Disclaimer: This probably won't make any sense if you haven't read Gaston Leroux original book so do yourself a favor and buy it today!
This is a one shot Leroux based "what if" story based on Erik's words in the original.
I had always been misunderstood my entire life.
Having people doubting my word was something I had grown used to over the years. That was part of the reason why I refused to swear on anything. Why not speak the truth right away? If people wanted you to swear on something they doubted your character to begin with, and god knows my character had its faults. I had killed several in the past. And I had a deep jealousy and hatred within me sometimes for other people, so I knew it wouldn't take much for me to kill again. But when I had moved to Paris after a short stop at Köningsberg, where I picked up some fine Tokay wine , I decided I would try to leave my old life behind me and start anew.
I started to help a young architect named Garnier to build an opera house. I had always had a love of fine arts and music so I knew from the start that I would probably spend a lot of time in the building once it got finished. But it was first after a couple of years, actually during the Commune, that I decided to build myself a little house there, in the actual opera house, near the lake. I had to be careful as not to get caught as there were a lot of activities happening on the other side of the lake, but most of them minded their own business in those uncertain times.
Yes Erik had let Christine believe he was the Angel of music, sent from Christine's father. But then again she had constantly repeated to herself that she heard something that sounded like an angel too. He just hadn't denied it. And he had worked hard to stay in that character too. It's not easy to dig up a grave in the middle of winter just to get a violin out of a coffin, being held by corpse! Not that corpses scared him. He knew he resembled one himself. That's why he slept in a coffin. It made him feel closer to what inevitably would come. And the day Death came knocking on his door, he would gladly open it.
Everything had gone so well but then all of a sudden it was as if divine intervention had stepped in and helped him along on his way, something that had never occurred earlier in his life. It had started with the chandelier. When he was ruining Carlotta's singing it had all of a sudden fallen down, even crushing a poor woman under its weight. He had giggled like a small child when he had noticed his good fortune. But the fortune didn't stop there.
Apparently a stagehand, Joseph Buquet had seen Erik and tried to follow him. Erik had noticed him and changed his regular route to his house to the one going through the torture chamber, just in case. And behold! One day when he got back after a ballet, there was someone waiting for him in the forest. From the branch the nosy fool Joseph Buquet had chosen to take his life. Erik wondered how long the man had been in his beautiful forest before he gave up his life, it couldn't have been long. Erik hadn't even turned on the heat, nor sent in the lion or tsetse fly or sent in the invisible rain, but still the man had hung himself. Well at least that had taken care of the problem. Now all he had to do was to get rid of the body. He dragged it up and left it as a warning to others just outside the secret entrance to his house.
And the last death you might wonder? The biggest fool of them all, the comte who looked like Raoul? Well he fell down a trapdoor straight into the lake, and even though I sent the siren out to get him, she didn't have to sing a single tune because apparently the stupid man couldn't swim! He was dead when I found him. At first I thought it was the vicomte himself. The resemblance was remarkable, but alas, he was still alive. The Persian however didn't believe a word I said about these events and the truth I shall take to my grave with me. But no matter. After all, I wouldn't have mind blowing them all up in one big bang, which I had planned for as my last big finale to end my miserable life. But that all changed with Christine not acting how I had anticipated. That's why I had to let her go. I couldn't kill her, or her childish fiancé. She had for once loved me for who I was, and kissed me, on my forehead by her own free will. I was happy at last. My lifelong dream of love had finally been fulfilled.