Erik knelt on one knee, on the rickety catwalk of the bare, empty stage, observing the once-glorious opera house, now a devastated, charred ruin thanks to the storm of fire that had blazed through it…on that night, seven years ago…and ravaged it terribly, quite beyond his original intentions. His intense black eyes, the shade of a moonless night, with only a scarcely perceptible trace of the dark fire they had once burned with, turned down from the peeling, weakened walls, whose intricate, lovely patterns he could only just identify behind the blackened, ashy burn marks and scanned the floor – if one could possibly call the layer of dust, rubble, and wreckage that now littered the immense and empty room a floor – noting every shattered bit of glass, every fragment of decorative gold, every vivid scarlet shred of fabric, every broken piece of the chandelier that had crashed down to the ground. He had cut that chandelier loose and let it fly to the ground merely as a desperate move to ensure the majority of the people would be trying to get away, not going after him. A distraction, one would call it. And it had worked, but only to an extent.

The well-to-do of the land who had come to watch the opera – his opera, though they had been unaware of this, and likely still were- had panicked and fled in a frightened stampede. But the actors, actresses, and crew of the Opera Populaire had still come together into a furious mob of vigilantes, and, aching to see his blood spill, had hunted him down to his lair. They had not found him there. He had gone before they even got a glimpse of him. He'd slipped silently out of the opera house by the labyrinth of passages and chambers that were spread out in the underground of the opera house, whose ways he knew by heart, knew better than anyone else alive in the world.

He'd decided it was best to disappear for a time, until they were all positive he was gone. This he had done, and he had only returned home a few months ago, after Madame Antoinette Giry, the one person who truly knew him and the one person he fully considered a friend, had tracked him down and informed him it was safe to return, if he wished to. Erik had told her he'd consider it. And after a short while, he had realized he missed the only place he knew as home, and returned to the Opera Populaire with her.

He had come back to find his lair as destroyed as the rest of the place. But it was not physical fire that had done that, it was the fiery hatred of the mob that had finally discovered his hiding place, and then ransacked it beyond the point of recognition. Antoinette had been visibly distraught at the terrible sight, but Erik had assured her there was no need to worry. The underground river that led to the lair had a forked place in it, he had revealed to her, and the other route led to a series of chambers nearly identical to the ones that had been destroyed, and he intended to build a new lair in them. Once he had adopted the "Opera Ghost" persona, he had planned ahead for this kind of event. Well, not exactly this, but he had found it wise to always have a backup plan in case of failure. He had used various methods to seal off the main river route to this new place so it would be impossible to enter if one did not know how to enter another secret passage on the river. There was another entrance within the underground labyrinth, but again, if one did not know the tunnel system as well as Erik did, it would be nearly impossible to find.

The whole arrangement made for a fine new home for him, one that would not be so easy to ruin. The look on Antoinette's face as he had explained what he had done…The expression of great surprise, disbelief, and awe had been somewhat amusing to him. Though he had been able to grin a little at her then, to try and comfort her, he could not muster even a small smile at the memory now. He was too overcome by the utter mournfulness that had continued to eat away at his heart ever since that night. The night Christine had chosen…him. The Vicomte. Raoul, he remembered, that was the young man's name. That bastard…

"You took her away from me," Erik whispered fiercely, clearly seeing Raoul's handsome, unblemished face, glaring impudently, the expression a myriad of emotions, but none conflicting; every one of them could be traced back to his resentment of Erik. "You stole everything I had to live for." Even the little sound of his whispers ricocheted around the enormous, empty place in the faintest of echoes. Right now, he felt like expressing his own hatred of Raoul, even if Raoul himself was far away from here, unable to hear him, and probably enjoying life with his beautiful Christine. Perhaps it was better if he never saw Raoul or Christine again. The moment he laid eyes on Raoul, the man would find the Punjab lasso around his throat in two seconds and he'd be out of air in five.

