I notice that recent reviews have shown many upset readers who are disappointed by my developement of Erik. I have to thank you dearly for reading and writing such reviews because it does encourage me to keep working on this enigma of a character. Even though this may not be the essential "Erik" of everyone's dreams, it is still the Erik that I secretly wish could be. An Erik who is as mad as he is human--flawed as he is perfect. Thank you again for all your reviews! They are as wonderful as they are scathing :-)


Floating in a cloud of self-induced bliss, I was relieved. I was not happy, but I remembered in that mist that the events which preceded her leaving were not detrimental to our relationship. The morphine calmed everything that was evil, disheartening, and made me smile as I slowly drew myself up and made my way wearily from the room. My legs felt heavy yet I was elated. My mind was experiencing for the first time in weeks a sense of selfish bliss that excluded all inanimate objects around me...My vision was focused, like a tunnel, towards my next step, my next square foot of ground that I must walk upon. I sank down at my organ and leaned my head heavily into my arms. I wished to stay like this, unaware of doom and darkness—emerged in the superficiality of my ecstasy forever.

But what was I dreaming? For every uprising, there will be a downfall. That was the "balance" the great mysterious one has created for us all, wasn't it? Even in my delirium of bliss the fear began to rise that soon this feeling will be lost…the need for a new refill of "happiness" must be injected in my veins before the level of happiness sinks lower and lower on the barometer of emotions...

Damn it! Where was Jules?

A voice began echoing the back of my mind. As familiar as it was, I could barely decipher the reality of the sound. Was I dreaming it in my hallucination? Why was it becoming louder and louder, reprimanding as it spoke and struck me with it's intense disapproval?

Suddenly I remember where I've heard that voice before. It was an old voice, a tired, most upsettingly recognizable sound—It shook with emotion whenit spoke.

"What are you doing?"

I could only catch bits and pieces of phrases in my daze.

"Why?...You self-destructive idiot! Erik! Why? Wake up you fool! Wake up!"

Suddenly hands were shaking my shoulders from behind and then as the grip tightened, I lifted my head and forced my eyes to open.

"Leave me alone," I gasped… "I don't want you here…"

I flung my arms in defiance towards Nadir but he caught them in his hands and squeezed them with surprising strength. He shook by the arms me again and again, angrily muttering curses under his breath until at last I stood and pulled myself exhaustedly from his grip.

"Enough!"

I backed away from him, holding my chest in my arms. I was still quite happy—destroyed and happy, but still content with the sense of calmness that Nadir had not yet interrupted. "Do you wish to join me, daroga? I'm afraid there's none left for you old friend!"

I think he made a gesture of anger with his hands. "You really disappoint me, Erik. I would have never believed it unless I saw this self-destructivenessfor myself!" He walked over to where the pipe organ sat and rummaged through Don Juan with curious fingers. "At least you're still writing. At least you've put some of your genius to use!"

I groaned with annoyance.

He turned to me and dropped the papers onto the organ seat. He walked towards me steadily—his presence was such an oppressive mood-kill that I felt myself uneasily backing away.His movements were made almost predatorily, and I was his unwilling prey, caught in the net of his reprimanding.

"Shame on you!" He whispered in his native tongue. "I suffered…I suffered for you, Erik! I suffered for the man I thought worthy of a future…and what is this?A phantom, who's too indulgent with morphine to even come out of his cocoon, you disappointing wrench!"

"Nadir—please, stop!" I gasped for air, extending a hand out in defiance of his advancing figure. My left arm went to hold my stomach…the contrast of emotions tipped off the balance. I was no longer happy, nor sad, but awake, and listening to his tirade.

"The years in the Shah's penetentuary were not bad, you know…I could deal with those. But I thought to myself, he is off somewhere, somehow doing good—extending his magic to the world in a way that I could not. It was a worthy sacrifice no matter how I suffered. And now I see that it was all useless—it was all false hopes on my part! I have failed Allah by releasing a beast to the wild!"

I began to choke. What was this? This is not what I wanted…I was supposed to be enjoying this time alone, quietly sinking into the euphoria that involved only my illusions. But I could barely withstand Nadir's shaming voice which loomed from all directions now. Years of living utterly without conscience taught me to forget this voice, the same voice that laughed at my satirical jokes and gasped at my magic. This voice had been successfully hidden in my mind, but I was unprepared for its abruptreturn, and it was louder than ever.

"You've really outdone yourself, Erik. Whatshall I do with you now? What do I do?"

