Opera Garnier, Paris

Ten years ago, summer of 1885

Antoinette was having the worst of days.

Some days were simply like that - her own ballerinas weren't listening to her, instead complaining about the heat and the exhaustion; everyone was cranky and arguing, some floors didn't have running water due to construction and repair, and so her (very thirsty) dancers had to walk down two flights of stairs during breaks to be able to drink and then walk back up to continue the rehearsals. Everyone was just waiting to be sent off for the summer and left alone. Even Meg, who was only nine years old and normally a well-behaved, reasonable child had decided watching the older ballerinas was not enough for her and wandered off somewhere into the depths of the enormous, dark building.

Antoinette remembered a whole array of curses her late husband taught her after his time in the army as she ran about in futile attempts to locate her missing child.

"Jean", she called after the receptionist. "Jean, have you seen my daughter?"

"No, madam", he stood up. "Do you need help finding her?"

"No, I'll find her, you stay there. If you happen to see her, keep her here until I'm back", she yelled after him as she sped away.

Meg was having the worst of days.

Her mom had been yelling and bossing everyone around all day long; in that tired, annoyed voice Meg hated. Meg had learned long ago that there was no appeasing mom when she was like this; no matter what good she did mom would stay tired and mad, and others in the Opera would keep snapping their stupid remarks at them both, and she would simply have to wait it out and try not to annoy her further until the end of the day. While Mom tried her best not to snap at Meg in particular, and Meg could see the effort, Meg was far too smart and far too sensitive not to notice how little patience everyone had for her these days. Meg's school year was over two whole weeks before Opera closed its season for the summer, and she had been looking forward to watching the adult ballerinas practice (her own ballet lessons were still simple exercises that looked nothing like finished productions), meeting everyone and getting spoiled by attention. The attention in particular lasted for a few days - Meg was particularly fond of one teenage ballerina who showed Meg her pointe shoes and secretly gave her one of the feathers from her costume - until everyone got so busy with wrapping up their work they hardly paid any more mind to her.

She was bored, and slightly hurt. Disappointment stung. All these people seemed so nice a week ago.

Meg wandered through the empty hallways of the upper floors and made her way down; nobody was eager to be inside any more than necessary due to the heat and lack of running water. She had all the time in the world to explore the scary mysterious building.

(Meg was, even then, nearly impossible to scare with anything faint-hearted people considered frightening. Part of it may have been the fact she'd never seen her mother afraid of the dark or of scary big men, and so fear quickly became a feeling she didn't really take all that seriously. She would later in life be very grateful for that fearless quirk in her personality, for she would have otherwise probably suffered a nervous breakdown from being raised by someone like Antoinette.)

Meg wandered the hallways, bored to death and annoyed, until she came across a small broom closet she'd never seen open before. Curious, for whatever reason, she peeked inside and jumped away when she realized the closet had no back wall.

There was only darkness in the back. Meg shook a little, scared for a moment before she thought about it.

Mom had told her where the entrances to catacombs were and to keep away from them; this was not one of them. This was a secret corridor, yes, slightly cold and very dark - but it could well be just that, a secret corridor, and Meg was bored to death.

She carefully stepped inside. Nothing moved. No sound. The door was still open behind her, and friendly sunlight shone through the windows into the hallway she came from.

Meg took a few steps into the dark, then a few more.

She could barely make out a tall, impossibly lanky, hunched shadow in the darkness several feet from her that turned and looked directly at her with glowing eyes before it lunged itself towards her. Meg was frozen in place with primal fear, too scared to scream as the figure approached impossibly fast and nearly completely silent.

The figure brushed with her in passing, pushing her slightly away towards the exit, and disappeared. Meg stumbled, and saw a shining wire close to the ground in front of her. She managed not to touch it.

Meg wasn't easily frightened, but the thought of being alone with a monstrous figure in the dark was too much even for her, and so she sprinted out of the corridor and ran into the hallway, running until she reached a corner. She then stopped to take a breath, and started thinking.

Mom would kill her for going into the dark alone. She was very adamant that Meg shouldn't do it, but why, she never said. Did she know about the mysterious figure? Was it really a monster? Meg's mother was always honest, even too much so for a small kid like Meg, and never hid from her the true reasons why some things were forbidden. If there was a monster in the hallways, and mom knew about it, she would have told Meg. Antoinette herself was curiously not afraid of dark corridors and catacombs at all, and scoffed at people who shuddered at the mention of them.

Meg peeked slightly from behind the corner. The secret door was still open, and nothing moved in the entire hallway. Her heart was still beating furiously, but curiosity got the better of her.

"Hey!" she yelled, gripping the wall tightly with her fingers. "Who are you?"

