Disclaimer: I don't own the Phantom of the Opera. I've just borrowed the characters and I promise I'll try to return them in one piece.

A/N: This story is based mainly on the 2004 Movie. My Phantom is and always will be Gerard Butler. droooools OK. This is just a little experiment—I haven't written any fanfiction in five years, and I'm a little rusty. All I ask is that you review politely. Constructive criticism is always welcome, as I'm always looking to improve as a writer, but I really won't be happy if someone says something along the lines of "You suck! Michael Crawford rocks my world!" Please, people. Let's all just enjoy ourselves, no?

Prologue

Then she left. She placed the ring, glittering in the candlelight, in his palm and just like that, she was gone. He sat spellbound, frozen for a time as he stared at the engagement ring, so beautiful and delicate, so flawless and elegant, like his Christine. Reality began to seep into the edges of his hazy consciousness as their voices echoed across the loch; she would never be his.

Meg Giry trudged through the underground lake, the first to gaze upon the Phantom's lair. The mob searched for hours amongst the candelabras, shattered mirrors and scattered sheets of music, but the Opera Ghost was nowhere to be found. Within months, the memories had faded and the myth of the Phantom of the Opera became nothing more than a ghost story once again.

For two years after the new owners of the Opera Populaire had fully restored the theater, Erik wandered through the hallways and corridors behind the mirror, more a ghost than he had ever been. A shell of the man he once was, his mournful cries occasionally echoed through the backstage corridors of the opera house. People dismissed the eerie noises as the wind or included them in the tales of the Opera Ghost, never thinking that they came from a real man in pain. Erik pleaded for death to take him every day, yet it never came. Each morning he opened his eyes and realized anew that he would never awaken in the arms of his perfect mate. Christine Daae would never return to him. Little did he know that the name of Daae would not abandon his life forever.