"I'm not your responsibility, daroga…" I said without looking at him. "I can take care of myself."

"Like this?" He almost laughed if it were not for the choking pain in his voice. "You can take care of yourself as a fiend? As an animal living in a cage?"

My head shot up. "What cage?"

He sighed, opening up his hands to the things which surrounded him. "What do you call this place, Erik? This artificial kingdom of black candles and false pretense? A house which only the sick-minded can withstand, only the insane can live in alone? Is this not a cage? Is this not your form of self-imprisonment?"

I swallowed. Stepping back into the wall, I let it hold me up I could fold my arms around my stomach which began to pound with pain. I gasped for air as I sank onto the ground, burying my head in my hands once again. Suffocation overwhelmed me. I could not breathe.

"I'm not an animal…" I said. I repeated it again loudly so he could hear me. "I swear it, I'm not an animal…"

"Yet you live like one," He finished. He roundedupon me like a shadow of reason. "You live like a richly honed animal, but an animal is still an animal whether you dress it in diamonds or rags, isn't it?"

"Please…Leave me in peace,"I cried, unsurewhether my face was wet from tears or sweat. Suddenly I remembered Nadir did not have the keys to the gates. He could not have gotten here without someone to llet him in.

I raised my head at the man who stood over me and asked tiredly in Persian, "How did you get here?"

"Ms. Daae led me to your house, Erik. Yes, that's right don't look at me like that! Ms. Daae lead me to your domain!"

I blinked, wiping the liquid salt from my eyes with a hand that shook so hard I could barely recognize it as my own.

"Why?"

Nadir nodded confimingly, his eyes never leaving mine. He backed up a bit and began pacing back and forth, a motion that made me even dizzier than I had been.

"I would have never figured it out, Erik. I give you credit for that. You hid it very well from me, this whole ordeal with Mademoiselle Daae and her suitor, ironically but not conveniently, named Raoul de Chagny."

I leaned my head against the wall, trying to make out his figure distinctly as he spoke.

"Stop your pacing; I can't focus," I ordered. He was becoming more and more blurry as he walked, it seemed as though he everything was done in slow motion, when in actuality, I knew from experience that Nadir liked to pace very hurriedly. He did not stop. Instead I walked around the room in his detective like manner, examining everything with his hands until at last walking back towards me. I began to push myself up with my strong arm, and stood weakly. I needed to sit, fast.

Surprised that he would take my arm but he did, the Persian leaned me against him and brought me to the sofa. He sat me down, sighing.

"Tell me what am I to do with you now."

"Where is she?" I asked, keeping my gaze averted to the ground. I could no longer play the winner in our little war—Nadir had found everything—he knew of everything that mattered to me and I had nothing left to hide. It was a matter of time before he discovered that I had planned for Christine and I to marry; that is, if she did not let him in on that part already.

"She's in her room."

I thought I hadn't heard him correctly and shook my head before I asked again.

"Where is she?"

Nadir sat across from me and leaned intensely forward. "Erik!"

I looked up at him, meeting his square gaze with all the energy left in my body.

"She's in her room."

I think I lost it then. If I had been mad before, it was nothing as mad as I felt now. It was easily not a negative madness, but a good kind of madness—the kind that freezes one into his seat because he had just been hit with a sense of revelation. A revelation that consumes one's soul to the degree where he does not even understand why it moves him. It was as if those four words were the voice of God that human ear was never allowed to hear…I think I lost all my madness through madness in those four words.

Suddenly, I could see clearly.

Nadir sat across from me, in awrinkled brown suit as hiseyes darted from my exposed arm to my wounded shoulder. He'd been in the rain, and his hair was a distraught mess. The expression on his face was one of pity, self-loathing, and confused distain.

I was no longer shaking. I just looked at the man with the same aptitude of respect with which he regarded me…which seemed, even though after he'd discovered me in this state, still existent!

"Why did she come back?" I said softly, not sure whether it was a question addressed to myself or Nadir.

The Persian entwined his fingers in front of him and shook his head with a shrug of his shoulders. "You ask me as if I can answer that for the lady."

Then sighing, he must have thought over his response and continued. "I met her at the gates, and she allowed me to explain myself to her—she seemed most relieved that we were friends. She was in a completely distressed state when I saw her, and I think I gave her quite a scare. But once I explained I knew who you were, she insisted that I come down with her. She knew her way down here well…I could tell she's been through the labyrinth many times before. She said she was afraid you might do something terrible to yourself…She was very concerned."

