Erik's Savior

Chapter 1

After living the life I've lived, I have come to the realization that the most important tool for survival is the art of managing one's expectations. I can expect to live comfortably underground in the opera house with fine furniture and a majestic organ, but I cannot expect the luxury of a window. I can expect a job as a manager of the opera house with a generous salary and a flexible schedule but I cannot expect to show my face to my staff and receive honor and praise for my work. I can venture out into the world to retrieve supplies and necessities but I cannot participate in conversations with the people I encounter. You see, God has never allowed me my fair share of the joys in life. He has only been kind enough to grant me the scraps of comfort, the shadows of happiness, and the left-overs of what the world has to offer.

Why God do you condemn your own son who has tried so hard to be good and separate him from the rest of humanity?

I have come to doubt if I am even human.

I have one too many traits that differentiate me from mankind. For one, I have the face of a monster, I lack a nose and my lips are so thin that I seem to lack them as well. My face has no ethnicity or skin color; it is simply the gray dead flesh that every man shares long after their death.

In a nutshell, I mostly look like a living corpse, the only part of my face that doesn't resemble death are my eyes. I was born with amber eyes and the Daroga has told me that they seem to light on fire whenever I am very angry. Because of all my inhuman facial characteristics, I am forced to always wear a mask which just screams "you can trust me and I am not a psychopath".

But my face is not the only inhuman trait I possess, I can see in the dark almost perfectly. I didn't even know that other people couldn't do this until I blew out the candles in my mother's room and she screamed for me to light them again at once for she couldn't see. I also possess the gift of intelligence. I have never encountered a single man who was as smart as me and I am very good at a number of things which other people see as hard or even impossible. My talents include music, architecture, painting, ventriloquism, magic, languages, weapon management and self-defense, and inventing.

Because of these talents of mine, I am able to manage the Paris opera house with the help of my friend, the Daroga. I met the Daroga in Persia when I worked for the Sultana and needed help to escape from her wrath.

But that was many years ago, now I live under the opera house and have been living here for ten years, it seems to be the only place where people don't want me dead or at least not badly enough to act upon it.