It's my first fan fiction so don't flame me, but constructive criticism is okay. More chapters will be coming soon if you like my story.

Hours of sweet relief came and went with each passing afternoon when handling his morphine and slipping silently into an insane stupor. Time and time again he would sit in his chair and think about his cruel past. But, we cannot start this way, you must start from the beginning, a time when no one knew of Erik as the phantom and when he may have been loved.

* Sarah, Erik's mother 1832 - 1841 In 1882 a young woman, 9 months pregnant was ready to give birth to the monster, or more formally known as Erik. That woman was I. I was married to a young doctor, George De Lincour, and we were ready to have our first child. We lived in the French countryside and owned a small cottage away from the devastating aggravation and noise of the city.

It was December 26, the day after Christmas, when Erik was delivered. As I suffered with pain George, and Carolyn, my nurse, assisted me in the delivery. From my fist contraction I knew that Erik was going to be trouble, as the hours passed of pain Erik finally entered the world. What a darling child, his smoky gray-blue eyes and baby smile drew me to him instantly. Yet, he did not cry.

Days past, and he only cried if he was hungry, and seldom was that, other than that you probably wouldn't even know he was around. But, he was as inquisitive as a fawn. Poking, prodding, and touching everything in site.

From an early age George and I could tell that Erik was extremely intelligent and beautiful. When he was happy his gray-blue eyes caught a diamond-like shine and his tiny lips would form a charming smile that no other child could possible match. His black hair was curly and he had that sweet innocence that you couldn't compare to any other child's. When he was sad Erik never cried, but he would go by the piano and just by looking at me I knew he wanted me to play.

By his first birthday Erik could walk, and got into even more trouble. But, what was the biggest astonishment was that Erik was able to form full sentences by 1½. He would talk about nothing in particular, but nonetheless it was amazing. Sometimes I even felt threatened by his unyielding yearn for knowledge.

As he approached 2 I realized that I had no ordinary child. From what I was to understand children weren't supposed to speak full sentences until about 2 ½. Some nights I would sit by his crib and cry tears of happiness that I was blessed with such an intelligent and beautiful son. He slept peacefully and never troubled any of us during the night.

While George was at work one afternoon Erik and I were sitting by the piano and I decided to see if he had an aptitude for music. I lifted the toddler on my lap and showed him the basic notes over and over again. Then, after about 20 minutes I tested him. Naming random notes he hit every one of them on the first try. As I named notes he began to form segments of songs and short melodies.

The piano fascinated him. He would get me to teach him new things all the time. Soon, I was teaching him things that I was still learning. Everyday he enhanced his comprehension of music. In a few simple weeks he was as skilled at the piano as I was, and he was only about 32 months old, where as I was 24 years old.

That night George's assistant came to our door. He had told me that George had been killed that afternoon. He would not tell me how, but he said that it was an unpleasant death that I should not concern over. Then as quickly as he came, he left. I was left alone to raise a child that I barely knew the true genius of.

Then, one day as his third birthday approached we had a fire lit in our fireplace. Damn his curiosity! He had to go and investigate. He put his face into the fire, I had tried to get him, but I couldn't get there fast enough. He screeched with pain as I called the doctor, Carolyn came and saw what lay before her, a sobbing child with third degree burns on half of his face. The doctor did all he could, but nothing could save Erik's face.

As his face started to heal a gruesome scar was left on one side of his face. The beauty, which I was once so proud of, was gone, and all that was left was a monster that was a genius. No one knew of his infliction, except for Carolyn, a few other people, and myself.

Finally, I am ashamed to say that I was embarrassed of his deformity. So, I fashioned a white mask and gave it to him. I pained me to give it to him as he inquired on why he must wear it.

"It will be our game, if you do not wear it you will be sent to your room, and when you have it on I will give you a sweet treat," I replied the first time the little boy asked why.

I found it harder and harder to punish the boy when he didn't have it on. He would sob and those tears are what made me want to love him even more, but they also made me hate him so. When he cried his wails and sobs were like a sad song pulling at my heartstrings.

When Erik was 4 years old I gave him his own room. It was a small place, definitely much too small for his growing genius, but it was all we had. I had the piano moved in there and a small bed also. I removed all mirrors from the house, except my hand mirror, which I only knew where it was.

