Angelina had been married to Andrew for thirteen years. During that time their life began to slowly spiral out of control. Andrew suffered from bipolar disease and frequently became violent and obsessive. It came on slowly and insidiously, poisoning their relationship and stripping Angelina of her very soul. Worse yet, Andrew would often refuse to take his medication which would send him deeper into the depths of madness. She knew that she couldn't continue to live this way for much longer. Eventually he would completely lose control and kill her. His anger had beensteadily escalating to the point where he would throw things at her and rage at her until she curled up into the fetal position on the floor begging for mercy. After one such encounter she decided that she had taken enough of his abuse. She waited until she heard him lock himself into his bedroom, and as silently as she could, she slipped from the house. Once outside she put her car into neutral and pushed it down the driveway to the street before starting the engine. Whether it was the crunching of gravel or the sound of the engine coming to life that alerted Andrew to her plan, she would never know. Suddenly ,she looked to the rearview mirror and saw the image of his truck bearing down on her.
It was now a matter of running for her life, hyperventilating at the thought that this time he really meant to finish her off. He began to taunt her by accelerating up to her bumper and then backing off again and again. Her little 4 cylinder car was no match for his truck and she couldn't keep ahead of him no matter how hard she stomped on the gas pedal. Andrew pulled up along side her as an oil truck bore down in the opposite direction. She had nowhere to go and he wasn't backing down. To avoid a collision with the oil truck she swerved off the road at 60 mph.
Angelina was going much too fast to avoid the tree that loomed in front of her. The force of the impact on the little Toyota drove the engine into the front cabin, pinning her lower body in the process. Fortunately the airbag deployed otherwise her head would have gone through the windshield likely resulting in decapitation. Bleeding internally, severely battered and in intense pain Angelina mercifully slipped into unconsciousness.
It had been four years since the angry mob had crashed into Eric's lair intent on hunting down and exterminating the "beast" responsible for countless murders and the fire that destroyed the opera house. Eric narrowly managed to escape through a tunnel that was hidden behind the mirror he smashed when Christine betrayed and left him forher young lover. At his request, two weeks after the fire Madame Giry had placed an obituary in the paper declaring "The Opera Ghost Is Dead" . In the ensuing months, Eric was able to build another home for himself underground without risk of discovery. There were many tunnels and catacombs under the city that he alone knew about, and these comprised his private empire. Moving quickly, he worked his way through this subterranean network with his mind bent on retrieving the few possessions remaining intact in his original lair. Complete darkness surrounded him as the sound of dripping water and his ragged breathing filled his ears. Suddenly, his right foot came in contact with a large unyielding obstruction in his path. He was sent sprawling as his momentum was suddenly halted. A soft moan caught his attention and Eric snapped his head up, listening intently.
"Help me, please"
He reached over to find what had caused him to trip and felt a living human form lying prostrate on the ground.
"Who are you? How did you come to be here?" he queried.
On closer inspection he could see the outline of a woman, barely breathing, blood issuing from her nose and the corners of her mouth. He bent nearer and gently pressed his index and middle fingers under her jaw. Her pulse was thready, no doubt she was slipping into shock. He should just leave her here, surely there was nothing he could do for her. Death would be a blessing for this poor creature. But where had she come from? No one knew about these passageways. In all the years spent underground never before had he allowed another soul down this far. He never had shared this secret with Madame Giry or even Christine for that matter!
Suddenly the mysterious woman reached her hand towards Eric in a desperate act ofsupplication.
"Just kill me. please!" she managed to gasp before losing consciousness once again.
He weighed the options for a moment and slowly exhaled. Her plea struck a chord deep within his tortured soul. He reached over after a few moments and against his better judgement, gently scooped the petite form into his arms. He cradled her body in his arms as one cradles an infant.
"Your blood will not be on my hands tonight Madame."
The paramedics arrived to find Angelina broken and unconscious, barely alive at all. Andrew had long since fled the scene leaving his wife to die. It took the jaws of life to extricate her badly mangled body from the wreckage. She was loaded onto a gurney and into the waiting ambulace as the medics fought to intubate her and stanch the flow of blood from her many wounds.
