It's the first day of high school for Christine. She had done her hair in a half up and half down style, got dressed in her blue dress, ate breakfast, and did a final check of her appearance and backpack, then left merrily for Raoul's house, where he somehow convinced his older brother to drive them to school instead of making them take public transport.

They compared schedules as they sat in the back of the car. That year, Raoul had Mr. Y, the teacher for honors chemistry. Christine also has Mr. Y for choir. Strange, they thought. It was rumored that Mr. Y was able to teach every subject ever taught in school and that he lived in a labyrinth below the school.

During lunch, they weaved their way through the hoards of students clogging up the entrance to the lunchroom.

"How was Mr. Y for you?" Raoul asked.

"He's fine. There's just something about him that puts me off, like the fact that he doesn't dress like a normal person and wears a half mask." Christine answered.

"I mean, how is he as a teacher?"

"Weird, like, really weird. Just weird. Do you really think he as a labyrinth below the school?"

"Well, that's possible. It gets more possible every time I look at him. In the school directory, he only has a mailbox in the mail office instead of an actual physical location, so that's very possible."

"You have chem with him next period, right?"

"Um yep."

And so they finished ordered their lunch, going through their syllabuses, talking about the teachers, other classmates, and whatever it is they experienced that day. The next period, Raoul went to chemistry.

"Nice to have you back, Mr. de Chagny," Mr. Y said. "I enjoyed your presence in the science club very much last year."

Raoul took a seat in the back. Despite the warning from his brother not to, he was heavily thinking about what's under the half face mask and maybe even ripping it off. He was getting bored of teachers handing out syllabuses and talking and talking and then forcing them to introduce themselves in front of the class.

That was until Mr. Y started talking about the rules. "No sleeping in class just because you know the material, Mr. de Chagny," Mr. Y said as he walked to the back of the class just to make a point about rule number 5, no slacking off. Then, after 45 grueling long minutes, class was over, and he could finally get out of that class's syllabus day, only to go to the syllabus day for another class. One long school day later, he was finally out of class.

That afternoon, Christine went to a ballet club as Raoul headed back to Mr. Y's room for the second time that day for science club. Mr. Y was just seen filing paperwork all afternoon as the club leaders introduced themselves and proceeded to burn some magnesium and talk about it for a bit. Meanwhile at ballet club, Mrs. Giry was actually taking an active role in teaching the students about dance. She went over some basic rules before having the students go on to do barre exercises and then a bit of centre, led by her daughter Meg.

An hour later, clubs were over, and they met up in the lockers area, getting their backpacks and then going home.

"So, how was Mr. Y?" Christine asked.

"Same as you described. Extremely weird. What do you think is under his mask?"

"It could be a chemical burn from an experiment gone wrong. Do you really think he lives in a labyrinth below the school?"

"I'm almost certain of it."

That week, there were a few changes. Instead of assigning the solos to Carlotta like he'd promised, Mr. Y assigned them to Christine instead. Carlotta started to really dislike Mr. Y because of that. It was universally assumed that freshmen never get solos in choir unless they're really good, and even if they were, their solos were extremely short. The other change was that Mr. Y stopped filing paperwork every single afternoon during science club. He was gone a day of week. There was no supervisor.

During this time, he would have music lessons with Christine in a practice room hidden in the back of the choir room. She was sworn to secrecy about the matter.

It was nearing the end of November, or the week of dance concerts. One afternoon, when Meg was supposed to be working on her dance solo, she heard shuffling noises under the stage. She wasn't the type of person to just wander off, but this afternoon, she did. She wanted to find that source of noise.

"Hello?" She called out. "Is there anyone there? If you are there, answer me." No response.

Curious, she went up the stairs, to the catwalks above the stage, where she found a doors that went to the catwalks and the roof. There was a third door, with stairs going down after opening the door. She was satisfied with that explanation and went back to practicing, feeling a bit like an idiot for calling out to air.

A few weeks later were the holiday concerts, where the entire arts department students pitched in to create. The afternoon before the first concert, Raoul was totally free. No rehearsals, no science club, not much homework. Despite his prior experience, he thought it would be a good idea to try and find the labyrinth of school legends. Meg had heard the noise under the stage again and decided to investigate. They ran to the small corridor behind the stage, eyeing each other with suspicion.

