As their laughter rebounded through the door, he started, and then shook himself. Straightening up, he forced himself to move, and glided slowly away from the closed door.

They'd been trapped in that small room for days now, and Amanda was going crazy.

"ARGH!" She exclaimed for the 12th time in the last 10 minutes.

"Amanda, come on!" Darrell said, exasperated. "Shut up!"

Amanda turned and glared at her. "Darrell, I don't like small spaces, and this is one small room, for days, I NEED TO GET OUT!"

"Give up, Amanda!"

Amanda's eyes looked wild.

"If I don't get out of here soon, I'll go crazy!"

"Go crazy?" Darrell muttered, making care to dodge Amanda's glare as she heard the comment.

Suddenly, Amanda whirled around, now staring hopelessly towards the door, as if willing it to open.

They both stood in silence for a moment, staring at the door, Darrell looking wary of what Amanda might do.

Then Amanda rushed forwards, hitting the door hard with her fists. "LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT!" She screamed. Darrell grabbed her wrist and pulled her backwards. "Amanda, stop!" She hissed. "Do you want to give him an excuse to kill us?" She asked. Amanda looked at her, unfocused, then collapsed slightly on to the bed, feeling useless.

Darrell, watching her, felt the same way. Unable to help her friend.

She turned again to face the door.

"LET US OUT LET US OUT!" She cried, whacking on the door almost as hard as Amanda had. "LET US OUT!" She screeched.

All of a sudden, she fell forward, the door moving out of her way. She screamed slightly as the floor rose up to meet her, but a hand grasped the back of her outfit and pulled her back up.

Amanda, now sitting on the bed, looked terrified at the turn of events.

Darrell looked up, breathless.

Him.

Erik.

Why am I surprised? She asked herself, confused. After all, they were the only three people in the lair. As far as she knew, anyway.

It wasn't easy to tell what his expression was under the mask, but after a moment, Darrell had the strange impression he was smirking. As if he found something slightly amusing.

"What?" She growled at him, which was, perhaps, not the wisest thing to do.

He looked down at her. "Is that anyway to treat your host?" He asked, raising one eyebrow.

Darrell blinked. Was she imagining things, or had this version of Erik, who'd tried to kill Amanda, just made a joke?

Amanda looked too terrified to react, staring at Erik with a mixed expression of fear and something else. Darrell couldn't restrain the Phantom Phan's twinge of annoyance at that-after all, it wasn't nice to look at Erik with fear-but she shook that feeling away. Amanda was a bigger Phan than she was, and Erik had tried to kill Amanda. It wasn't something that easy to forgive.

"If you wished to visit another room, all you had to do was ask." He said calmly.

Darrell felt a sudden burst of worry and nausea. Was he going to take them to another room? Specifically, the Torture Chamber? If they'd annoyed him with their noise...what if they'd interrupted his composing? He was a musical genius, and a genius wouldn't take kindly to being disturbed...

He gestured for them to come forward. Neither moved.

"You make all that noise trying to escape this room, yet now neither of you wishes to leave?" He asked them sceptically. Neither responded.

"Very well, then." He made to shut the door.

"No!" The cry burst from Amanda's chest, clearly unable to find herself locked in the small room again. As soon as she spoke, she seemed to regret it.

Darrell looked at her, and reached out a hand. Seeming to tremble slightly, Amanda slowly moved to stand up and take it.

Erik waited almost patiently. Was he going to kill them, Darrell wondered, or was it just implied? Looking at Amanda's fearful face, she hoped it wasn't enough to push him over the edge.

When they both stood there, he nodded slightly, and turned to leave, holding the door out for them to step by. Darrell led the way, clutching Amanda's hand tightly. Darrell had always been the braver and more confident of the two. Amanda was much quieter, more shy and reserved.

He closed the door behind them in a way which seemed much too final for Amanda; she made a slight, barely audible sound, but nothing else.

