2: Melody's finding-

At first, Melody was sure he was dead. His eyes were open and staring into nothingness, his lips slightly parted, his skin deathly pale. She took a quiet step forward and listened hard in the darkness. Sure enough she heard his shallow, labored breaths gently shaking his weak body. With the little light that resonated from her candle, she could see he was sitting on the stone floor inside the main entrance that lead from the basement door to his lair.

He was leaning heavily against the wall, sagging a little to the right but otherwise unmoving, frozen in his current state. His shirt was torn in various places and she noticed a little blood stained the front. She looked down as a small knife that was lying in his hand glinted as it caught the candlelight. She let her eyes wander up his uncovered wrists and gasped quietly. They were discolored even in the bad light, with a sprinkling of small pin pricks and collapsed veins. "What has she done to you?" Melody whispered aloud.

She remembered her mother telling her as a small girl, that a ghost-like man with a deformed face haunted the shadows of the Paris Music Academy, where Melody lived. She had said that his genius measured beyond reckoning in the fields of music, architecture and the ability to appear out of nowhere then disappear without a sound when needed.

When he had taken young Chantelle as his protégé and Prima Donna-to-be, Melody had become exceedingly jealous of her friend. He would come for her in the dormitories at night and take her to his lair deep beneath the floors of the academy, only to return her a few hours later completely spellbound and with a voice more magnificent than when she left.

Melody had seen him only once, the night of the end of year performance, after he had kidnapped the leading tenor just before showtime and taken his place on stage. He had looked amazing but his voice had captivated every soul, from the audience to the stage-hands. She had felt her insides squirm with jealousy and excitement as he had caressed Chantelle openly on the stage, singing softly to her, putting her under his spell, before she had humiliated him.

Her mind snapped back to the scene before her. This once great, proud man now a creature of pain, betrayal and humiliation, only alive because his body ceased to stop functioning, though she assumed by the looks of him that he had told it many times to. She found herself beginning to weep as she looked upon him, this poor tortured soul. "Oh how the mighty can fall," she whispered through her tears, "How they can simply waste away after such a painful punishment…"

He stirred at her words and she quickly composed herself, drying her eyes with her sleeve. She had been sent to do a job and by god she would do it. Her mother, Antoinette Giry, had asked Melody to go down and check on him as she knew he hadn't surfaced from the catacombs in many weeks. After the end of year disaster, Erik had disappeared, cutting all ties with Giry. This worried her, as she was his oldest friend, if not his only one, and could mean one of two things. He was either rotting himself away in the dark or dead, which was the presumption though none of the police had found a body during the raid. Melody's orders were to find him, tend to him if necessary or return immediately if the worst had befallen him. Obviously, she thought, I won't be returning to the warmth of the academy dorms for a long while.

She took a step towards him and he came alive, but only slightly, blinking as he turned his eyes to her. The light from her candle illuminated his now visible distinct deformity, the shadowing effect making the ravaged flesh look much worse. She stopped dead in her tracks and met his cold, unfeeling stare. "What do you want, little Giry?" he hissed at her. She shook her head to hide her fear and knelt beside him, taking one desecrated wrist carefully and began to take his pulse. "Mother sent me to help you Erik." She answered softly, counting his slow, labored heartbeats. He watched as a lock of Melody's long golden hair fell out of its binding which she pushed back impatiently, allowing his gaze to soften as he looked down at the small, white hand cupping his own large one, and trailed his eyes up her arms to her face. He no longer saw the little blonde, he saw Her.

He saw long, chocolate curls unbound, cascading over bare shoulders. He saw her dark eyes jeering at him, leading him on. And those lips, full lush lips that beckoned him to take a bite. He saw Chantelle.

His mind was playing tricks on him, tricks that felt so real to his stoned mind. He could feel the eruption of hate and anger welling inside him at alarming force until he couldn't hold it any longer. He roared suddenly and grabbed her throat with lightning speed and terrible force.

Even in his weakest of states he was powerful, slowly but surely constricting her small neck, preventing air from entering. He would punish her, just like she had punished him. He would make it so she couldn't breathe, couldn't see, couldn't live.

He grinned wildly at her as he felt her small fists beating against his unfeeling chest, and tightened his grip on her. This time, there would be no escape. Melody stared at him through wide, frightened eyes and with the last breath left in her, managed to squeak "Erik!" His grip immediately slackened and she fell to the ground gasping for air. His fiery eyes cleared and he was once again looking at the little blonde, though he realized he had just about killed her. "I'm sorry…" Erik trailed off as she looked up at him fearfully through her glassy blue eyes. "I thought…" She nodded knowingly and rubbed her neck, a red mark beginning to appear.

-

Not too long after Erik had begun to tutor Chantelle, his obsession with her heightened. He dutifully trained her voice to the highest of standards whilst spinning a trap of seduction and lust, just waiting for her to fall into. After watching and instructing her for years from the shadows, he finally saw a chance to make her his and acted on it quickly. He had taken her to his lair after her awe-inspiring first performance and almost seduced her, but her curiosity had gotten the better of the two and it had ended abruptly.

Erik continued to tutor her with everything he possessed, until she was reunited with her childhood sweetheart Rohan D'Chagny behind his back, and began an affair which led to their eventual engagement. Erik had gone crazy with hate towards Rohan, and the immense planning to get Chantelle back had almost consumed him.

He had planned to kidnap her after the final end of year performance, then murder D'Chagny. It had almost succeeded, but Erik didn't have the heart to kill him, to take away her lover even though he knew Chantelle would never return. He had hoped that she would see his love for her by sparing her lover, but she had denied him once more and left with Rohan, adding to the final demise of Erik's life.

-

Erik groaned and leaned his head against the cold stone and shivered, a guttural cough erupting from his lungs which caused Melody to worry. He wasn't exactly smelling that good either and she guessed he hadn't bathed in weeks. She stood and held her small hand out for him. "Come Erik, we need to get you cleaned up. You look awful, let me help you." He sighed deeply but couldn't muster the bother to argue. He took her hand and slowly raised himself out of the shadows, letting Melody put herself under his arm to support his swaying frame. She turned them towards the inky blackness and let him lead them to his lair, with Melody stumbling and half dragging him blindly down the dark tunnel. Little did she know, this simple act had set off a chain of events that were now unstoppable.