Erik glanced up from his music, instantly alert as his blue eyes pierced the darkness to discover the source of the sound that had distracted him. His eyes traveled across the lake dividing his home from the outside world and focused on an unusual shadow shivering against the chilly rocks. The shadow hovered at the edge of the lake, then wavered and tumbled into the dark water with a resounding splash. Erik leapt up soundlessly from the organ and raced to his gondola, swiftly setting it into motion and climbing aboard. He steered the watercraft towards a light-skinned figure floating face down in the water. As he reached the form, he saw that the figure was a young girl - perhaps seventeen or eighteen years of age, he thought - wearing the ragged clothes of an orphaned street boy. He hefted her waterlogged body into the boat and held up a lantern to her shadow-cloaked face. Her dark brown eyes fluttered open for a moment and focused on his, then her thin lips parted and uttered a single word. Erik. Then her eyelids fell shut and her body went limp as she lost consciousness. Erik. The word resounded in his mind – she knew his name! He may have known her before the destruction of the opera… but what if she were merely another intruder obsessed with the legends of the opera ghost? After a few agonizing moments of deliberation, he turned the boat around and headed for the shore, his brilliant mind racing all the while to place a name with that sweet young face. As he reached the edge of his home, he lifted her into his arms again and stepped onto the land. For a few seconds his eyes drifted to the cold black depths, considering releasing the girl into the arms of eternity while she was still unconscious. But no, his curiosity would not allow it. Instead, he strode purposefully across the stone floor of his home to the swan bed and laid her down gently in it, remembering the night when he laid a very different girl onto the soft red velvet. He drew the gauzy black curtains shut and, after one last lingering stare, returned to his music. He would occupy himself with the symphony in his mind until she awoke – there was no chance of her escaping his underground world without his knowledge.
As much as he tried to focus, though, his mind kept drifting back to the depths of her coffee-brown eyes. Something kept tugging at the edge of his memory – a stab of joy seared his heart at the sound of her voice. Something inside of him went wild trying to recall old memories when her eyes locked on his. Whose is that voice? Erik allowed himself a hollow chuckle as the sentence whispered through his mind. If only that sniveling DeChagny brat had known whom "the voice" belonged to at the time he uttered those very words, he would have left Christine alone. Oh, Christine! Erik shook his head. No! Those memories had died with the opera house. No more thoughts of Christine. But wait – didn't she have a little friend with her at times? Yes, the Giry girl… Meg was her name. She had brown eyes. He paced over to the bed and peeked through the curtain. No, this wasn't her. Meg would surely be a full-fledged woman by now. This girl was only a teenager; as Christine was when she first came to his world of darkness, darkness.
With a sigh of frustration, Erik returned to his organ. He sat down and forced himself to touch the keys, to play something, anything, to keep his thoughts in reign. No more thoughts of those who had passed – Christine was dead to him, and that was final. As his fingers trailed over the ivory keys, the music of the organ joined with the pained voice of his past… Masquerade! Hide your face so the world will never find you.