On arriving at the hospital she was rushed into the trauma suite where efforts to save her life were continued. The attending doctor quickly hooked her up to a respirator as preparations were made to ready the OR suite. Three times her heart went into V-fib, a potentially fatal dysrhythmia. Each time, the code team managed to shock her heart back to its normal rhythm. She would require hours of surgery to repair all the damage to her broken limbs and severed blood vessels. Given the amount of blood loss and the nature of her injuries, it would be a miracle if she made it out of the operating room alive.
Eric walked for what seemed like hours with the burden of the mysterious woman's limp form in his arms. Finally, he came to the spot he had been looking for. He laid her body gently on the floor of the tunnel, taking care to ease her head to the floor. He tentatively bent over her sleeping form and pressed his ear to her chest. Her heart was still beating and he could feel her breath warm against his forehead. She had survived the journey at least. Now, to find what he had come all this way for. Eric systematically ran his hands along the tunnel wall at chest level. His fingers found the subtle inconsistency in the mortar where he pressed with all his strength. The wall groaned and instantly a small opening appeared before him. Without hesitating any longer than it took to scoop his new charge up from the floor, Eric slipped into the abyss as the wall soundlessly slid shut. He walked on for several minutes before emerging into what appeared to be a large cave. Once again he was forced to put down his burden in order to fumble a match from his pocket and strike it against the sole of his shoe. The flickering light revealed a series of rooms styled similarly to his original lair except on aslightly smaller scale. In the distance one could hear the sound of babbling, moving water-the stream that fed the underground lake. Eric hurried to light the wall sconceone by one until the room was illuminated by their soft wavering glow.
He carefully laid the woman onto his bed and began to examine her wounds with as much analytical detachment as any doctor. Aside from the lacerations on her face and scalp the only other detectable injury was a deep seeping gash from her right thigh extending below her knee. He would need to attempt to clean these wounds and take measures to stop the bleeding. Her eyes began to dart rapidly back and forth under closed lids and she suddenly screamed out:
"Andrew! Why? Please! Don't ! Please..." the last part dying off in a tormented groan.
"Shh ...Andrew isn't here Madame. For now you are safe." he reassured her, not even certain if she could hear him. With that he turned on his heel and went to search the cupboards for suture material and boric acid. He made a mental note to look for his bottle of laudanum as she would probably need something for pain.
Angelina had survived twelve grueling hours of surgery but she wasn't out of danger by any means. She had become septic after her operations and her kidneys were shutting down. Friends and coworkers gathered by her bedside in a desperate vigil. She had once been a nurse in this same hospital on the burn unit. Her compassion and dedication made her a favorite with the staff and patients alike. Her infectious laughter echoed through the corridors whenever she was on duty. No one would ever guessed the horrors she endured at home. She chose to keep this a secret as much to protecther husband as to preserve her dignity. Angelina was deeply ashamed that she couldn't help her husband or herself. She had no remaining family as she was an only child and her parents had long since passed away. In essence, all she had was Andrew and the fragile life they had constructed together. As a teenager Angelina had been an aspiring musician. She played the piano in the youth symphony. Through music she was able to let her soul soar. Playing for her was a way to release all her pent up emotions in a whirlwind of notes, giving them up to the surrounding air. When she performed she felt truly alive, but she knew her aspirations were loftier than reality. Upon graduation from high school she shelved her dreams of performing and committed herself to her nursing career. It wasn't until ten years later that she met and eventually married Andrew. Now, here she was lying comatose and helpless in a hospital bed. The irony was almost too painful to bear.
As she lay deep in a coma, she became vaguely aware of a strange presence in the room with her. She sensed rather than heard a soft voice whisper to her:
"The master is very proud of you. You have lived well, but it isn't your time yet. You have a choice to make. There is no right or wrong answer. You should feel honored-very few people ever get to choose"
She suddenly had a vision of a bisecting pathway. One path was garishly lit with the cold, unfeeling, glaring bulbs of a hospital ward but the other appeared shrouded in darkness and mystery. The most beautiful, soulful music that she had ever heard emanated from the darker direction. Without so much as a second thought she chose to follow the sound of music. At that moment the steady beeping of the heart monitor changed into that one drawn out note that accompanies so many deaths.
The wealth that Eric had amassed from his investments in Edison's Compagnie Continental and Pinguely's steam engine manufacturing had allowed him to purchase a house in Troyes, fifty miles southeast of Paris. Madame Giry and her daughter Meg were employed as house keeper and caretaker. It was the least he could do for them in the advent of the fire that destroyed the only home either of them had known. His old friend Nadir held the dubious position of front man for all Eric's business dealings.
