Hi, this is my first Phantom story. I hope you like it. This story is going to have elements of Gaston's novel and Susan Kay's Phantom so it's easier to understand if you're at least familiar with both. Most chapters will probably be rated T but it's probably safer to keep it at M for now.

I love reviews and they keep me going :) I also love suggestions and I'm perfectly open to constructive criticism.

I'll probably be updating every week, but I haven't chosen an exact day yet.

Disclaimer: I own nothing except a certain character you'll get to know. Everything belongs to either Gaston Leroux, Susan Kay and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

PROLOGUE

January 1840, Rouen, France – Erik's POV

He walked through the dark night, alone, away from his mother's fear and disgust, away from all that harmed him. When she woke up he would be gone, he would never burden her with his horrible visage again. She would be free to marry the doctor who so loved her and he would not be in the way of their happiness. Perhaps they would have children, beautiful children with perfect little faces, children that his mother could love. Or so he hoped.

He never meant to cause his mother pain, he wished only for her contentment and if her happiness lay with another man and another family, he would not stand in the way; could not. His mother had given him life and though he'd rather be dead he understood enough to know that she had sacrificed a lot in raising him instead of drowning him as a babe and he, as the courteous gentleman he had been raised to be, intended to repay her for that sacrifice. That is why he'd left… well, that and the fact that his mother intended on sending him to a mental asylum to be rid of him. He did not want to be in a cage for the rest of his life, thought to be a madman, tortured by people who thought they could heal him. No, he would leave with his freedom and nothing else. It was not right to take anything that his mother had provided except the clothing on his back and his mask. She would forget him and he would die. It was what she had wanted, wasn't it?

The night was cold and bit painfully into his face. The wet clothes he carried with him were not nearly enough to shield him from the cold that permeated the air. His jet-black hair clung painfully to his face, wet with slow as his eyes of molten gold scanned his surroundings. He could hear the wind howl between the dense canopy above him and far away he heard a lone wolf cry out, followed shortly by the echo of his pack.

The snow on the ground was unmarred by human footsteps and, for a moment he felt a sense of guilt at being the one to destroy such perfection. Yet he trudged on, aware that he should go as far from his home as possible. There were hunters in these woods who would kill a creature like him on sight and that was not a pleasant way to die. He may have been willing to leave the land of the living but he still had standards and dying like a wild beast did not meet those standards. He also knew it would be foolish to fight a grown man with a gun so he continued his path to nowhere in particular, just away from the sleepy town he'd once called home, the home that had never welcomed him.

He was grateful that it was too dark for anyone to see him, knowing that it kept him safe. The irony stuck him then, that the darkness that was feared by most was the only thing keeping him away from humanity and he realised in that moment that darkness was his friend shielding him from the garish light that revealed all truths, in which no one can hide. Embraced by darkness he could roam without fear of mockery or scorn, he was free.

Only Sasha would have missed him, but Sasha was dead, killed because of him. He wanted to laugh at the sheer unfairness of it all but if there was one thing he'd learnt in his short life it was that life was not fair. It was painful and brutal and vicious and he hated it. Sasha was innocent, just a kind friend, unable to judge based on appearance, capable only of unshakable love and loyalty, and for that crime her life had been cut short. To love him was a crime punishable by death, he could not be loved and he could not risk loving anyone, for their death would be another guilt he could not bear to carry.

He allowed himself then, for the first time in a very long time, to cry. To cry for the home he'd left behind, the friend he'd lost, the love he could not bring himself to feel. As the tears streamed down his cheeks and his feet continued to move he begged God to kill him. For the God who clearly so despised him to strike him down and end his miserable existence. He tripped over a rock hidden under the snow and fell forward, his leg hitting the rock and a gash forming on his leg which began to bleed.

Was this His plan then? To allow me to bleed to death in the snow, so close to the home I was trying to escape? Was this His final punishment? He no longer doubted God's cruelty and capriciousness. No all loving God would allow suffering like the one he suffered. Perhaps there was no God and everything that had occurred in his life was but a string of unfortunate coincidences. Whatever the answer, he would find out soon as he could feel Death breathing down his neck, its cold touch on his shoulder.

He laughed bitterly as he dragged himself to a tree. He would be dead by morning but he planned to die with dignity and sprawled in the snow just would not do. Sitting against his final resting place he wondered what his crime had been that had led him to this moment. He could not think of anything he could have done to lead to this end, this lonely, miserable end. He supposed he would always be an outcast, shunned by everyone he met. Perhaps even the Devil would turn him away and he would be left in limbo, locked out of the afterlife due to the mistake of his birth. At least it will be over soon, and with that thought he fell into an uneasy sleep, wondering if blood loss or hypothermia would kill him first.