Disclaimer: I DO own PotO and Moulin Rouge! I do! –wakes up- Darn, no I don't…

Amanda: Hey all! This is my first real story and the movies I am mixing are so much alike already it's scary…

Claire: and sad too...only, Erik is better at everything...and I mean EVERYTHING!

Amanda: Ummmmm…. – shoves chocolate in Claire's mouth- Well, now that that's fixed, on with the show!

Oh, and words in italics are song lyrics.

Paris, 1890;

It was a dreary day to be out on the streets in Paris. Sure, the rumors were true that the nightlife was great, but to actually live here could be very boring and humdrum. Of course, if you were drunk and depressed, you wouldn't notice.

There was a boy,

a very strange enchanted boy.

They say he wondered very far, very far,

Over land and sea.

Erik looked over to the window as he threw his empty bottle of Absinthe to a corner and tried to sit up. After drinking a full bottle of anything and not sleeping for 3 days, one would expect to have a migraine beyond belief and only wish to lie down in a bed. Well, not him. He had always been stubborn and besides, he had felt worse pain than this before. You couldn't tell by looking at him though. His shirt hung limp on his pale anorexic body and his face drooped with dark circles under his crystalline blue eyes. Well, as much of his eyes as you could see. He wore a mask on the right side of his face from his hair line to just below the lips.

A little shy and sad of eye,

But very wise was he.

As he attempted to stagger towards his desk, he looked at his typewriter and retreated in disgust. That cold, metal reminder of a broken promise and a broken soul had sat there, unused, for months now gathering dust. He had many times been temped to pawn it for money to continue his steady diet of alcohol, but could never bring himself to do it.

It was the last thing he had of hers.

And then one day,

One magic day he passed my way,

While we spoke of many things,

Fools and kings,

This he said to me:

Not wanting to run from his past any more and suddenly having a sickening feeling that he wasn't going to be alive much longer, Erik put a piece of yellowed paper in his contraption of dust and dreams and began typing:

The greatest thing you'll ever learn,

Is just to love and be loved in return.

The Opera de Rouge

Amanda: Are you all excited now? I hope so, and ill have the next chapter up in a few days (as long as my mom doesn't take the computer away. I seem to have formed an unhealthy dependency on it and my school grades are lacking because of it...)