"Was she?" I said softly. "I thought she would be frightened…"

"She was," he said, "But only for you.The little mademoiselleseems oddly wise for her age. I sense the relationship between you two is not entirely platonic."

I smiled slightly. "No. Not entirely."

There was a silence between us that bordered on uncomfortable. He seemed to be examining me deeply with his dark eyes, trying to scrutinize the expression of my body with the police chef's "prying-eye" that he had used so often in his practice. When at last I did not yield a form of expression, he spoke.

"I assume the dress she's wearing is not a costume."

"No, it is not a costume," I confirmed his word, and could not contain the broadening grin any longer. "I'm surprised you don't recognize my design when you see it."

"I'm normally accustomed to picking up your architectural designs, Erik." Daroga said. Then pausing, he continued warily, "Why do I have the faintest feeling that this wedding will proceed without a proposal?"

I shrugged. "Proposals I find to be Petty sentiment."

"Or your brother."

"Ah but I rethought that after he shot me so poorly in the back!"

"Perhaps he shot you because you stole his fiancé!"

"I did not steal," I corrected, "I took what was mine. I had intended to let him in on the family secret though I don't think he believed me."

"I had sent him the documentation two days ago. He should know it is not a lie."

My mind flashed to the letter in Raoul's hand when I entered his room.

Of course! The pensive look on his face, the sweat that trickled from his brow before he saw me standing there—He had known! But why would he feign ignorance when I asked him about our mother? Could it be that he chose to ignore the facts out of spite?

Mother hated seeing herself in pictures; She took down all the mirrors in the house once she moved in.

Then again there was such a tenderly tip-toeing of pain when he said that. Perhaps she'd hurt as much as he hurt me…perhaps he was as bitter towards her inability to nourish as I was. But that was such a stretch, I thought. Why would she if he were the perfect child that she'd always wanted?

"He replied to my letter with this," Nadir withdrew a small package from the inside jacket pocket and handed it to me. It was silk scarf with a message written in dark red which I recognized to be blood as I examined it further. But there was also a letter in the Vicomte's name inside the scarf. I read that one first.

Dear Monsieur,

It is imperative that you do not allow this information to be disclosed to the public as must know it will affect my father's name. However, I thank you for deepening my understanding of my mother's unhappiness. I had always known her to be terribly damaged and could never figure out exactly why. I am aware now that is it because she has lost someone very dear to her—someone who she refused to speak of until her death. She left me this scarf with a message that I must give to the man that she only called "Erik". I trust you know his whereabouts better than I, for if I find him in person I will most likely kill him. I have no proof but an intuitive sense of ill-omen that it is the same man who has kept my fiancé from me for weeks. Understand it will be too painful to lose another woman in my life to this "Erik"…But I will not disobey my mother's dying wish—please return this scarf to him if and when you should meet him again.

I give you my gratitude with great sincerity.

Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny

My fingers unraveled the scarf…Shards of glass fell onto the ground. Atop the broken mirror pieces lay a small white mask. Brown, dried blood in the shape of two lips were imprinted on the right cheek of the mask. With a trembling hand I lifted the scarf and read the message with nervous eyes.

Erik…Here is the kiss that I was a fool to deny you.

The material fell, floated, and landed on the ground between us. I stood and made my way towards the organ, grasping my fingers around the manuscripts of Don Juan with wide eyed emotion and wrinkled them under my fists…I pushed them out of my way as I sat and spread my hands across the keys of the organ before me…And with a violent cry I buried my head in my hands striking a most painful, gut-wrenchingly ugly chord with the force of my upper body.

My body was shaking from my cries. But I cried. And cried.

And cried.

Silently, I screamed in my mind—I wanted so badly to hate her all my life, but there lived no hate in that message she'd left. It had been too late but she still found a way to show me the light. If I had not run away perhaps she would have given me the care I had needed so badly from her arms…If I had not run away I would not be here tonight. I had believed that I lost everything to that boy because he had the physical presence of mother and wife, but now I saw that he had nothing—and that he never really had anyone from the beginning. I had taken everything from him since the first night I was born, and I did it all unknowingly. But he had had every right to hate me for it now. He was justified for pulling the trigger against his brother. Perhaps he never even missed. Perhaps he aimed crookedly on purpose.

Somehow I believed that none of us could be happy for the rest of our lives.

God only knows, we could not save ourselves from our tears tonight.