No answer.

"Are you some ghost or ghoul? Why are you haunting the corridors?"

No answer. Meg cast a glance behind her. Nobody was coming, and she found it strange that they didn't think to look for her. But, there would probably not be another chance like this.

Cold air was gently blowing from the corridor. Meg wondered if she'd imagined it all. A normal person would be too cold in that creepy corridor; only a ghost would survive. But the creature had had enough of a chance to kill or kidnap her if it wanted to; she'd been easy prey. And yet she was still here.

"Aren't you cold in there? Why don't you come out?" she tried.

No answer.

"Fine!" Meg was growing frustrated. "You can avoid me too! If everyone here is so fed up with me already, I'll just tell mom to leave me at home!"

Now, that produced an effect. She heard rustling from the corridor, and hid behind the corner again, but nothing happened. When she looked again, she saw a little bundle of paper on the floor of the hallway, halfway across to the secret entrance. It was a small paper bag, the kind people usually wrapped pastries in.

Meg mustered her courage and walked up to the bag, carefully opening it. It indeed held a small pretzel, and a folded piece of paper. Meg thought about taking a bite of the pretzel, then decided against it and unfolded the paper.

It was a drawing - she could recognize the secret entrance before her, and after that there was a map with several more corridors and arrows pointing her to where she needed to go. It didn't seem to go very far; the basement was allegedly huge but the map only showed how to get to a little clearing two staircases down. There were some additional scribbles (spots with X drawn on them, presumably forbidden to stand on), but not a single word written on the whole map.

"I'm not that stupid!" Meg yelled. "I'm not going to follow you into the dark!"

The silence seemed to agree with her. It would have been indeed stupid to follow a monster into the dark.

Something else flew out from the entrance; Meg flinched and then ran to pick it up. It was a little box of colorful chalk, six different colors.

"For me?" Meg wondered. "Really?" Now that was more like it; Meg loved drawing and would indeed make use of this toy while the rest of the theater was busy arguing with each other.

Meg was now feeling guilty. "I'm sorry I can't come. I can't follow this map in the dark."

A few seconds later, something lit up inside the broom closet. She ran to look.

Rows of candles were being lit across the walls; Meg didn't understand how as she couldn't see who or what was lighting them. Under the candlelight, the corridor didn't look quite so scary - she'd heard rumours of skeletons and dead bodies and poisonous mold, but it looked like a normal stone hallway. Meg, hard to scare and bored to death, took a few steps into the cold corridor, but only after she propped the closet door behind her so it couldn't be closed.

Erik was having the worst of days.

A pipe had burst in the upper levels of the catacombs, drenching the lower parts and all of his possessions. It wasn't dangerous yet, but stepping through a good few centimeters of water was annoying to him in a place already uninhabitable by any normal standards; he was also not eager to find out what would happen if the water should rise. If only he could get the workers' or Antoinette's attention to show them where the leak was, it could all be over with fairly quickly and he wouldn't have to bother with it anymore, or worry about potentially drowning like a rat in the catacombs.

Antoinette, his only trusted company in this place, was busy with both work and her little daughter who was out of school and wandering the Opera house like it belonged to her for over a week now. Erik, insanely jealous, refused to admit to himself that he was at eighteen years old still juvenile enough to even feel insanely jealous; he tried to tell himself the little girl was annoying, and distracting, and a menace, when she was clearly none of that. Erik loved to watch Antoinette's ballet classes and chat with her after she was done with work; now the routine was ruined by this… polite, charming, clever and outspoken child. He could honestly not find any rational reasons to hate the little brat, and it made him hate her more. She was the perfect little mirror of Antoinette with her fearless grey eyes and her serious disposition, and one little part of him instantly adored her as only an older sibling can adore a sweet younger one; the other part of him hated her as only an older sibling can hate a younger one taking up all of their mother's attention. Erik was big on rationality in those days, hoping it would save him from the horror, chaos and disaster that ravaged his mind; but he could honestly not rationalize any of this to himself. He wandered down, defeated, furious and intent to go home and stop trying to get Antoinette's attention which only seemed to annoy her further. He had no way to talk to her alone and explain that no, he wasn't throwing a tantrum, it really was urgent. As he heard the gentle hiss of a secret entrance close to him being opened, he could not rationally explain to himself the ferocity with which he hurled himself at the familiar blonde, gray-eyed child about to unwittingly step right into one of his traps. The whole thing happened before he had a chance to think: the child saw him and froze in fear, he managed to push her away from the trap and withdraw back into the shadow. He barely brushed against her before she sprinted away at the mere sight of him.

Erik panicked. This was absolutely not supposed to happen; neither he nor Antoinette had any sort of plan for this situation.

