Disclaimer: I do not own Phantom of the Opera in any size shape or form, nor do I own its characters.
It is an aggravation that the little pest was right. For days after his visit, I avoided my writing desk as if it harbored snakes. It did no good. There is more to write, and the compulsion to finish is greater than the aversion for the task. And so I sit here, pen in hand, prepared once again to open locked doors.
The underground of Paris is a vast network of tunnels, catacombs and ancient quarries. Even I, who have been a denizen for some many years, do not know the full extent of this dark world. It is a dangerous place, and even one as experienced as I must negotiate carefully. There are, in the darkness, chasms and ravines which wait to take the careless traveler. In the maze of tunnels, unmarked and identical in feature, it easy to lose one's way. The tunnels are littered with the remains of lost ones, who entered this realm never to return to the outside world. The natural dangers of this underworld are frightening enough, but nothing compared with the two- legged predators I encountered when I first left my home beneath the Opera house.
I had not known what a fortunate choice I had made when I removed myself to that little island on the lake. It was a remote part of the underground, difficult to access and nearly forgotten. The gate and the curtains I'd placed over the entrance to the cavern ensured my privacy, and I was never once troubled by another inhabatant of the world beneath Paris. Such was not my experience after I removed myself from there.
At that time, the underground was infested with the lowest order of humanity, the ones who preyed upon their own kind. The outcasts lived in terror of these predators, who were remorseless in their cruelties. They would kill for a pocket watch, slaughter a family for a pair of shoes or a bottle of wine. The worst killed for the mere pleasure of it, and with no fear of retrubution. Who could these outcasts report the depradations to? The world of light cared nothing for those souls who lived in the world of darkeness. Many of these beastes lived in the world above, entering the tunnels only to hunt for prey. Others existed below the ground, conveniently sharing the same world as there victims. This was the state of affairs when I first came to my present living quarters.
I immediately became aware of activities of the creatures. I saw much as I moved through the passages and tunnels of my new environs, and marveled at why I was considered a monster while beasts such as these existed. I moved as a shadow, and none knew of my passing. I was content to remain unknown. There was safety in anonymity. The outcasts would fend for themselves as they always had, and I would tend to my own well-being. That is how I felt then, and that is how I feel now. They are none of my concern.
What was my concern, in the first six months of my new life, is that two legged rats, as adept at hiding in shadows as I, attacked me, not once, but on two separate occasions. The first time, the attack was made by a solitary predator, confident that the well dressed gentleman must be rich, drunk and lost. Because of this he was careless, and I easily relieved him of his dagger and turned it against him. I left his corpse lying in the tunnel, as a message to others of his kind. The second attack must have been planned. There were three of them, and they were waiting for me, around a bend in the tunnel. It was a route I usually took when I was taking my nightly exercise, and one of them must have noticed. They took me by surprise, and very nearly made an end to me. They would not have been a problem had I not been off guard. As it was, they quickly had me cornered, and in desperation, I tore off my mask. It did not frighten them away, as I had hoped, but it startled them, and allowed be to gain space and the upper hand. My lasso dispatched one, my knife, another. The other escaped while I was finishing off his comrades. I replaced my mask, and smiled wryly. For once, my accursed face had proven a blessing.
I returned home, and spent sometime reflecting on my situation, and considering my options. I needed to travel freely through the underground, and did not wish to curtail my movements for fear of my safety. I knew that sooner or later I'd be attacked again. There were too many hunters out there. I wondered how long it would be before I made a careless and fatal error, and became just another pile of bones littering the tunnel floor. I could leave, I knew. There were other places I'd prepared for myself. Where, though, could I go where these savages would not also be? They were like rats. They were everywhere.
It was then I decided that I would stay. I would ensure my safety in the only way I knew how. That night I declared war on the Rats of the underground. I had hunted men before, and felt no qualms about doing again. I sat there, long past the time of sleeping, making my plans.
For the next year, I hunted two-legged rats. I stalked them singly, I pursued them in groups. I flushed them out of their hiding places amongst the bones of the ancient dead. I moved silently, using the shadows , and often my skills of ventriloquism and illusion to confuse my prey. I left the vermin I exterminated where they lie, and soon stories began to spread of the ghost that haunted the underground passages. The few prey which escaped me spread the myth even further. By the end of the year, there were fewer and fewer Rats to catch, and the underground grew peaceful. Those wretched miscreants who had avoided my vengeance began to flee to the outside world, no doubt to bedevil the poor wretches who reside there.
And so, I have much blood on my hands. I have killed since the Opera House disaster, and I shall kill again if I need to. There is no law here below the streets of Paris but the law of survival. As long as I remain clever and fit, I shall survive. When I am no longer able to fend for myself, I will end. I am quite healthy, and as resourceful as the devil, and so expect to remain in this realm for many more years. It is not always a comforting prospect.
It occurs to me that the first time I ever saw Pere Simon was during that year of hunting. The little liar swears that it never happened, but I remember it clearly. I was making my rounds late one night, when I heard a terrible screaming somewhere ahead of me. I made my way closer to the sound, and soon found myself standing on a ledge overlooking a cavern. I recognized it as a place favored by predators for the sport of killing. It was large, and had a narrow, racing river moving through the center of it. The river provided an excellent means of disposing of a body once the killer was done.
Presently the cavern had two occupants, a foul looking man, and a tearful screaming girl. She may have been a resident of the underground, or some poor wretch that had been dragged from the streets of Paris. Either way, she'd been brought here, and it looked as if she would not be leaving again. The man obviously had been beating the girl, and now had her pinned to the ground and was tearing at her garments. It was not difficult to guess what his intentions were. I was determining how best to descend into the cavern unobserved, when I caught a slight motion from its entrance. There, moving quietly through the entryway was a small balding man, dressed in the garments of a priest! For a moment I wondered if my mind was leaving me, and I closed my eyes tightly to clear my vision. When I opened them again, the little man was still there, walking silently up behind the Rat. I watched incredulously as the priest slowly picked up a rock from the cavern floor, and smashed the man's head in with it. He then hastily said some prayer over the creature's body, and rolled it into the river. I could only stare in bemusement as the little fellow helped the sobbing girl to her feet, and guided her out of the cavern.
That was the last I saw of Pere Simon until the day, some months later, that he simply showed up at my door. I was not happy to see him there. I would not have been happy to see anyone there, for that matter. It was of utmost importance to me that my home remain well hidden. He seemed surprised at my concern, and was not the least bit worried about his safety, now that he knew about me. I have killed men to protect my privacy, and I briefly considered doing the same for this intruder. Somehow, however it never happened. Instead, he was in my home, and I was bringing him a goblet for the wine he brought.
He had come, he explained, to thank me for my great services to his flock. I'm afraid I gaped at him quite stupidly, as I had not one idea of what he was talking about. He appeared not to notice, and continued on. It was a miracle, he said, that I had come to protect his people from the crimes that were being committed against them. He smiled and called me a selfless and noble man. I almost laughed in the poor man's face. So, that is what is was all about! My vigilantism was solely for the purpose of protecting myself, I told the little fool. It was no concern of mine how anyone else fared. It was their own problem. "Perhaps that is what you think," smiled the little priest, "But just the same, you have done a great thing. The people of the underground call you their Guardian Angel".
Guardian Angel? I almost strangled the little man. Pah! I was Christine's Angel of Music, the newspapers called me the Angel of Death, and now this! Now I was the Guardian Angel of the lost and unwanted of the underground.
Why do I always have to be someone's Angel?