A/N The timeline jumps around from here until we get back to the chapters headlined Alexandre. From this chapter until the first Alexandre chapter I'm going to give light on why Erik named his son Alex and go through Erik's past up to where he meets the gypsy fair.

At the most I was nine, perhaps ten years of age. I was old enough to understand that I wanted to flee, but I wasn't yet of an age where I was free to escape my father's cruel fist-at least not for long. As much as I feared his heavy hand, I was much more afraid of what was beyond the fishing village where my parents lived.

It may have been early summer or late spring. The time of year didn't concern me, as I didn't see the world in color. It was a strange thing, but I didn't realize that until I was much older. My childhood was shaded in gray, from the trees to the grass to the tombstone behind the house. I even bled in gray.

My father hit me until I could taste blood in the back of my mouth and throat. It was thick and nauseating, and my stomach churned as I attempted to remove the taste from my mouth. With each new blow my father issued I panicked until I could no longer keep silent. Just as he wanted, I cried.

And then he would strike me harder, telling me to stop crying or he would hit me again. Though I was old enough at the time to know that it didn't matter what I did, he was going to hit me until the world turned black and sound faded. I would slowly awaken, cold and trembling and in the dark hours, perhaps hours or even days later. Each time my eyes opened again, a wave of pain consumed me.

"Take your hands away from your damned face," he demanded through his teeth.

He had quite literally dragged me from the cellar and into the main level of their small seaside home. Rarely was I allowed to be in their living space, and at first when my father grabbed hold of my upper arm and dug his fingers into the bruises and cuts he had given me a day earlier, I felt a small sense of gratitude that I was allowed to be in their presence.

He tossed me into the corner. I hit the wall hard, grunted, and looked across the room at my mother sitting in a chair with no expression on her round face. Her hair was as greasy and unwashed as mine, her skin dull and dotted with blemishes. She did not react to my presence or her husband's harsh words. The world in which she lived must have been darker and more gray than mine. It was a world she rarely left.

"Please don't take my mask," I begged once my father stepped closer and threatened to kick me in the gut. I scrunched up and held my hand to my face.

The wooden mask was a gift to me, I thought in those days. When my parents gave me nothing at all—no kind word, no pleasant smile, nothing but hurtful words and physical pain—I saw it as my gift, the only thing I would ever receive from them that didn't cause me immense grief.

He took hold of my scraggly, unwashed hair and yanked the mask from my face. My bruised, scraped hands instantly shielded my face, hiding the deformity more than protecting my already swollen and damaged flesh from another beating.

"Take your hands away," he said again, this time hitting me in the ear. His breath was hot as fire and smelled of alcohol as he leaned over me.

The blow stunned me and I stopped. I stopped breathing, I stopped crying, I stopped everything. For a moment I merely peered at him through my fingers, horror in my eyes as I saw the droplets of blood on his visage, the red lines smeared across his fleshy, gin-blossomed face. He looked like some ancient tribesman marked with the blood of his own son.

"What do you have to say for yourself?" he asked, his words slurred.

"I-I-I'm sorry," I stammered. Nervous, so nervous, so terribly frightened that he would kill me with a single blow to the back of my head. I met his eye as I had learned when I looked away he thought I insulted him. Equally, if I stared too long he thought I dared challenge him.

"Sorry for what?" he demanded. It was the third day in a row he had stomped down the cellar stares, his mood dark, his bottle of hard liquor nearly empty. The ship he had sailed with last year had not hired him on for the season. He wished to punish me terribly for his lucky, for a situation I could not control but would suffer consequences so severe I would be immobilized for days.

"For-for-for everything."

I didn't know how else to answer him. I had not attempted to leave the cellar. I hadn't unscrewed the bars or used a nail to pick the lock and free myself. For days I had sat quietly in a corner, rocking back and forth, running my fingers through the tangles in my hair as I squatted near puddles of my own waste. Per their request I had not made a sound. I had even attempted to quiet my own breathing as I did not want to disturb them. It was as though I had gone into hibernation, my hopes and will to exist within their home suspended, turned dormant.

He hit me again for answering incorrectly, and I pitched from my knees and fell hard on the wooden floor, hitting the right side of my face on its surface.

At once the tears started again, a pained howl of a cry fitting for the animal I had become. I wasn't aware of being lifted from my place on the floor. The next thing I knew I was falling, headfirst into the cellar, my arms outstretched as I tumbled into the darkness.