His heart melted a little when the kid asked him if he felt cold. (He did. It was always cold around him. He wore two to four layers of clothing in the summer, and he still felt cold deep in his bones. He lied about it to Antoinette, not wanting to worry her about something she couldn't control.) It melted a little more at Meg's admission of her boredom and loneliness. Erik, so sensitive to being rejected and ignored, could not physically live with himself if he caused a small child to feel the same because of him.

And now he was leading the child through the catacombs. Well, that was one way to get Antoinette's attention.

He checked around to see if the girl could possibly see him. He was still safe in the shadowy parts of the corridor; she could at best get a glimpse of him, nothing more. Her face was buried in his scribbled map, anyway.

"What are these things? Marked with X?" the kid asked, looking around.

"Traps. Be careful, it's not safe", he responded from the shadows before he could think about it.

The girl gasped. "You're real!"

Erik was now grasping at straws to keep being mad at her. "What?"

"You exist! You can talk!"

"I'm not real!" Erik panicked, his voice changing the whole register until it reached the pitch of a little boy. "Don't tell anyone about me!"

"I won't," Meg Giry replied, looking sincerely offended. "I'm not a snitch! You can ask anyone in my school!"

Erik panicked silently. The girl kept walking until she reached the end of the makeshift map.

"What is this place?" she turned around. "Why am I here?"

"Uh", Erik struggled trying to find words. It didn't occur to him he'd have to talk to an actual child until now. "There's no water on the upper floors."

"I know", she said. "It's awfully hot." as much as she struggled, she couldn't pinpoint where the voice was coming from. And it sounded like a little boy, too, which was completely different from the lanky monstrous figure she saw lunging at her earlier.

"Well, I know why that is. A pipe burst just next to where you're standing - see how the walls are damper there? It's leaking down below. Parts of the catacombs are flooded already. They don't know where to look; but this is where it is. You need to tell her."

"Tell who?" Meg frowned.

"Your mom", Erik barely managed, nearly heaving with jealousy. "They'll listen to her."

"Oh! Alright. I'll tell her." Meg looked around. "Is this where you live?"

"No. I'm not real. Don't tell them about me."

"I know, I know, but really - is this where you live?"

Erik was losing this battle with himself. And with the child. "I- no. I'm usually deep underground. But now it's flooding."

"Ah!" she finally understood.
"Get them to fix it, and you won't see me up here again", he concluded. "Tell your mom."

"I will! Are you in danger? Are you going to drown?" she asked, her eyes darting across the corridors wide with concern.

Erik's heart couldn't really handle it. "You have to leave now. This place is not safe. Show your mom the map."

"But-"

"No questions. I'm not alive, but you are, and you could definitely die in here. Go, and don't come here again. The next time you hear a voice from a corridor, it might not be me. Don't trust them."

"Alright!" Meg replied, turning to go back. She was not easily frightened, but she was not stupid either. Hearing fear in the disembodied voice raised the hairs on her neck. "Who else lives here? Why is it dangerous?" she whispered.

"Many monsters. I keep them under control some days, but not always. Promise not to come back."

"But I-"

"Promise me!" Erik raised his voice at the child who was now practically running back up. He couldn't stand the thought of the little girl coming to look for him, only to step on a trap or find a disheveled psychotic shell unable to tell hallucination from reality or -

"I promise!" Meg squealed. "Thank you for your help! I won't forget you! And for the crayons!" she ran out of the corridor entrance right into her mother's arms. The sunlight in the hallway blinded her; she blinked trying to orient herself. Reality seemed too real.

"Marguerite!" Antoinette kneeled next to her, obviously furious. "Where on Earth have you been? Did I not tell you not to go into the basements?"

"Mom, listen!" Meg held up the paper. "This is where the leak is! Some boy was down there, and he showed me the way! We can have water now!"

"A boy?" Antoinette's voice wavered with inexplicable sadness. "You saw… a boy in the catacombs?"

"I only heard him, but he gave me this! He says the catacombs are flooding- " Meg covered her mouth in panic. "I promised not to tell! Mom, you can't tell anyone about him! Tell them you found it! Please! I promised!"

"It's alright, little bird", Antoinette hugged her. "You did well. We'll tell them we found it by accident; no-one will harm your friend in the catacombs."

"Is he safe down there? He said there are many monsters in the catacombs."

"Ah, don't worry", Antoinette stood up and patted at her dress, then took her daughter's hand. "He's stronger than all of them, I promise."

(Meg remembers none of this anymore; she never mentioned it again and grew out of "imaginary friends" shortly after this. She's developed a sort of common sense that would make her reasonably suspicious of people hiding in the dark underground, so they never formally met again.)