Once the intricacies of survival were seen to, Erik began to consider the possibilities of life under the palatial Opera House. His surroundings were beautiful and imposing; Erik wanted to be a compliment to them. He found a simple masquerade mask in the jumbled mess that was the costuming studio. After considering the rainbow of possible paints, he finally settled on stark white. