Alegría

Prologue: Barcelona, Spain. 1851.

For a week the gypsies fair had remained in Barcelona, many curious people had come each day to see the depressing, wild and

morbid show. In truth at this time the only thing they really came to see was 'The Devil's Child' a small boy of nine locked in an

animal's cage that was beaten and tortured each night. He wasn't the devil's child nor was he a monster; he was only a poor lonely

boy, born with a gruesome deformity on the right side of his face.

Several covered wagons followed one after the other along a narrow muddy road, the fair was returning to France. They traveled

through the night the lightning and pouring rain. Erik held tightly onto the bars of his cage as the wagon violently swayed back and forth

feeling excruciating pain from the constant beatings days ago. He groggily looked through the bars and out the wagon end catching his

taste of the outside world, or what he could see in the dark when the lightning sporadically lit the sky. Turning his covered head Erik

looked to a small girl, with a mass of dark curls and soft blue eyes now closed in sleep, who since Barcelona a few days ago had been

sharing his cage. When the gypsies were hurriedly packing and preparing to leave Barcelona the girl had been brought unconscious to

his cage and locked in. Erik knew nothing more than she did for when she awoke the seven year old couldn't remember anything not

even her name. 'Alegría' Erik had named her a couple days later for she was the only happiness he knew…it was she who first

introduced him to the world of music and song for she somehow knew a great deal. Erik truly believed god had sent him one of his

angels…to save him from complete misery and make living worthwhile. Alegría was different from anyone he knew before she had

never been afraid of him not even when she first saw his face and she would sing! Oh! How she would sing! Erik would listen to her

and all the hurt and hate would go away and he could almost taste heaven. They were created for each other.

-Some months later. Outskirts of Paris.-

"One day…I'll leave this place." Erik whispered in pain as his keeper locked the cage having just beaten him and leaving with the

crowd of French spectators. "You won't leave me here…will you?" Alegría asked from another cage beside his own, her voice small

and anxious, eyes wet with tears. "Don't cry over me Alegría, I'm fine…believe me." He paused and looked her in the eyes knowing

that she was crying before he even looked at her. "I would never leave you anywhere." He said making sure she knew that and he

meant it. A soft smile appeared on her face and she reached her small hand trough the bars Erik's naked face lit up at this and hmoved

closer holding tightly to her hand.

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