Despite the indiscretions of the former opera ghost, Nadir still felt a deep sense of loyalty to Eric harking back to those long ago days in Persia.
With his financial needs thus secured, Eric was able to devote his time to inventing, painting and composing. He presented his creations under the name E. C. Wraith finding the irony supremely amusing. For all intents and purposes, MSS. Wraith was one of the wealthiest, most successful men in France that nobody had ever seen! The house in Troyes was the perfect front from which to conduct business though he spent precious little time in the dwelling. He much preferred the solitude and anonymity of his underground hideaway.
Something inside him had slowly begun to change that fateful night of Don JuanTriumphant. For the first time in his wretched life Eric had experienced compassion from another human being. It awakened the shred of humanity that still existed deep within his core-a piece of himself that he had spent a life time trying to bury for fear of being vulnerable. It was this slow metamorphosis of the soul that allowed him to take pity on the woman he found in the shadows. A woman, who by the looks of her, was perhaps as broken physically and metaphorically as he. Eric looked down upon her now,drinking in every detail of her visage. He noted the way her light brown hair lay in haphazard wisps across her cheek. He so desperately wanted to brush the tendrils aside yet he refused to allow himself that level of intimacy. He did not wish to fall prey to any feelings for a female ever again. If his involvements with Christine had taught him anything it was that love equalled tremendous pain. This was a lesson he would not soon forget and a mistake he was loathe to repeat.
"Whoever this woman is, she certainly has been acquainted with her fair share ofphysical labor" he mused as he took in her muscular, lithe frame, vaguely tanned skin and work roughened hands. "Curious...very curious" he sighed. With a shrug of resignation he set about the task of treating the mystery woman's wounds. " My dear, I'm afraid this will hurt...considerably. My apologies.". He whispered.
He began the arduous process of cleansing and stitching her wounds. The gash on her leg already had the angry reddened look of infection to it. He cleaned as much debris from it as he could before attempting to sew the lips of the laceration together. She cried out in agony and her eyes flew open as Eric's needle pierced her skin. He had to throw himself across her body to hold her steady-no easy feat while trying to hold asuturing needle.
"Madame, I am trying to HELP you, though heaven knows why. Unless of course you prefer to bleed to death, in which case I will have to ask you to kindly do so somewhere else! Otherwise, I would appreciate it if you would at least ATTEMPT to hold still!" he fumed.
"You should have just left me to die." she groaned
"Don't think I wasn't tempted" ,he sneered, "but your carcass would have drawn the rats. By the way, do you have a name or shall I continue to call you Madame?"
"I...yes...I suppose I must" she faltered. "I'm afraid I really can't remember much of anything." I recall a strange sensation of falling endlessly. I heard a voice telling me to choose...and then there was a man singing...and now I'm here". Consequently, just where is here?"
Eric narrowed his eyes in disbelief. "Did she send you to look for me?"
"She who? What in the name of God are you talking about?" she snapped.
"Do not play me for a fool! Did the Vicomtess send you? Answer me at once!" he demanded.
"Sir, I don't have a bloody CLUE who you are speaking of! What part of me not knowing where I am, how the hell I got here, or even WHO I am escapes you?"
Eric was nonplussed by her impudence. No one, male or female, had ever dared to speak to him this way and it was oddly arousing. He found the long dormant feelings beginning to stir within him disconcerting.
"Never mind. You're obviously telling the truth." he grumbled. "There now. You must be careful not to disturb these stitches lest you wish to endure the process again. Drink this for the pain." he said as he held the vial of laudanum to her lips. She drank the drug eagerly for the pain was becoming unbearable. She reached out hesitantly, touching her fingers to his wrist. "Thank you, sir." she murmured. "Angelina. I believe my name is Angelina."
"You may call me Eric." he replied softly as he exited the room. He needed to clean up and clear his head. This was too much for one evening and suddenly he was exhausted. As he made his way to the water closet he caught a glimpse of his mask perched on an end table. His breath caught in his throat as he realized that he hadn't been wearing it. After all, he hadn't exactly been expecting company. It suddenly dawned on him that Angelina hadn't reacted to his face. She didn't so much as acknowledge his deformity. Perhaps her sight was impaired as well. He couldn't begin to comprehend it and he was much too tired to try. One thing was certain, the mask was going back on.