A/N: OK, the teeny tiny little box doesn't give me sufficient room to write a decent summary so please let me try again: 16 years have passed since the night of the "famous disaster". Christine and Raoul are trying to forget it all as they raise their daughter, Aminta. However, calamity strikes when Raoul lashes out at Aminta one night and she flees to the only other place she has learned to associate with safety: the Opera Populaire. There she meets a mysterious stranger, his face obscured by a mask…or he is such a stranger to her…? Please RR!

Disclaimer: I don't own any "Phantom" stuff, or anything you recognize, etc.

Shattered

It's truly amazing how time can play tricks on you. A second seems to last forever, yet years can pass in the blink of an eye. Before Christine and Raoul knew it, they were married and had become parents. The events of the opera house seemed so far behind them, though they never forgot. Christine continued to sing there, despite advice against doing so by Raoul. She brought their daughter, Aminta, to see her dressing-room, thrilling her with tales of the Opera Ghost, saying that at any moment he might call to her from behind the mirror. Aminta loved it. She loved the opera house, the dressing-room, seeing her mother sing onstage. Early on she had come to love music above anything, especially opera. Often, her mother would sing to her at night, igniting beautiful dreams. And, of course, Christine told her stories of the Angel of Music. Raoul was skeptical about this, but Christine insisted that there was no harm in it. Often Aminta dreamt of the Angel, or the Opera Ghost. But these, unlike her other dreams, she kept to herself. They were her prized possessions, her special secrets. No one could take them away.

Aminta loved going to the opera house just to see it. She loved to see things, anything, sculptures, paintings, tombstones, buildings. She seemed to try to take in the entire world with her eyes. Consequently, she could see things that others could not, or overlooked. In fact, she could have sworn on several occasions to have seen a dark shape in Box 5 when she was watching her mother perform. But this, too, she kept to herself.

She lost her sight when she was six.

Coming home from dinner after a performance, she dropped her doll in the street. Unaware of the danger, she hurried to fetch it. A coming carriage did not see the small child in time. When the driver did see her, he tried to stop, but the horses reared. Aminta was struck in the back of the head by the raining hooves. When she awoke, all she could see was darkness. She screamed. Her parents tried to comfort her, but she would not be consoled. She shut the world out for a long time, emerging from her room only to eat with her parents. Eventually, she would not do even this, but insisted that her meals be brought to her room. She admitted no one, except her parents when they said good-night, and servants who came to change her bed sheets and bring her meals. For a year this went on. When she emerged, she had changed forever.