144Disclaimer: I do not own The Phantom of the Opera.
Hello! It's time for the 3rd Annual Phantom's Christmas One-Shot Challenge! Here's what you need to know:
Entry Timeline: December 6th- December 25th
Winner's Announced: December 30th (Aiming for this, but by now we all know how great I am with deadlines!)
Awards: There will be 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winner along with category winners. 1st place gets a review, a favorite, and I'll write them either a chapter of When Words Fail or a one-shot to a theme of their choice and bragging rights, 2nd place gets a review and a favorite and bragging rights, 3rd place gets a review and bragging rights (and a favorite if I really love it!). ALL entries will get a review and be added to my one-shot challenge community. :D
How to enter: Leave a REVIEW on this story, upload your one-shot to this site in the book category of "The Phantom of the Opera", PM and tell me you uploaded it, and put "Entry for Phantom's Christmas One-Shot Challenge" somewhere in either the story description or in the author note!
Rules: Story must be a ONE-SHOT. It can be in a collection of one-shots, and the one-shot may continue on into a full-fledged story, but judging will only be on the first chapter. Stories must have a winter or winter holiday theme (Christmas for example). One-shots can have any character pairing, any rating (within site rules), and can be any genre! No minimum or maximum word count- just have fun! Also, stories must have been published within December of 2018! So if you've already published your holiday story this December you can still enter!
On with the sample story! Like Battle Lights, this will be in three parts! (P.S. I've never been inside of an airport, so my knowledge of them is quite limited. So please ignore any inaccuracies about airports in this little AU you find!)
ALSO- I finally got a tumblr (notaghost3), so if you're on there, follow me maybe?
"Attention fliers, flight number 217 bound for Chicago has been delayed due to weather. Thank you for your patience."
Christine groaned, pushing through the holiday crowds of the airport as she read each label on nearly every suitcase that passed by in the baggage claim.
John Baxter.
Not her.
Tiffany Godwin.
Not her.
Viv Testerman.
Nope.
Dalton Kamper.
She huffed.
How many had she looked at in the past thirty minutes? Fifty? One hundred?
She leaned her head back and put a hand on her forehead. She was never finding her luggage at this rate. She checked the remaining bags once more for her name before coming to terms with reality: her luggage wasn't going to be there. Lost. Her luggage had been lost. She had been on plenty of flights in her life: back and forth with her dad as they traveled, and then later on for her work, but never in all her years had her luggage been lost. She let out a single forced laugh. How could this day get any worse? Her first flight into Atlanta had been delayed by three hours and now her luggage had been lost— lost! It seemed she had only one option. The service office for the baggage claim sat across the room, tormenting her with the unescapable fact that she would have to talk to somebody. Face to face.
She shuddered.
With a frustrated sigh she decided to not wait any longer to find someone who might be able to help her and whipped around— right into a tall man with three suitcases.
"Hey— watch where you're going!" the guy shouted at her after they had collided.
Christine quickly bent down to help him pick up his luggage as she apologized.
"I'm so sorry, I didn't see you there—" Christine started, but then stopped short as she looked up. The man was wearing a mask of what looked like black leather covering his entire face all but his eyes and mouth. Danger(!) it seemed to warn, her eyes narrowing as she took a step back. She had never been one to be easily frightened- but she could take a hint. Especially when that hint was in the form of a looming black mask.
Get it together, Daaé.
She cleared her throat and then cast her eyes away as she muttered another quiet 'sorry' and quickly walked away in the opposite direction of the man.
"Why are you so awkward, Chris?" she mumbled under her breath, headed towards the baggage claim service office.
It was going to be a long day.
An hour and what seemed like a gazillion forms later, Christine sat staring out the large glass windows of the airport, the grey sky matching the grey of the building around her as she waited until she could board her next plane…without her luggage. With a roll of her eyes she reached into the pocket of her coat for her phone, desperate for any distraction at the moment. She pushed the home button of her phone, expecting the warm pink glow of her lock screen—
Black.
She clicked again.
Nothing.
She pressed the power button on the side.
A red battery indicator.
She wanted to pitch the whole rose gold rectangle at the window.
She clicked it one more time.
Again, nothing.
Fan-flipping-tastic.
She stuffed the phone back into her coat pocket and reached for her purse to find her charger. Wallet, keys, hand sanitizer, kleenex, she could on, and on— but no phone charger. Then she remembered; she knew exactly where her phone charger was: in the front pocket of her suitcase…that was currently not at the airport.
She let her face fall into her hands.
