Erik's POV
God was not a fair person… Sometimes, I wondered why I was born, only to live a life of misery? My mother married at a young age. She often spoke of Charles, her handsome husband who made her heart flutter every time he walked into the room. They met by chance during a snow storm… My mother had been carrying a bag of groceries and slipped on the ice. Charles, a master mason, happened to see her fall and ran to help her. It was love at first sight… After they married, they spent endless nights wrapped within one another's embrace. They both wanted nothing more than to have a child of their own, but after numerous attempts, they failed. Charles insisted that he and my mother continue trying, and after sobbing for hours over it, she agreed. Though, they never got the chance to try again, for only after a year of marriage, Charles left for work and never returned. He had been building a shoe repair shop on the other end of town with a few other masons. A beam broke loose from the ceiling and came crashing down, pinning Charles and killing him instantly. The beam had been so heavy that it broke every bone in his body. I could only imagine that it had to be an extremely painful death. The other masons loaded his body into a wooden cart and wheeled him home to my mother.
After burying her husband my mother was left heartbroken and lonely. Some days she wouldn't leave the house, and other days she thought about ending it all. Sometimes, they say you wind up in the wrong place at the wrong time… That's exactly what happened to my mother. After months of sulking over Charles, she saw an advertisement for a fortune teller at a traveling fair that would be in town for one night only. Deciding to go, she headed out to the fair alone… There were magicians, acrobats and oddities of all shapes and sizes displaying themselves to the paying crowds. While my mother was on her way to the fortune teller's tent, she was pulled aside by the fair's owner and was brutally raped. He was a horrid man named Javert, a greasy gypsy who's favorite pastime consisted of drinking alcohol and having sex…Man or woman, it didn't matter, for he enjoyed both. Afterwards, he threatened my mother, telling her that he would kill her if she told anyone. It was a horrible experience for her, and to make matters worse, a month later, she got the news that she was carrying a child…his child…a child that would cause her nothing but pain.
At first, my mother was upset, but after a few weeks, she realized that this might have been her only chance at having her own child. She tried to put aside how the child was conceived and hoped for the best, assuring herself that she would bear a son, a son that she would name after her late husband. She even considered telling everyone that her child was conceived the night before Charles died. But her joy soon turned into a horror story, for when the baby emerged from her womb eight months later, she looked down and in between the bloodied sheets was not a beautiful child…There, wrapped in the sheets was a monster! A creature born with a deformed face. Yellow flesh pulled drum tight over bone, purple and blue arteries and veins protruding from an exposed skull… bloated lips and a gaping hole where a nose should have been. It was her worst nightmare. She couldn't even name the child after her sweet Charles… No, she ordered the priest to name the baby after him…a complete stranger! That's how I got my name… Erik. I was supposed to be Charles, and yet, I got landed with the name of a stranger. Oh, and my mother made sure that I knew what I was. Day in and day out she beat and verbally tortured me…She made me an uncomfortable mask that I was forced to wear, even after I outgrew it. If I ever took it off, she lashed me twenty times. I was locked away in my attic bedroom, never allowed to walk freely through her home. When I got sick in the winter, she would scream and tell me that she hoped I would die and relieve her of her burden. There was no love in this woman's heart for me… My mother never celebrated my birthday, for she always told me that the day I was born was the worst day of her life. But the day I turned seven was a life changing day, for on my seventh birthday, my mother finally seemed happy.
"Come, we're going out," she said to me in the nicest tone I had ever heard her speak in.
Out? She was really taking me out? I had never seen the world, and I didn't waste a moment in getting dressed. When I was ready to go, she took my by the hand and led me out the door. Everything was so new to me, the yard to our home, the blue sky, the people, the animals…I loved it all and never wanted any of this to end. We ended up at a fair, the same fair that my mother had come to on the night I was conceived. I didn't find anything wrong at first, but after we entered one of the caravans, my once wonderful birthday turned into my worst nightmare. My mother grabbed my arm and tossed me towards a large man with a greasy beard.
"Remember me?" she cried. "Remember when you took me by force and raped me? You gave me a son and he's a monster too!"
My mother tore away my mask, and the man's eyes seemed to go wide as though he were looking at a chest filled with treasure.
"You can have your monster bastard back!"