Every Sunday when I would leave for my afternoon stroll about the town Erik would tug on my skirt and say, "Maman, can I come walk with you?"

"No Erik, this is Maman's time alone," I would reply. And how true it was, I had to escape that house every once and a while. Hearing the piano now brought me sorrow, he would only play melancholy tunes, and when I asked him about it he simply replied, "minor keys appeal to me more than major keys."

He wore his mask now all time. Then one afternoon he didn't have it on.

"Why is your mask not on Erik?" I asked patiently.

"Maman, it hurts my face so. It makes sore spots near my nose and eye. Don't you see them?" he answered me so innocently, like the child he was, not like the genius he was to become.

"Yes, dear, I'll make a new one for you later. Now, hurry along and put the old one on for a bit longer," I replied ashamed at myself. He truly was a beautiful child who needed me, as I needed him.

One year after George's death and Erik's accident I decided that it was too hard to raise a child on my own and I met, Louis Waterloo, an older man, about 35, with no children and a good job. For months I didn't even mention Erik, but soon I had to say he was real.

When I first showed Erik to Louis he was horrified and avoided the child as much as possible. It hurt me to see Erik turned away so coldly. But, I needed the financial and emotional support to raise Erik.

When Erik was 5 I became pregnant with a second child. I was now banished to that couch for nine months where the only noise I would hear would be the sad noted Erik belted out of that piano. When I finally started to show Erik was awestruck by the idea of a brother or sister.

"I'll love my brother or sister maman, and they'll love me back," he said with that child-like innocence that he had always possessed.

"I'm sure," I said not believing what I was saying. I thought to myself, how could I keep my next child from the horror of Erik's deformed face?

He said this every time he would see me and then he would put his gentle and strong hands on my stomach. There was something about his hands that I had always admired. His fingers were long and thin. They seemed perfect for playing the piano and the violin.

When I was six months pregnant Louis thought that buying Erik a violin would show Erik that we wouldn't forget about him when the new baby was born. As Louis came home that day with the little violin he laid it in front of Erik. Since Erik's curiosity always got the best of him he picked up the instrument and asked Louis, or to him, Papa, how to play it. Louis then got up and walked away from him, expecting the child to learn on his own, and I didn't stop him. Erik then tried himself, teaching himself how to play, matching notes with the piano and showing great improvement.

The next day George was showing him how to play scales. After a week of practice he had mastered a C, D, A, G, and F scale. He learned everything at an incredible rate. When I was in my ninth month of pregnancy I taught Erik to read, but he would never pick up a pencil to write. No matter how hard I tried he would find a way to hide the pencil from me. Soon, it became a game of his, to hide things from me.

With each day it got harder for me to try and find them so I gave up and then on May 16, Allegra, meaning in Italian, "happy," was born. Her full name was Allegra Zuleika, in Persian meaning "brilliant beauty," Waterloo. It had taken me months to think of that name, praying that this child would be a girl.

I supposed I wanted Allegra to be what Erik was not, beautiful. It was a horrible feeling, but it was what I wanted. I in all honestly was breath taken by how Erik never even once questioned his intelligence.

As a present to his sister he would play her lullabies on his violin every night. He didn't care whether she listened, but according to him, "music is the greatest gift any one could give to another, and I have chosen to give it to Allegra."

How right he was. His music was a gift from God. I did raise him as a Catholic, but his intelligence did not accept the story of Adam or Eve and thus, he would look for answers in places other than the Bible.

As Erik became older and more rambunctious I permitted him to go into the yard. One day while he was outside by the rose bush a small ugly kitten popped its head out from behind the bush. I knew Erik loved it from that moment so I couldn't stop him from having the ugly cat.

The cat, which he called Jesse, because Jesse meant "gift of Jehovah," was an ugly little thing. His coat was a shade of brown with black paws and ears. His coat was matted and his ears were much too big for his body. Also, the little bugger had no tail and deep set black eyes. I suppose though they were a perfect match, neither of them really knew how horrific they were, all they saw was inner beauty.

In some ways I felt that Erik was a better person than I. I would yell and scream at him while he would silently weep and then retreat to his room where he would compose his music and draw his pictures of things that would never be, to think that he thought there ever would be a machine capable of flight.