I don't know why I no longer felt pain. Perhaps I was so accustomed to their treatment that I simply didn't feel anything. I crawled on my hands and knees to the safety of my distant corner, drew my bloodied knees up to my chest, and rocked back and forth, my eyes closed, my head pounding, my rapidly beating heart shattered. My fingers went numb, my body feeling as though I had started to fall.

"I want you to love me," I whispered the words I wanted to tell my mother and father. I feared them so greatly that I could never tell them what I wanted. I was not allowed to want. I was not allowed to dream or wish or need anything more than the shelter they provided and the food so spoiled that not even the dog would consume it. "I want you to hug me just once. Just once."

"Hello?"

I drew in a breath and held it, waiting for the unfamiliar voice to call again.

"Is someone in there?"

My God, it was a girl around my age. I could see her silhouette crouched by the window, her hands clasped around the bars.

"Y-yes, I am here," I whispered, crawling on my hands and knees toward her small form.

She giggled, the most magical sound I had ever heard. "Are you real? Or are you my imagination?" she asked.

It was an odd question. I stood at a distance from her and waited until I could see her face.

"Did you leave?" she asked.

"No," I replied. "I—I am not allowed to leave."

My throat tightened unexpectedly as I took a step forward. Seeing her on the outside made me want to escape more than ever. I wanted to beg her to help me, to release me from my little hell, but I knew if others saw me, they would drive me back into the shadows at once.

"Have you made your mummy and daddy very cross? Are you being punished?"

"Yes," I breathed. My fingers rose to the bars, nearing her hands clasped around the metal that would not allow me to leave.

"What did you do?" she asked.

Tears pooled in my eyes as I saw her features, her bright blue eyes peering through the bars at me, her bee-stung lips parting as she saw my face bruised and bloody. I wondered if she noticed the deformity beneath the swelling but didn't care. She was the first person I had spoken to in all my years, the first person who came to me and offered a moment of her time. Even if she left screaming I would be forever grateful to her for the brief time she spent inquiring.

"I don't know what I did," I answered.

"My God," she whispered. "Your face."

I shuddered at her statement and turned away, but remained at the cellar window. "Please, don't look."

"It's so bruised."

I turned my back to her, so ashamed of myself for upsetting my parents. If only I could sit quietly as they asked, if only I would have been born perfect like the son they wanted and deserved. I balled my hands into fists and swallowed hard, refusing to cry for myself.

"Would you like a chocolate?" she asked.

I turned to face her, disbelieving her offer. My feet trudged forward until I stood so close that she could examine my face.

"Chocolate?" I asked.

She nodded. "I have one left. Would you like it?"

"Yes," I answered, sticking my hand between the bars.

I had never eaten chocolate before. In fact had never had anything sweet, as I was not allowed to have anything considered a reward.

"Here," she said, planting a small square into the palm of my hand.

For a long moment I stared at the piece of candy before I dared to bite into it, swallowing the first part whole without bothering to taste it. Realizing my mistake, I cursed myself and placed the remaining portion on my tongue and allowed it to melt.

The girl remained crouched by the bars, her eyes meeting mine, her lips forming a slight smile.

"Do you like it?" she asked.

"Yes," I said, nodding, stepping forward until my face was nearly to the bars.

"You…you look strange," she said, her eyes narrowing.

I stood stock still and allowed her to scrutinize me, allowed her to absorb every detail of my maimed face. With my eyes averted, I swallowed the rest of the chocolate and waited for her to regret her actions.

"What happened to you?" she asked.

"I don't know," I whispered. "I've—I've always been this way."

She nodded slowly. "It looks terrible."

"I know," I shuddered again. I could not recall a single day when my father did not remind me of my grotesque appearance.

"Is it everywhere? On your arms and legs?"

I shamefully shook my head. "Only on my face."

"Well, I should go," she said as she rose to her feet. She stuck her fingers through the bars. "Good bye."

She waited a moment for me to raise my hand to hers. I merely touched her fingertips before I stepped back into the darkness, tears streaming down my face as I watched her leave. I had never touched anyone and no one had ever touched me so gently.

For one brief moment there was no pain. But as she disappeared from sight and I sank to my knees, the weight of my agony crushing me with one swift blow.

Once again I became nothing but a shadow, a little phantom waiting, waiting in nothingness.

Waiting for the next beating, for the next scrap of food, for the next time my mask was removed. Waiting to be human. That was the longest wait of all.

I would have to wait four years until another person looked at me with kindness, and it would be three decades for another glimmer of what I had felt the day I saw blue eyes peering beyond my cell bars.