"You're looking for his secret lair, aren't you?" Meg said. "Anyways, I don't think it's that room you're trying to enter. It's up there." Meg pointed to the stairs leading up to the catwalk.

"Are you Meg, from the dance club?"

"Yeah."

They went up the stairs, to the catwalk. Sadly, the door was locked, but Meg was somehow able to pick the lock with a bobby pin. They descended down what felt like miles and miles of stairs, then walked what felt like another mile in the dark, with only their phones as a source of light. Some time later, they found a lake. There was no other way to cross this lake besides swimming or using the boat, but they didn't want to do either.

Then, they found a long ledge on the wall. It was barely sticking out, but doable. In the worst scenario, they fall onto the wall. Lucky for them, small lake ended after a few hundred feet. They climbed all that way in silence, in fear that Mr. Y would find them. They landed on what appeared to be where Mr. Y lives.

There was a large wooden desk with intricate carvings in the legs. Next to that was an organ. Then, there was a large antique bed with four bedposts. Next to that were plain cans of beans, soup and other canned food. They laughed at that and their hands flew to their mouths in an attempt to stop the laughter.

They heard a bit of noise and hid in a corner, behind what appears to be a mirror. It was Mr. Y, with Christine on the boat, in a trance. They watched what was going on. Christine sang with her life, then, still in that trance like state, touched the mirror they were hiding behind and fell.

"No!" Meg and Raoul ran out from behind the mirror and caught Christine just before her head hit the ground. Mr. Y turned around and stared menacingly at them. They froze for a moment before Meg ran out in front of Raoul, and Christine who was slowly waking up from the trance.

"Where am I?" Christine asked. "Am I dreaming?"

Suddenly, Meg lunged forwards and yanked off Mr. Y's mask, to reveal what was underneath it. The three of them flinched back in horror of what seemed to be a missing piece of skull, an extremely distorted cheek, and missing pieces of flesh all over his face.

"See this face?" Mr. Y shouted. "This face, which forces me to live under the school and not in the light, which hindered me all my life. This face, which caused my mother to drop me the first time she saw it. This face, which has caused all my pains."

"I-I'm sorry," Meg stammered.

"You don't understand! This face, everything you know about me! This isn't right. None of this is. You'll never be able to see the light of day again! Not after seeing this!"

And so Mr. Y went on a ranting session, making Meg, Raoul, and Christine more and more uncomfortable with every word. At the end, they learned that his true name is Erik, he was born in a far away land in the middle east, he was an illusionist, and mainly, that he had a very distorted view of humanity.

Then, he proceeded to cry on his organ. Meg softly placed the mask on the desk, and motioned for Raoul and Christine to follow her to leave. Just as they got up to left, Mr. Y stood up from his organ.

"No! You shall not leave! Ever since you've seen this face, you can never leave now!"

Then, he saw the mask. He put it on and suddenly regained his composure. Meg still tried to leave. Suddenly, it seemed to be that they were in hell. There were balls of fire raining on them. They got into the boat and tried to row away as fast as possible, which wasn't extremely fast since none of them knew how to use a boat. They abandoned their decision and got into the water, to try to swim as fast as possible to get out of the way of hellfire.

Then, with hell still getting rained upon them, they got out the boat and ran up the stairs. The oh so many flights of stairs, until they got to a landing. They were lost, but it seemed to be daylight. They were in a narrow alleyway not too far from school, which they recognized as the way they went to the nearby park during lunch time.

They were freezing. Their clothes were starting to stick to them. Meg's thin ballet shoes were starting to get ruined and she had to be carried the rest of the way to school. When they got there, Mrs. Giry was the first they saw. The first thing she did was refer them to the school nurse. Then, they got a strong scolding from her for running around wet in the snow.

Then, Mrs. Giry confirmed that she knew there was an actual labyrinth, and that she was going there. By the time she got there, Mr. Y was gone, the school was marked as a crime scene, and there were weeks of mayhem to follow, along with the story of how three students actually found the labyrinth. There was no science teacher the next day. No Mr. Y.

A few months later, there was a report of a decomposing man, with a mask next to him and multiple facial deformities in the news. Mr. Y was dead.