Day 11 - "Lake Under the Opera House"
Today's prompt: drowning/the underground lake/the Siren
Today's one shot is another one based on the 1925 silent film! Once again, it should still make sense to anyone who hasn't watched it. I hope you guys enjoy!
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I glanced away from Christine when I noticed my alarm go off, signaling that someone was rowing down the lake. My lake. How very rude indeed for someone to drop in without invitation! The audacity of some people these days.
Turning around, I faced Christine. "It seems we have callers!" I remarked, silently hoping that her beloved Vicomte de Chagny was the one foolishly entering my home.
I pointed to my beloved and ordered her to stay put before I turned to leave the room. As I approached the lake, I discarded of my hat, mask, and cloak. Still clothed in my full three-piece suit, I waded into the water below.
I'd become quite proficient at this over the years. It was practically—actually, no, it was—second nature to me. The alarm would ring, I'd wade across the lake, the boat would be mysteriously capsized, the intruder would drown, and I would go along my merry way, pretending the whole messy ordeal had never happened in the first place. In fact, the routine was getting to be rather boring.
It was quite honestly shocking just how many people had fallen victim to this trap of mine. After all, one would think that word would get out after the first few times. Why people still make the imbecilic decision to come down here is entirely beyond me. There is an unexplained innocence in the world, and I consider it my personal job to help put a stop to that.
As I approached the boat, I could barely make out the face of the gentleman imposing on my home, but he seemed to resemble the Vicomte. Filled with evil delight, I reached up and grabbed the side of the boat, shifting the vessel under the man's feet. I heard him yell with a mixture of surprise and terror just before he hit the water. He must have gashed his head on something when he fell, for I noticed there to be a bit of blood in the water, and it surely wasn't mine.
I studied the face of the now dead intruder and shook my head in disappointment at realizing that it was not the Vicomte de Chagny after all. I did, however, recognize him to be the Vicomte's older brother—whose name, I'm afraid to say, has slipped my mind. Still, one victim was as good as another, I supposed.
Grabbing the man from under his arms, I hoisted his limp body back into the boat. This was always the most inconvenient part of this little trap of mine. It would have made it far easier for myself if I were to find a way to kill the intruder while they were still in the boat, but I could never seem to think of a way that worked as quickly as the current plan does. And my current plan works so nicely; therefore, why would I make changes? Besides, it wasn't as though I had all this free time lying around to sort out this little issue, what with all my duties that stemmed from haunting the opera house and pretending to be Christine's Angel of Music.
And so, I carried on just as I always did, laying the body of my victim into the boat and pushing the vessel back toward the shore. Perhaps it was impertinent of me to not dispose of the body right away, but I simply couldn't be bothered to do it at that moment.
Instead, I waded back in the direction of my home, and I eventually reached the steps that led me back to the water's surface. Looking off into the direction I'd come from, I brushed off my hands with indifference before turned around to go back to my Christine.
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