But, when I would yell at him it seemed as though he didn't even think he did anything wrong, when he would slam doors or wake his sister he didn't know those were bad things, and the more I told him the more he did it. Sometimes I thought he didn't know the difference between right and wrong.

When he was 7 and his sister was 1 Erik got the disappointment of a lifetime. He was outside playing with his cat when a neighbor's sheepdog came and attacked the poor cat. As Erik looked on in horror the cat was being brutally murdered by some foreign dog. Naturally, Erik ran into the house and told me what was happening. I demanded Louis to run out with his pistol and shot the dog, right in front of poor Erik. I had to pressure him to do it, but finally he gave in. As the dog dropped to the ground Erik ran over to his poor Jesse. The child picked up the cat in his arms and wept.

In all honesty, that was the only time that Erik ever saw Louis for more than five minutes. To Erik this was some stranger, never introduced or said who was who. When Louis avoided Erik and played with Allegra it hurt me, but I never really told him I cared about him, I was quite indifferent to him too. During the years Louis and Erik lived in the same house they only saw each other for approximately 10 minutes, at the most.

He brought the masticated cat inside and laid it on a blanket. He gently wiped the blood off the poor animal and crooned softly to its dead body, hoping that there was a chance it would remain alive. Allegra crawled aver and examined the sight. In a moment of intense fury Erik hit the poor baby and then realizing what he had done crawled to her and apologized profusely. He kissed her forehead and made sure that she was not hurt very badly. Then he returned to silently trying to revive his feline companion.

After hours of useless prayer Erik realized that the cat wasn't coming back to him. He then asked me, "Maman, can we have a funeral for Jesse?"

"Erik, he was just a cat, no need for a mass," I answered coldly.

"He was not just a cat, he was my best friend, a friend who will never be replaced, because he, like I was subjected to live in a prison state. Now I demand I be able to give him a proper funeral," Erik's gray-blue eyes had a certain luster to them; they seemed full of hate, so I gave him the permission to have a private mass for his little feline.

He went out into the garden and buried the cat where he had found it, under the rose bush. He looked like a lost angel, sitting there, praying for the soul of his cat.

Every day Erik would go pray at the little grave, sometimes even leaving a flower for the kitten he grew to love more than life itself.

The scariest days in my life were when Erik contracted pneumonia. I never actually gave the impression I cared to him, but deep down in my pathetic and unjust heart I knew I loved him. He became sicker and sicker every day until his fever broke and he became delusional. He would take pillows and pretend they were the cat, or he would say unimaginable things, like take him to the market and other things of that sort, although I doubt he even knew what the market was.

He was strong though; Erik clung onto life like the devil himself. He didn't once give up, even when his fever excelled 103 degrees. His little body was strong and he conquered pneumonia. My heart ached to see him lying in bed for weeks, though. He asked me to play the piano for him everyday and as I played "Moonlight Sonata," he would drift off to sleep.

I wouldn't let Allegra near him, so he did not wear his mask at all. I didn't mind, it never bothered me at all, but when I looked at him all I saw was the little beautiful boy that I had before the accident.

Because of Erik's disfigurement I couldn't permit him to be like a normal boy, so I sheltered him, kept him away from the real world, until he was nine years old. I was about to take my afternoon stroll when he persisted he come with me. I refused at first, but gave in.

As he walked down the street with utmost confidence I was glad he didn't know why he wore the mask, for if he did then there would be no way that he would get the courage to walk as strongly as he did. But, finally some young boys decided it would be funny to rip the mask off Erik's face and throw it down the street.

When they did Erik's eyes widened with the same intensity that he had when I told him he couldn't have a funeral for his cat. When a crowd formed around Erik I sheltered his face in my skirt and I ran down the street to the mask. Whispers of "monster," and "freak," passed through the crowd.

As we entered the house Erik asked, "Maman, why did they say I was a monster?"

"Do you want to know? Because, if I show you then you have to promise not to get scared." I said trying to make him afraid.

"Yes, I swear, I will not even flinch," he said eagerly.

So, I took out my hand mirror and ripped off his mask. He shied away from the mirror and then covered his eyes.

"Maman, is that me? Maman, do I look like that?" he cried out in horror. He didn't wait for me to answer, Erik ran outside and just away. I never saw him again.