Prologue

The rain came down in torrents outside the Paris Opera house, and I shivered with the cold. In front of me the building loomed, imposing and Foreboding. I know all to well what lurks in its dark depths. In addition, as I drew nearer to the familiar structure a deep feeling of dread overcame me. My flying steps shattered the puddles on the marble steps, those same steps we had fled over so long ago... Those who were passing by on the street stopped to stare, why would anyone go to the opera house after public visiting hours?
Inside the opera house was dark, an occasional sound could now and then be heard from the practices that went on in the back rooms, but my destination, the stage, was deserted. I, the Viscount-de-Changny, sat down in box five. Memories running over me like waves over a person drowning. Christine seemed to dance down on the stage, her brown-golden hair floating around her... she beckoned to me, and then she vanished into the recedes of my mind. I feel tears running down my face, she seemed so near...
I did not see the two golden eyes watching me from the shadows. Nor did I hear the sharp intake of breath. Three years...three years since we had fled the opera, eighteen months since she had died in childbirth, seven months since the death of the child... "Three years"
I turned to face the eyes, those eyes that still haunted my dreams, lion's eyes; eyes that stared strait threw flesh and bone into my soul. The eyes of the phantom of the opera. "You have taken great risk returning to my kingdom." The voice seemed unable to be bound to the figure from whom it came, echoing around the empty theater like thunder although he had only whispered it. I rose from my seat and approached the specter. Erik was thinner than I had remembered him to be, his hair lay raggedly on him, everything about him screamed at me of neglect and despair. Only his eyes, his haunting, golden eyes, seemed to hold a speck of life in them.
"I no longer fear you opera ghost, you ceased to horrify me long ago. I hear you are not even spoken of about the opera house anymore, why?" Erik's eyes narrowed, his deformed lips pressed together in a snarl. "I have, retired." He turned his back to me to leave, and then paused. "How is madam Diae?" I sighed,
"She's dead."