He strode confidently away from the room, the two girls behind him hesitant and nervous. Even Darrell was scared. Who wouldn't be? This was a man who had, only days before, attempted to murder them simply due to an accident. This was a man who had killed before, perhaps heartlessly, Darrell now found herself musing, though she'd never thought so before. She'd never considered Erik being truly mad or evil-but what if he was? If so, they had fallen into the clutches of a man who would enjoy nothing more than to kill them, slowly and painfully, perhaps with the Punjab lasso, or maybe a sword.

She didn't even want to know.

But to their surprise, and intense relief, he led them into, not the mirrored torture chamber they would have recognised from the books, but into a room which looked like-

"A library," Darrell breathed, looking round at the huge shelves of books around them. "Wow."
She stared almost in awe at the books around her. Even Amanda had lost her frightened look in the company of quite so many amazing volumes.

"If you enjoy reading, you may come here, if you remember the way. It is a simple journey from your room." He said, causing Amanda to start, as if she'd forgotten Erik was with them in the room of wonders.

A terrified look again appeared on her face as she looked towards him, yet as she gazed upon his masked face she seemed to try to pull herself together, to remove the scared expression from her features. Darrell noted that Erik had immediately tensed, just slightly, at her expression, but had relaxed as she fought her fear.

There was an awkward silence for a moment. Neither Darrell nor Amanda seemed brave enough to break it.

And yet eventually one of them did, and perhaps it was the more unlikely of the two.

"Thank you." Amanda's shy and quiet voice came softly.

Erik seemed slightly surprised, but hid it well, just not well enough to prevent Darrell's notice.

Another thing occurred to Darrell all of a sudden.

"Wait, how do you know we like reading?" She asked, suspicious. They hadn't exactly had a chance to tell him they loved to read. He couldn't know unless he'd been eavesdropping. With a slight shiver of realisation, she knew that he must of. What if he'd overheard them talking about the Phantom of the Opera?

He looked at her, not seeming to find any sort of problem with the question.

"I doubt any two ladies who did not enjoy reading would have that amount of books with them." He answered, sounding slightly colder than he had a minute ago. Maybe that was due to her suspicious sounding voice. She felt a bit guilty suddenly, but didn't say anything. After all, what could she say?

She just nodded. After all, that did make sense. They did clearly have a lot of books in their...well...rather messy room/ blanket fort. She felt a bit silly.

"Sorry." She apologised. "I didn't think of that." She looked sheepish, and Erik seemed puzzled at their actions. He said nothing, however, and turned to leave.

"I will leave you here to read and do what you wish. However..." Then he turned to them again, his eyes seeming to flash rather dangerously, "If you attempt to enter another room without my permission, I will not be pleased. Nor are you allowed to touch anything on that shelf." He said, pointing to a shelf at the back of the room filled with what seemed like musical manuscripts of a sort.

"Farewell." He said, and as they watched in amazement, he swept out of the room, shutting the door behind him and leaving them alone in the room.

Darrell and Amanda looked at each other for a moment, still rather confused by everything that was happening. Then, with a grin only bookworms can pull off, they turned towards the tall shelves, and began to discover the secrets of the books Erik had in his library.

A/N: Hi! Thanks for reading my story, and more specifically, the new chapter (as above).

Thanks to all those who reviewed to the last chapter. I'm still looking for a beta reader, so...any takers?

....Ahem. About the long time I took to update...I'm really sorry. I completely forgot about writing more, I've been really busy. And then I looked into my files when I decided to write more today, and, well...I'd already written a lot of this chapter. So...I'm really sorry. I should have finished it and updated earlier, but I'm an idiot. Can you wonderful readers please forgive me? I have virtual cookies...

Also, forgive me if I don't update for a while. I have homework (I know, in the summer holidays...) and I'm taking part in 'Camp Nanowrimo', so...might not be able to update for a while. Hopefully it won't take too long, though.

Thanks!

Adyna.