I saw that monster standing there, holding her child. I cried out to that brute, begging him to let the little one go. He turned to me, and smirked, half of his face hidden behind a milky white mask like my own. Menacingly, he slipped a lasso over the toddler's neck, against his screams of protest. He tightened the rope that was around the poor child's neck, face turning red as he cut off the innocent child's life. Leaving the limp body where it was, he started off, ignoring my painful cries of agony. He mounted the stairs to the opera house, and with a flourish of his cape, disappeared, leaving me to be the vile creature blamed with murder.
The year was Eighteen Seventy. Christine Daae, the delicate flower I was obsessed with. A beauty in the arms of a beast. I had her in my clutches. All I needed was to pull the rope. If I had been the animal that I thought I was, I would have killed her prince, but I did not. I could have kept Christine to myself; I could have been a thorn. Yet, somehow, I willed myself to let her go, living the rest of my life suffering without my rose, the center of my life.