she sat in the middle of the shape she had drawn.
Elizabeth lit the first candle, then used it to light the others as the book suggested. She held her breath, turning to the next page, and read aloud an interpretable incantation wildly with fear.
"What the." Oogie said to himself. "What are you doing?" he yelled in confusion. Elizabeth didn't reply. She simply continued to chant her incantation. Elizabeth's head was screaming for her to stop, but she wouldn't. She couldn't. This was her last chance.
"STOP IT!" Oogie yelled in panic. "CUT IT OUT!"
Was it working? She wondered. It seemed like it. If this worried Oogie so much then it must be working, right? A smile passed over her lips as she chanted. She was winning her freedom, and it was so simple! How could she have not realized it before? Every thing was going according to plan-until she felt that all too familiar pain sear through her mind, making her scream in agony.
"I TOLD YOU TO CUT IT OUT!" Oogie yelled. Elizabeth shrieked for him to stop, but his strength grew and she knew that the spiritual connection the exorcism had been forming inside her ring of blood had been broken. She had failed.
She cried tears of frustration, clenching her fists and gritting her teeth. Anger built up inside her, and she knocked over the still-burning candles that were set around her. She watched one of the candles roll off to her left, and before she could stop it, it had rolled to where her oil lamp and broken and burst into an explosion of flames. Her eyes grew wide and she backed away from the fire as quickly as she could, but burning her fingers in the process. She got off the ground as the fire grew, grabbing Thatchet, and ran out the door.
Elizabeth watched the fire grow from outside her home, and before long it had engulfed the entire thing. She simply watched it as the sun went down behind her. What else could she do?
After almost an hour, someone noticed the burning building and ran off to get help, but Elizabeth sat motionless, watching the banisters fall and the roof cave in on itself. People gathered around her, watching the fire burn. Some took buckets of water from their own homes and tried to put the fire out, but it was useless. The fire would burn itself out in time. There wasn't any way to stop it before then.
It grew dark, and the people who had been crowding around her house started to disperse back to there homes. Elizabeth sat on the ground, shivering and lonely. 'What more can Oogie take from me?' she wondered, her head in her hands. 'I've already lost my freedom and my home to him. What more can he take from me?' Elizabeth thought for a moment, then answered her own question. "Derek," she whispered, closing her eyes, resigned. Elizabeth watched as the fire started to die, shivering from the midnight cold.
And, as if by cue, she felt someone slip a coat over her shoulders. Elizabeth turned her head wearily and looked up into Derek's eyes.
"How do you always find me?" she asked, pulling his coat tighter around her body. Derek sat down beside her, puzzling over her blank stare.
"How did this happen?" he asked, looking at the house. There was still the faint glow of smoldering embers around it. Elizabeth didn't talk for a moment.
"I-it was an accident," she whispered. "But it's happened before."
"It has?" he said.
"five years ago," she told him. "My parents died in that fire. I never thought it would happen again."
"I'm sorry," Derek whispered, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to warm her. Elizabeth stared out at the stars, her mind wandering. "Would you like to stay with me until you get your house rebuilt?"
Elizabeth thought for a moment. She almost said so she could avoid him and buy more time before she had to kill him, but then she realized it didn't matter anymore. She would have to kill him sooner or later and, as much as it pained her, it might as well be sooner.
"I would like that," she spoke softly, staring at a few glowing embers at her feet. Derek helped her to her feet and walked her home with him.
He opened the front door quietly, cautious as to not wake his parents up at such a late hour. Derek set a pillow and a blanket on their couch in the front room.
"I wish I had better accommodations for you, but this will do for tonight, won't it?" he asked. Elizabeth passed her hand across the blanket tenderly.
"It's wonderful," she told him. She laid on top of the couch, pulling the blanket over her, and fell asleep almost instantly.
-x-x-x-x-
Elizabeth's eyes fluttered open, and she looked around the room the best she could. It was dark, but her eyes adjusted quickly, and she make out a few of the figures in the room. It couldn't be past three o'clock in the morning, she figured because of the darkness.
Something moved out of the corner of her eye, and Derek became apparent to her. He sat in an armchair, not far from the couch she was on, with his hand propping up his head, deep in concentration.
"It's awfully late," she muttered, giving Deren a start. He looked up at her sleepily.
"I suppose it is," he replied, obviously having no inclination for time.
"Why aren't you sleeping?" she asked him with a raised eye-brow, propping herself up on her elbows.
"I couldn't just leave you all alone down here," he told her. Elizabeth suppressed a little blush then scooted over, making room next to her on the sofa.
"That chair must be terribly uncomfortable," she murmured, flattening her pillow, careful not to look up at him. "Would you mind keeping me company over here?" she asked him, patting the room she had made for him on the sofa. He smiled a lopsided little smile and laid down next to her.
Elizabeth felt her heart to a little cartwheel, having him lay so close. She smiled, resting her head on his chest. Her head gently rose and fell with his breaths rhythmically. He reached out and ran his fingers through her hair.
She felt her body grow hot, laying in his arms. Her heart pounded impossibly loud. Surely he heard it! How could he not? She listened for the sound of his heart, and she smiled when she heard it. It was more than just a beat. She would swear that it carried a melody. A soft, beautiful tune puttering in her ear.
But what if that glorious song of a heart beat stopped? Her smile faded as she thought of this. What would she ever do with out that heart's melody to sing to her? What would she do without Derek? Tears started to well up in her eyes. He'd be gone-just like her parents. Yes, she knew death--She knew what it was like to loose some one. She knew the terrible pains of the heart when their's beat its last beat-but she didn't understand it. Not in the least
Elizabeth couldn't hold her tears back any longer as she re-lived her parent's deaths and imagined Derek's. Before long, her silent tears became sobs, and Derek sat up with a worried expression on his face.
"Are you alright?" he asked, concerned. Elizabeth wiped tears from her eyes with the back of her wrist, but it didn't do any good, because more tears replaced them. She didn't answer him. Derek held her to his chest.
"It's okay," he cooed, "I'm here," he said, trying to comfort her, but this only made her sobs grow louder. She held him tightly, unable to speak and choking on her tears.
"I'm sorry," she finally sputtered out the best she could, but she didn't dare to let him go.
"For what?" he asked in confusion.
"For fate," her voice cracked as she spoke. "I'm sorry for our fate. Will you promise to forgive me?"
"I don't understand," Derek said, "Forgive you for what?"
"Just promise me, Derek. Please, promise to forgive me,"
"I promise," Derek told her, kissing her softly on the lips. Elizabeth thought this would lift her guilt, but it didn't. She felt worse than she had before, but she did her best not think of this as she kissed him, and fell back to sleep in his arms.
(A/N: Ooo.bad chapter. I'm sorry guys.
"Twisted every way, what answer can I give? Am I to risk my life to win the chance to live? Do I betray the man who once inspired my voice? Do I become his prey? Do I have any choice. He kills me with his thoughts. He murders all that's good. I know I can't refuse, and yet, I wish I could. Oh, God if I agree, what horrors wait for me in this-The Phantom's opera?"
--From the Phantom of the Opera.
OH MY FRIKING GOSH!!! I WENT THROUGH HELL TRYING TO GET THIS TO GO THROUGH WITH ALL THOSE NEW "YOU CAN'T POST CERTAIN CHARACTERS NOW" CRAP! grrrr!!!!!!!"
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