Authors note: Okay folks! There are hundreds of fanfics about our beloved phantom, about our dear Christine and our (mostly detested) Raoul. Now I am the very last to object. But there were other people who worked and lived and owned the opera populaire. And they had to watch it burn down, their life, their money, their world. What about them? So I want to give them a story. You might wonder about my main character. I do too. He came to me during the movie and said "I am actually a nice fellow, a bit weird, but not that bad" and I found I liked him. The great movie influence also caused me to describe the characters as they are played (well at least I try to what more can a fanfic author do?) So, this might get a bigger story, if you like it, which I hope you do. The characters I have included so far and of whom I owe none are: André (and please tell me his first name, I need to give the person whose sight this story shows a first name and can not find the book – in my shelf I mean ), Richard Firmin, Madame Giry (does she have a first name? I do not think so – not that it is given in the Musical or in Gaston Lerouxs book at least), Meg Giry and Carlotta Guidicelli. So let me start with the beginning:

Our opera was burning, because inspite of what the phantom had said, on paper it had been our opera. But as I watched that wonderful old building, which had been a home to all of us, burn to ashes, I knew that the opera populaire had never really belonged to Firmin and me.

It also was all of our profits, our investments, our so called fame and glory, that ceased to be. We were bankrupt. And all my optimism of our junk good days were gone as soon as I knew that this was what we would return to.

I did not want to give up the glamorous life I had grown so accustumed to, the young and beautiful ballerinas that had thrown themselves at us. Oh, I know it was not for my non-existing good looks or my loveable character. It was about money, as everything is. But I had enjoyed it none a less.

Firmin was the tall and slender, more handsome one with the slick black hair. On his face the no-nonsense attitude he carried around with him, calm and collected, an authority figure.

I, on the other hand, stopped growing somewhere around the age of 16 and try not to gain too much weight. Most regard me as a goof with grey curly hair. And I am, I get amused and aroused quite easily as well as nervous and over-excited. Neither am I good with public speeches.

But despite all of our physical and psychological differences, Richard Firmin and I have become friends, even partners in all of our businesses, and all that for over 20 years.

"Well that was our little trip into the culture business" I sigh and turn to my left, where Firmin should have been standing. Where Firmin did not stand! I could swear he had just been there when my mind had started to wander.

A thought hit me. But no! Firmin was much too cool-headed for such an act of desperation. Still…I frantically looked around, asked sad and grumpy opera members if they had seen him.

Until a sobbing Carlotta dramactically screeched at me that "le stupido directore was going into opera" "What? Are you sure?" Panic hit me like a wave. "Si!"

Me also running into the burning opera was most surely not the best idea I ever had, but most definitely the bravest deed I had ever done in my pathetic life. I ran around like a frightened chicked, shouting "Richard, Richard", coughing and trying not to catch on fire.

The burning opera looked even worse from the inside. All those unique and beautiful sculptures, falling off and turning to dust. A lost dancer who had tried to enrich himself in scratching some of the gold paintings off, hid his claim when he saw me and stormed out.

My eyes were burning and tears were streaming out of them. I tripped over something soft and when I looked down it was Firmin. Richard Firmin was dead as a doornail. I simply could not believe it at first, tried to convince myself that I was imagining things. His chest was in flames and I clumsily tried to extinct it with my vest. Lost like a child I simply stood there and tried all sorts of useless things, slapping him into the face, miserable tries at reviving him.

Everything around me was forgotten until breathing got harder and harder. My hair caught on fire and I only managed to extinct it after a part of my flesh had been burnt. My few powers seemed to drain, I did not fight any longer and fell down next to my friend and partner.

So this was how I would end. One says that your life passes before you in the seconds that advance your own death. And I tried to find something that had been worthy or good or true during my existance, but found nothing except for Firmins friendship.

Through the haze I imagined a woman walking towards me. Surely the angel of death. A bit older than I had imagined her to be, but still beautiful, tall and slender. Was having phantasies before your death a crime? When she advanced she looked remarkably like Madame Giry. With an almost cold professionalism she bent over Firmin, checked his pulse and shook her head. Then she came towards me, turning into a spot of colours. "Come with me, Monsieur André." I wanted to say something but coughed instead. I tried standing up, but failed at that too. At the back of my head the skin seemed to peel off slowly.

Then the angel of death seemed to notice something, I tried to figure out what, a piece of paper, a document, but my head seemed to split apart, that Firmin held tightly in his right fist. The reason he had gone back. The reason he had died.

I did not care what it was. Not later and certainly not at that moment. It had been a Firminish thing to go back and "rescue" the security papers to ensure our fortune was not lost. I had not even thought about them, when I had stood there and stared into the fire. I know that I am a coward and do not think further than the following day. But look where all his planning and deciding and gathering of money had gotten Firmin. It had brought him to turn into a pile of ashes!

She pulled it out of his hands. The smoke and fire seemed to get more and more. She took my limp arm around her neck and led me to a wall. It was just a wall, until she knocked in a certain manner and it opened to reveal a secret passageway. Madame Giry had often creeped me out with the way she knew even more hidden ways through the opera than its phantom did.

"Firmin" I managed to mumble. I did not want him to remain there, to burn in the middle of this mess, he had liked neatness so much. He needed a proper grave, with name and date and some silly speech like "He will remain in our hearts forever". But who would really remember him? Because Firmin had only had me as a true friend. And I had only had Firmin. Simple as that. And now he was gone!

And then I smelled fresh, clean, pure air, untainted by the dust and smoke. I saw the sky and passed out, sure that I was never to awake again.