Chapter 1

After weeks and months of stress and waiting, Erik Destler could finally find peace. Or... maybe he thought. Coiled into a ball on his new crimson velvet crushed bedsheets, he sighed. What would he ever do without her? It had been nine months, two weeks and a day ever sense he saw her. A sound so horrid to man corrupted his ears. A child crying. Right outside of his small cottage. Erik opened the door, looking up – then down to where the sound led him. It was a small baby. She looked to be fresh out of the womb. But what scared him the most was... the child's deformity. It was on the right side of her face, unlike her counterpart, Erik.

He brought the child inside and layed her down on a cluster of blankets. On her tiny stomach was a note. The note read...

"Dear Erik,

Good day, Monsieur Destler. It is I, Christine. Somehow I must have got pregnant with this child of yours. She can't be Raouls, though. I've just been playing it off like I've been gaining weight! But anyways... I haven't named her yet. She is beautiful though. You must take care of her. Treat her like the parent you never had.

Sincerely,

Lady de Chagny"

That name haunted him. But... a baby girl? At his doorstep? And she concluded to be his! She definitely was. He looked at the child, all dressed in pink. Christine had her magic touch. But how could the Victome let his wife return a baby to the man that manipulated and scared her? Many questions bumbarded the mans presence.

The child started crying louder and louder. He had nothing to put her to sleep! Or to at least stop her infinite cry. How could Christine trust him with a child?

15 years later

Anastasia Destler. A beauty on one side, unknown on the other. While Anastiasia's friends were getting courted, she usually sat in the back watching them nick-knack with each other.

The morning yellow peaked out of her window. What fortunate day! A new one, she had thought. She put on a pink dress, a color she usually wouldn't put on. She then would run into the livingroom with all her lively hood and would sing at the top of her small lungs for her father to wake up.

"Good morning sweet father! I hope you had a great slumber..." Her sopranic voice danced along with her. Her father, the famous musician Erik Destler, chuckled and rubbed his blue eyes.

"I can see why you aren't getting courted now, Ana..." the man teased. She put her finger to her mouth to shush him with a grin.

"Come on Father! I have ballet practice in an hour! And then at 5 I have voice lessons!" She moaned like a typical teenager.

"Alright, alright... I guess so. Give me about 10 minutes." He ruffled her curly chestnut locks and soon ran to his private restroom.

Ana ran to her room, putting on some powder to make her pale complection balanced. She brushed her stubborn curls and pulled up her ballet dress. Then she put on her porcelain white mask... one she loved. It concealed her true flaw.

Minutes later, the two rushed out to the new Opera Populaire. Erik was widely known and honored... though he tricked them all that he was a different person. He used to be the cursed Phantom. But ever since his baby girl arrived to his door, Erik was a changed man. They greeted him with respect and same with his daughter. He still regretted the three deaths that had been shedded with his own hands.

The masked man watched as his daughter ran to her friends – something he wished he had in his teenage years. Someone to talk to. Someone other then himself.

"Monsieur Destler!" Meg Giry, a old friend smiled.

"Meg! You don't look a day over 30." He grinned at his sister-like figure. She gave him a worried look.

"What is it, Giry? Why so worried?"

"Well, It's really good and bad news."

"Tell me then, Meg."

"Christine De Chagny, Raoul De Chagny and their son and daughter, Gustave and Victoria De Chagny, are coming up here. I'm so sorry Monsieur — I would've warned them!" His brain was mixed with emotions, the same emotions he felt after she left. Why was she coming back? Would Anastasia be fit meeting her real mother? All of these worries – including fatherly instincts – swam around in his head. How would he conquer this fear?