She heard the rustling of someone sitting beside her and she raised her head from her hands slightly as an idea formed in her mind. She could always ask this person next to her if they had a charger she could borrow. It was two days before Christmas and the neighborly thing to do would be to let her borrow a phone charger for 10 minutes, right? Besides, she had already talked to plenty more people than she had hoped to talk to today- what was one more person thrown into the mix?
She straightened up and zipped her purse shut and pivoted in the chair to face the man to the right of her. His shoulder was much higher than she had anticipated but his back was turned so thankfully he didn't see her surprised look. She reached up and tapped him on the shoulder.
She almost gasped when he faced her.
It was the man from earlier! The one she had ran into at the baggage claim!
What a coincidence…
An uneasy smile settled on her lips as he looked her up and down, his lips in a thin line.
"Hi, sorry to bug you, but do you have an iPhone charger? My phone is dead and I don't have my charger with me," Christine explained, trying not to focus on the mask in front of her. What an odd thing to wear in public. She'd seen surgical masks that people wore in the winter to guard themselves for sicknesses like the flu and pneumonia, but not one like this. It was akin to something from a Halloween party store, only it was much better quality than any she'd seen in a store. Maybe he'd had it custom made for something? A cosplay maybe? Or maybe he was apart of some group that liked wearing masks, like a cult?
Her stomach dropped.
She hoped this man in front of her wasn't in a cult.
Or worse: a terrorist.
Her smiled drooped slightly.
"I use Samsung."
"Oh."
A beat.
"I don't suppose you have a tablet that uses an Apple charger?" She tried, holding her purse a bit tighter in her lap.
"No," he snapped before reaching up to adjust the hat on his head, his other hand holding a book.
Christine opened her mouth to say something else, but the man continued speaking before she could get a word out:
"Even if I did have a charger that you could use, why would I permit you to use it after you so rudely crashed into me earlier this afternoon, hm?"
Christine bit her lip. "You remember that, do you?" she meekly said with a nervous laugh.
"I'm afraid your neon pink coat is quite hard to forget," he almost sneered, his lips in a smirk.
Christine laughed nervously again. She supposed the coat she was wearing was particularly bright. Pink was not a color she would usually wear, but Meg had let her borrow it since she didn't own any heavy winter coats and it was going to be very cold in New York and she couldn't be picky.
"Yeeaaaah…I'm sorry about bumping into you earlier, I really didn't mean to."
He gave a small 'hmph' before responding. "Yes, well my bags have precious cargo in them that I can't afford to damage."
Her mind flashed back to her earlier musings of the reason for the mask.
"But they aren't damaged, right?"
He stared at her for a moment, his hazel eyes appearing to be slits through the mask.
"I would check the gift shop around the corner, I'm sure they carry chargers there," he said quietly before turning back around to the book he had been reading.
The gift shop! She hadn't even thought of that!
"Of course— thank you!" she said to him even though he ignored her gratitude. She collected her purse and set off to find the gift shop—
"Attention fliers, flight number 232 to Rochester has been cancelled due to weather."
She stopped in her tracks.
That was her flight.
Cancelled?
She shifted slightly as people bumped into her shoulder trying to get around her but she couldn't move. How had it been cancelled? She looked out the window. Nothing. No rain, no fog, just grey clouds. How could it have been cancelled due to weather? Her eyes found the call board. All across it flight after flight it was the same thing: delayed, cancelled, delayed, cancelled, cancelled, cancelled, cancelled, etc., etc!
She had to get home to Mama, she couldn't let her down! Even if she could get on a later flight who was to say that it wouldn't get cancelled either? She clutched her purse a little tighter as her eyes roamed the room. How was she getting to Mama now?
"Yeah, I heard it's because of that blizzard that's hitting the Carolinas now, nasty stuff."
"Really? I heard it was going to be bad, but I didn't think it would affect the flight!"
"Heard it was about the snow—"
"Blizzard—"
"Snowstorm—"
Christine wanted to throw her hands over her ears at all the commotion going on around her. Snow? Did the South even get that kind of weather? She knew she had never seen any snow come her way in L.A.
"I think I'm gonna see if I can find a Rent-A-Car instead of waiting around for this flight—"
Christine's head whipped around at the sound of the familiar voice. It was the masked man walking briskly past her while talking on his cell phone. Drive…why hadn't she thought of that? It was far too long of a drive to get all the way to Rochester, but perhaps she could drive to another airport that she could book a flight on? Yes- that was a good idea! She began walking off in the direction of the masked man, surely he knew where he was going to find out where to rent a car! All she could do was follow and hope for the best. She could book a flight and find directions on her phone to a different airport—
Her phone was dead.
She sighed and turned around back towards the gift shop.
Charger first, car second.
She was getting home to Mama for Christmas, no matter what it took.
To be continued...