Note: I gave up writing fanfiction around when I went off to college, and this is my first foray back into fanfic in over 15 years. I wrote this more for some sense of personal closure than any kind of entertainment purposes. Still, if you read, I hope you enjoy.

There came a frantic pounding at Erik's door.

"Anybody home?"

The words echoed across the rippling surface of the underground lake. A small fleet of rafts and boats crowded the shoreline on the far side of the lake. More boats were still bobbing their way across the water, converging on the Phantom's front door.

The knocking continued. "Please let us in!"

A long silence went by. There was no answer. The knot of people jostling around at the door continued to grow.

"Hang on, hang on, I think I might have a lockpick in here somewhere."

"Oh my gosh, why do you have a lockpick?"

"Why DON'T you have one? Do you have any idea how handy they are?"

The group of people shuffled around to allow the roguish member of their party access to the door, and after several painful minutes of clinking and clicking, the door opened.

The group of people funneled through the entrance. Erik's living room was dark, and there was an erratic burst of "ouch!"es and "hey!"s as everyone either stepped on someone's foot or had their foot stepped on.

"All right, all right, everyone calm down!" One voice rang out over the din, and a bright camping lantern suddenly blinded the group. The lantern was set down in the middle of the room, finally providing some much needed illumination to the congregation.

Erik's sitting area was filled with a crowd of dozens of young women of varying ages. There were a few teenagers in the mix, but most of the crowd seemed to be of the middle aged demographic, the type who might assert that the 30s were the new 20s. The young women came in many shapes and sizes, and a closer look would reveal lots of them to not be women at all, but folk of other genders and identities. But even so, everyone in the group went by one name, or might once have laid claim to that name long ago.

Phangirls.

"I assume you're all here for the same reasons I am," said a phangirl - phanwoman? - with long dark hair and glasses. She was the one who had set up the lantern in the center of the floor. She spoke with a strange sense of authority, as if some implied power assumed that she ought to be in charge. "Erik is missing."

"I was sure he would have been down here," said a girl dressed as a ballerina, hair in a frizzy bun. "There hasn't been an accident on stage in months."

"I performed in an opera just last night and I saw the managers in Box 5 like complete idiots, but nothing went wrong at all."

"I've been writing a story about Raoul and Christine and I keep expecting him to butt in, but nothing."

"Where is he?"

Glasses Girl let the furor rise and fall on its own. Eventually the various phangirls, Mary Sues, and authoresses calmed down. She spoke up again.

" might be ending soon."

Rather than erupting into chaos, a soft murmur seemed to shudder through the room. The news made its way through the crowd to the stragglers who had just finished making their pilgrimage across the lake looking for answers. The women shifted awkwardly, and finally, a voice at the back of the room spoke up.

"I haven't actually been on in years."

"Neither have I."

"I lost my password."

"All my fics are abandoned."

"I know," said Glasses Girl, not without sympathy. "I'm in the same boat as all of you. We grew up. We moved on to write in other places, or we left our stories unfinished. We stopped following up on notifications. We stopped writing fanfiction altogether."

"Maybe that's what happened to YOU!" said an outraged girl, the lantern light glinting off her eyes. "Some of us have been writing here ever since YOU lost interest and *outgrew* fanfiction!" The crowd of girls hollered and cheered, a chorus of indignant and proud authors defending their craft.

Glasses Girl looked down. "I know," she said mournfully. "I know you did. Whether on this site or others, I know that there are more of you than ever before. Whether in this fandom or another, I know that there will always be fangirls and authors telling stories. But I...I never forgot you."

She smiled at the crowd of passionate women. "I might have moved on, but I never forgot any of it. I made friends here I will remember forever. I had a home here. This site was my home. I grew up here, I practiced my craft, I had inside jokes with friends, I forged my identity on the internet. And I promise, no matter what happens to , I will always be a part of this fandom, and I will always be a phangirl."

The crowd shifted awkwardly again. Glasses Girl spoke up one more time.

"The Broadway show is closing."

This time there was a veritable explosion of panicked shouts from the group.

"Oh no, it's the end of an era!"

"I'd really really hoped it wasn't true..."

"The show has been running longer than I've been alive!"

"I STILL HAVEN'T HAD THE CHANCE TO SEE IT."

"What...what will happen to the POTO fandom?"

Glasses Girl waited for the chatter to subside again.

"I don't know what we might lose first, the website or the show, but I just...I just wanted to visit this place one last time. I wanted to come down to the fifth cellar and say goodbye, I guess."

"But Erik isn't here," said a voice near the door.

"I know. But I know he must be somewhere. And wherever he might be, who better for the job of finding him again than us, right? We've been stalking him since middle school." Glasses Girl smiled, and the others laughed.

The electric lantern light seemed to shiver as it illuminated the crowd of faces, some smiling and some looking subdued, all gazing back and forth at each other. Erik's empty living room felt filled with a strange, determined energy. The girl with the glasses had not felt it in a long time, but it felt good to be standing in the cellar like this, surrounded by her family.

"Come on, everyone. Let's go find our Phantom."