And whatever Christine felt for him now, and he did not have any idea what that might be, would morph into pure, genuine hate. He realized that now that his mind was clear of desperation. That had been his undoing. Feelings of agonizing loneliness, intense passion for Christine, reckless fury for the man she'd chosen instead…It had led her to fear him, and eventually to leave him. She had seen Raoul as her sanctuary, someone who would protect her and care for her. I can never give her what he can. Oh, Christine…Erik's eyes closed and he lowered his head. If I could only turn back time and do things differently…But even then, would I have won you? Would you love me? Could you ever love me? Frustrated again, Erik made his way down from the catwalk, heading for one of the numerous entrances to his subterranean home. But as he was passing a window, something made him stop.

Following the distressed noises, he went to the window and peered out. He saw four or five young men, ranging from fifteen to twenty years old, he estimated, who had surrounded a small figure in the manner of a pack of hunting predators. They laughed heartlessly – the laughter looking even more disturbing with their face contorted in hate - as they viciously tormented their victim: a much younger child, curled tightly in a ball on the ground in an attempt to shield himself from the blows and kicks. Erik had not left the opera house since his return, and looking back on the event afterwards, he wasn't sure what he would have done to help the boy or if he would have gone outside to help him at all; if the boy hadn't been wearing a thick mask of cloth wrapped around the left side of his face. An image of himself as a child flashed quickly in his mind; and the next few minutes went in a blur to him. One second he was at a door, the next second the boys were running off, yelling to each other and terrified at the sight of him, and the next he was crouching at the side of the shivering child. He lightly put a hand on the boy's shoulder, and the boy's head snapped to the side to look at him, and he shrank back in fear, terror showing plainly on what was visible of his face. "It's all right," Erik soothed, in what he hoped was a calming tone. "I won't hurt you."

He stepped back a little, showing the boy that he meant no harm. "I won't hurt you," he repeated. The boy's trembling lessened a bit, but he was still clearly frightened.

"My name is Erik. What's your name?" Erik asked the boy in the same tone. The boy hesitated a second before answering.

"L-Luc," he stammered.

"Are you okay?"

"I-I think so."

"Good."

The two stared at each other for a moment, each appraising the other. Erik saw that this boy Luc resembled him physically a little. His hair was black, but unlike Erik's hung over his face in a shaggy dark tangle, and his eyes, fearful and unsure of Erik still, were black as well. But the physical similarity seemed to stop there. The boy looked like he'd just been caught in the middle of a violent windstorm, and he was skinny and malnourished. Erik guessed that he lived on his own, on the streets. Erik noticed many scars on his arms, face, and torso; and everything in his stance, expression, and voice radiated fear and pain. He didn't have to be a genius to figure out another similarity he and Luc had. He wondered what impression he had made on the boy, and hoped he wasn't terrified of him.

"Who…Who are you?" Luc asked him, somewhat squeakily.

This time it was Erik's turn to hesitate. If Luc had heard the rumors of the Phantom that haunted this place, and he likely had, he would almost certainly be scared off too. He decided to take his chances and tell the truth. "Have you ever heard the stories of the Phantom of the Opera?"

To his surprise, Luc's face brightened a little at the realization of Erik's identity. "Yes, I have!" he said happily. His trembling had ceased entirely; in fact, he slipped a little closer to Erik. "You're the Phantom? And…this is your opera house?"

Erik was confused. "Yes. Why are you so happy to hear that, after hearing what they say about me?"

"Because I heard somebody say you made beautiful music, and that's the thing I love most in the world," Luc exclaimed.

"Is that so?" Erik said, surprised. "You aren't afraid of me, then?"

"Well…somewhat afraid. But… after hearing the stories, I thought you'd be like me. I thought we might be similar in some ways."

The feeling is mutual, my young friend. "From what I've seen and heard so far, I'd have to agree with you."

Erik thought over his words for a moment before he said them. "Why don't you come inside with me? Then we can talk."

"Okay," Luc said agreeably, getting to his feet after Erik. The boy apparently felt no fear towards Erik at all anymore. It seemed to him that Luc knew that Erik would be benevolent towards him. The same nervous eagerness Erik remembered from when he had first been freed from the gypsy caravan and came to live at the opera house he sensed again in Luc. Perhaps we are alike.

~0~