Okay, so this is the first fanfiction that I have written in a long time. Sadly I do not own Phantom of the Opera, although Heaven knows I want to. Mainly based off the ALW broadway show and 2004 movie, but I have also drawn bits and pieces from Gaston's original novel and Kay's novel. Hope you enjoy and please let me know what you think!

Chapter 1 Reflections

Erik's POV

It had been months since Christine had left, but the pain that seared through my soul still ached as if it the fiasco had happened only yesterday. For weeks, I couldn't even bear to leave my cave; I just wasn't ready to see all the wreckage I had instilled upon my opera house in my outrage and utter humiliation. All the pain I had inflicted on my home, on my child, in a manner. How could I have possibly been so careless, to damage and destroy everything I had ever loved? To silence her sweet musical halls?

I knew soon, I would need to force myself to venture up there to confront the result of my own imbecilic actions, if for no more reason then to apologize and atone for what I had taken from her, my darling opera house.

However, guilt was one of the lesser emotions that brawled within me. Devastation, depression, betrayal, and outrage, yes those would sum it all up nicely. These were the thoughts that plagued me night after night, the horrible thoughts that had made me even turn away from my greatest love, my music. I haven't sung or touched my beautiful pipe organ since the day she left me for that incompetent- oh, who am I to try and fool myself; again? He is everything she could ever desire: a rich young man that can give her anything her heart so yearns for. He is not a murderer. He is not cursed to this dreadful monstrous face; for that I could not blame Christine, but for what she did the night of Don Juan Triumphant, that, that I most certainly could blame her for.

I mean how could have Christine done that, who was she to think that she had the right to remove my mask in front of so many people? Who was she to think that she could control the Phantom of the Opera, to publicly humiliate me in such a manner, why did I let her get- because I loved her and she used that weakness to her advantage. But what thanks did I receive for all my acts of pure kindness that I bestowed so openly upon her, to simply get my heart wrenched from my chest and shattered like the cold brittle thing it had become in recent months. Although I can question and requestion all my plots and actions until the end of time; the fact remains that I simply wasn't good enough for Miss Daaé. I was never good enough.

All these years, I've truly been a fool, thinking with time she'd come to understand me and love me as I did her. In reflection, I cannot begin to understand what could have possessed me to think that Christine, a name I will forever mutter with distain, would be any different than all the others. A swirl of suppressed memories of my days before the opera house resurfaced making me shiver as the slightest of tears ran down my face. Yes, people of Paris, despite what you all have come to think, this carcass is capable of feeling emotions other than hate and rage.

Yes, there was a time where I would dream of a lover, who would take my hand without a second thought, without persuasion, simply because she wanted to do so, because she wanted to be with me, because she really loved me. But no one has ever loved me. That thought made me stop and think. Was it really so difficult to understand and see the man that was hidden under the guise of this mask? Was the world truly that superficial, that all the suppressed and hidden desires of love that dwelled just under the surface of my marred skin, could be so quickly over looked, in favor of fear? The answer is, yes it is.

The world is as cruel as the night is dark, and its cruelty is only heightened to those beings that are different and misunderstood, and thus are forced to hide their true selves from the mocking world above, to hide in the shrouds of darkness. "For people are so quick to fear what they don't understand and to hate what they can't conquer; and let us all admit, that they will never conquer the Phantom of the Opera." I chuckled darkly as I stood for shear dramatic effect.

Wonderful, now I am speaking to an invisible audience, I must be losing my sanity, well what's left of it anyway. I sighed, shaking my head as I sat back down.

However, I will lose my sanity if I stay isolated in these surroundings much longer. I must find something to occupy myself with…

I realized then with conviction, what I must do. I will restore my opera house, little by little, to the best of my abilities. Even with the morose recognition that she may never perform her task and provide the gentle beauty of her music to patrons again, I feel that I owe her at least that. Another benefit from my new project is that it will drag my sorry sack of flesh from sulking in my circle of self-pity and loathing, and instead put my hands to use again in rebuilding as a distraction from thinking of her. A rueful half smile spread across my pale face as I stood up from sitting on the side of my coffin.

"There is much work to be done." I spoke aloud to myself as I strode off towards my gondola.