Disclaimer: I don't own the Phantom of the Opera. Never have, never will.

Chapter One

Chelsea sat at her desk, frowning at a piece of music. She twisted a lock of her black hair around her finger as she read. The candlelight she was reading by sputtered and died as a cold draft blew by. Groaning, Chelsea took her work somewhere else.

She was perfectly accustomed to getting around in the dark. She had lived in it for fifteen years of her life. She had never feared the dark or what could lie in it. She liked to think of herself as the mistress of darkness, although she had to admit the true master was her father. There was no doubt of that…

Chelsea sat down on a little bench and started reading through the music again. No sooner had she found the spot where she had left off than the candles around her blew out. "Darn it!" It had been happening to her all day, and she was sick and tired of it. She went back to her room and looked underneath her bed for matches. She found nothing except the dishes she was supposed to wash one night when she was six…yuck. Chelsea looked through her desk drawers, her closet, and in every nook and cranny of her room, but she couldn't find a single match.

"Father!" Chelsea yelled. She waited for a reply, but didn't get one. Sighing, she assumed he was at the organ again. Her father loved to play the organ. He was very gifted in the world of music. He could play quite a few instruments, and he also sang well. Chelsea could play a little bit on the organ and piano, but her true love was the violin. Erik had started giving her lessons when she was seven years old, and she had been playing ever since. Erik had crafted her a beautiful violin, which she kept on a special shelf in her room. It was her pride and joy.

"Father, I think we're out of matches," Chelsea announced as she approached the organ by the subterranean lake, where her father was playing loudly. She still didn't get an answer. Chelsea rolled her eyes. Her father often got so into his music that he was oblivious to all around him. There was only one way to get his attention… Chelsea reached up and slammed a few random organ keys.

Erik cringed as the horrible sound clashed with his song. He looked up at Chelsea. "What is it?" he snapped.

Chelsea jumped at his harsh tone. "Sorry to bother you," she said apologetically, "but I can't find any matches."

"So? Surely not every candle in the house has gone out," Erik grumbled, looking back at his music.

"That's exactly what's happened!" Chelsea argued. "Every candle has gone out except for the ones around the organ." The moment the words left her mouth, she felt the annoying breeze again. The candles guttered, and the flames disappeared. Chelsea and her father were plunged into total darkness.

"Darn it!" Chelsea muttered.

"Did you leave the north trapdoor open?" she heard her father ask. She could tell he was trying hard to be patient. Chelsea heard the sound of a match being struck, and a little flame appeared by her father's face. The small light illuminated his face slightly, though there were shadows covering his face, making the mask he wore look eerie. Chelsea's father wore the mask because of a bad disfigurement on one side of his face. Chelsea didn't have a problem with it, but Erik always felt the need to cover his distortion up. The mask was spooky enough to give adults nightmares. In fact, it did give adults nightmares sometimes… Erik was known all around the opera house as the Opera Ghost or the Phantom of the Opera. Chelsea knew that her father threatened the managers on a daily basis, ordering them to run the opera house they way he wanted them to. Nobody dared disobey the Opera Ghost. Ever since he had dropped the old chandelier on an audience almost sixteen years ago, people had cowered at the mention of the phantom's name.

"I might have," Chelsea said, frowning. When was the last time she had used that trapdoor? "I think I used it yesterday…I must have left it open."

Erik sighed exasperatedly. "I'll go shut it."

"While you're doing that," Chelsea said tactfully, "should I go get some more matches from upstairs?"

Her father lit a candle with his burning match. "Have you practiced your violin yet today?"

"I was going to," Chelsea said, choosing her words carefully, "but none of the candles would stay lit. I was looking over that new piece." She paused for a moment. Her father said nothing. She resorted to Plan B. "Please? Please, please, please, please, please, please can I go? I won't stay long! I'll just go up, snatch some matches, take a quick peek at what everyone's up to, and then I'll come right back down! I promise I won't-"

"Go through your scales first," Erik ordered. "All of them."

Chelsea sighed and ran to her room. She picked up her violin and started to play, not bothering to tune it first. Usually she would tune her violin carefully, but she was too anxious at the moment. She went through her scales as quickly as she possibly could, finishing in approximately six minutes. She put the violin carefully back on its shelf, grabbed the first cloak she saw out of her closet, and ran back out to the lake.

"I didn't hear an E Flat scale."

Chelsea groaned and trudged back to her room. She had hoped that her father would leave while she was practicing so that she could get away without practicing that one hated scale. It seemed that Erik now officially knew all of Chelsea's tricks. She'd have to be sneakier next time…

Chelsea picked up her violin and played the scale. When she returned to the lake, Erik ordered her to go back to her room, tune her violin, and play all her scales again. Chelsea returning grudgingly to her room and did all that he told her to. She raced out to the lake once again, but had to return to her room to put her violin and her bow in their case and stow the case carefully under her bed. Only then did her father allow her to leave. But first she had to endure a long lecture from Erik about how "if you do things right the first time you won't have to go back and fix your mistakes later."

Chelsea eagerly punted the gondola along the canal with the long pole. Erik had only started letting her go out on the boat alone three years ago because she hadn't been big enough. There had been quite a few funny incidents in Chelsea's life when she had tried to steer the boat but had ended up vaulting herself forty feet across the lake.

Chelsea reached the end of the waterway and sprang out of the boat. She hurried through the secret tunnels and passageways, alert for any signs of life. She climbed up a few ladders, ascended a small staircase, and walked along a long, dark corridor that seemed to go on forever. About halfway down the passageway Chelsea realized she had forgotten where the hidden trapdoor was.

"Was it sixteen steps forward or six steps forward?" Chelsea mumbled to herself. "Or was it twenty-six? Or was it- AAAAAAAAAAHHH!"

Chelsea fell through the trapdoor and landed hard on the floor of the ballet dormitory. "Ouch! So it was sixteen steps…" Luckily for her, the room was empty. All the ballet girls seemed to be at rehearsal. Chelsea picked herself off the ground and looked up at the ceiling. She never stopped marveling at how well that trapdoor was hidden. It only opened one way, and it seemed to melt into the ceiling.

Chelsea began searching for matches. If there was one place in the opera house that she was certain to find matches, it was the ballet dormitory. The girls who inhabited this room were almost fonder of candles than the Opera Ghost was…almost. She had just found an enormous pile of matchbooks when she heard footsteps coming up the stairs outside the room. Oh no! Chelsea jumped and tried to find a place to hide, but before she could move an inch the door burst open. A girl of about fifteen ran in, saw her, and gasped.

"Oh mon dieu!" she screamed.

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A/N: Run, Chelsea, run! I hate cliffhangers, don't you? I'll try to update as soon as possible, but it might take a while. Sometimes I think teachers assign homework just to torture us. The story may seem a little boring, but just give me a chance to get it started. I've got big plans for it…(laughs evilly) Please review! Please, please, please, please, please review! No flames! Constructive criticism would be appreciated. Thanks for reading!