My mother stormed away as tears fell from my eyes. I had never seen my face, for my mother never kept any mirrors in the house. I never knew why my mother hated me so much, but there, in that caravan, I was left standing alone in front of Javert's mirror. I was hideous, so hideous that I frightened myself. I called for my mother, but she never came back for me. This man, Javert, did not look at me as his son. No, to him, I was his number one attraction. I was locked in a filthy cage on wheels and carted around from city to city, being forced to show my face to paying crowds. Not only that, but twice a week, he would pull me from my cage in the middle of the night, tie me to a tree and brutally rape me. The first time it happened, I wasn't sure what was going on, but when I saw him unbuttoning his trousers and felt the searing pain of him entering me, I wished for nothing more than death. No one loved me, and Javert assured me that no one ever would. This went on for many years until I could no longer take it… There came a night not too long after my fifteenth birthday that I completely snapped. I waited for the drunk bastard to unlock my cage for my weekly rape, and that's when I turned on him. I grabbed the rope he would use to tie me to the tree and wrapped it around his neck. I was strong and fought against him, pulling it tight. After he was dead, I ran into the woods on that cold, snowy night in bare feet and with no shirt to keep me warm. I nearly caught pneumonia in an attempt to find shelter for the night. I couldn't go into town, for my face would frighten everyone, therefore, when I came across a ship yard, I snuck on board the first vessel I saw. On board it was warm and down below with the cargo there was food and clothing. I made myself a mask out of an old shirt I found and prepared myself for wherever I was headed. Little did I know that my life of hell was hardly over, for a month later, I found myself in Persia. One minute I was fighting for my life, and the next, I was at war in another battle with the devil itself. I wasn't exactly sure how it happened, but when you're hungry and desperate bad things happen. In an attempt to find some means of keeping myself, I auditioned for a magician job in the royal court. The Shah of Persia was impressed, and after five years of entertaining him with mere parlor room tricks, I became his master mason. I thought I would be happy, but little did I know that what I was building were not extra rooms for the palace, but torture chambers that would make people suffer! I didn't say anything at first, but after a few months, I decided upon leaving Persia for good.
I wasn't sure how he found out about my plans, but he offered a hefty reward to the first guard who delivered him my head. I nearly died in an attempt to escape, but I managed to sneak on board another ship with just a stab wound to my shoulder. It had been a bloody battle, but I got the upper hand and strangled the guard who attempted to kill me. I didn't like killing, but I didn't have any other choice. Knowing that I needed to somehow keep myself unknown and out of trouble, I decided upon opening my own traveling show. It was perfect… I wouldn't linger for too long in one place, I didn't need to be seen, for my performers would do all the work, and the best part about it was that I would have a roof over my head and money in my pocket. The moment I arrived in Paris, I put up flyers requesting the need for acrobats and magicians. By the end of the week I had twenty new performers ranging in all shapes and sizes. They referred to me as "master" and that was good enough for me. With the left over money I had from working for the Shah, I purchased a few horses and my own caravan. I was nervous about our first show in Paris, but it was a success… Thousands came and by the end of the night, I was richer than I had ever been. That was ten years ago… It had been ten years since I started the "Carnival of Rust," ten years of being on the road with my performers. It started out as twenty, but expanded to forty due to the fact that almost every performer picked up a husband or a wife along our travels and popped out a few kids…Everyone except for me. I barely stepped out of my caravan, only doing so to collect the money at the end of the night or to close down the carnival. It had been a sheltered ten years, but it was the happiest I had ever been.
During those ten years I barely slept, seeing that I screamed out in my sleep. The horrors of my past visited me every time I closed my eyes, horrors that no one should see in ten life times. Some nights I woke gasping for air with sweat pouring down every inch of my body. Then, I would sob into my hands and force myself to stay awake. It was embarrassing to think that a thirty five year old man would cry, but I couldn't help it… I needed to stay strong and not look weak in front of my employees. I knew it would never happen, but I often thought that it would be nice to have a woman who could understand everything I was going through…But in my heart I knew that was a dream and nothing more.
Fondest Greetings to you all. For those of you who do not know me, I am Eriksangeofmusic4ever. I've written many Phantom stories here on Fanfiction. Well, why am I under a different Pen name you may ask? Well, fellow reviewer and Fanfiction author OldFashionedRomantic asked me if I would like to write a story with her, and well, here I am! She and I will be bringing you weekly chapters that will thrill you all! I hope to see some of my Phans back here to try something new. I have to say that this story will be something totally new, for OldFashionedRomantic is a different writer than I am. I hope you all enjoy! We own nothing but dreams. Stay tuned for next Sunday's newest edition of "Thieving Hearts"