8A/N: To be honest, I'm not sure what I want to do with this. I imagined a whole story with this idea, but I can't see that happening. Anyway, feedback would help. :) I'm working on my other story too...so...as you can tell, I'm very focused (NOT). :)
Lucinda
Part I (of ?)
Did I mishear? Did he actually say what I think he did?
"Lucinda, sing for me," the shape before me whispered again, though still managed to sound commanding this time without the hint of that silky tone from last night.
Stupid me, I thought I would be happy to see the one responsible for all of this, after last night's terror-filled ordeal, after having to be locked in an outlandish, oversized, strangely furnished, dimly-lit room. Despite this strange captor-prisoner syndrome, I still trembled uncontrollably from fright. It was as though he had just appeared out of thin air, but the door at the far end of the room was now wide open.
Now I was wishing that I had just been left to wait in this luxurious room forever.
Would I have been more scared had I not been familiar with that well-known story of the Phantom of the Opera? Or should I have been more scared because I found the too many similarities bizarrely thrilling? Even under such circumstances, a part of my brain was rational enough to analyze the contrast.
But I dimly recalled that The Phantom wore a mask, (which he was obviously lacking) and I doubted that Phantom guy would have had such a menacing gleam on a pair of somewhat elongated k-nines. Great, the guy probably even thought he was a vampire. I numbly gaped at his approaching lithe form, while my mind idly pondered my fate. Would he try to suck my blood?
Should I have eaten some of that food that was still sitting untouched? I should have put too much sugar in my tea or something – making my blood syrupy and gross? Make it even more syrupy that it was…? Ew…
On cue, as though my last thought had been spoken aloud, he gave a silky, dark chuckle to which I withdrew further, wrapping myself in the hanging drapes of the dark maroon canopy. When he halted, there was something akin to disappointment in his demeanor.
What was he expecting, a warm welcome? Whether it was out fear or stubbornness, the only thing I could do in reply to his question was shake my head with abrupt, jerky movements. Sing for him? Was he insane?
When he approached another step, I collapsed in a pathetic, trembling heap on the luxurious King-size canopy-bed I had woken up in.
"This won't work if you keep disobeying me, my darling."
What wouldn't work? Being able to live? Not getting raped? What exactly did he mean?
In the heavy silence filled with nothing but my shaky breathing, I attempted to inspect his features, just like last night, and once again found that there was little to see of his face, though my eyes still curiously outlined the limited view of his gaunt, pale features, hoping to recognize someone I knew.
He resembled someone who had stayed up late often, and rarely got sunlight. Like some guy living with his parents, playing video games day and night in his basement apartment. Indeed it must have been some deranged, antisocial pervert.
But his clothes didn't fit that image and neither did this room. His clothes were much too expensive-looking to have been bought on his parents' resources and it, as well as this room were oddly out of a different time-period; the eighteen hundreds perhaps? No, wait, those ruffles on his sleeves could have been from the seventeen hundreds—
Oh my God! What am I doing? Who cares what style of shirt he's wearing!
"I am both impressed and disappointed," he threw both wings of his cloak over his shoulder and began to eye me musingly, "the resemblance is astonishing."
"Resemblance…?" I gasped so softly I was surprised if he had even heard me.
Do I look like someone from a comic book he reads?
"But you seem to remember naught, Dearest One," he began, and a with a whoosh of dark colours about me and the sudden sensation of my body floating momentarily, along with the chill of his firm, cold grasp on my wrist, I found him so near suddenly, without the understanding of how he had done it. With an effortless tug, he pulled me against his chest, wrapping his free arm around me tightly, "When I first saw you…no, it was, I believe, when I first heard you…then I needed to see you…
"Yes, it was when I saw your face that I knew you would be this near me."
I wasn't sure whether it was his words or the chilly temperature of his body radiating through the mere sundress I was wearing that caused me to shudder. Or perhaps it was the knowledge that I had no more reason to hope for escape. After all, now there was no way he would let me live that I had a look at his face so clearly and up close.
My eyes jumped all over his more than pleasant but chalky features, which were framed by dark, smooth flowing hair (which appeared to be tied at the nape of his neck) and settled on his pearly eyes which were even more pronounced from the contrast of the dark circles around them. He really was heavily into this vampire thing…
Great, I have a stalker. And chances are that I'm going to die. I don't want to die! Why me? Why me? Dignity shmignity, begging wouldn't seem so low if I can get out of this alive…
"Please…don't…hurt…me…please…let me…go…" I entreated brokenly when he began to dangerously nuzzle the tender valley at my neck. In his futile attempt to suck my blood I would still bleed to death.
"I don't want to die!"
His mouth was to my ear in the same instant, whispers sweeping my skin, "You will never die, Beloved. Never again."
He released me then, but took me by the shoulders, and with a tip of his head he appeared to analyze my frightened expression, "Sing, my Love."
Gazing deeply into each other's eyes, images began to jump and whirl before me. For a brief second, I was standing on a grand stage, and blooms of roses were thrown at my feet. When a darker red rose fell there, appearing to be almost black in contrast to the rest of them, my vision snapped again, and before me was the face of my kidnapper.
What was going on? What had just happened?
"Wh-who are you?"
"Do you not remember your François LeMarc, my lady?"
"François…?"
He smiled gently which was frightfully appealing, "Yes, but I know you don't remember. You wouldn't. But no matter, because I remember enough for us both."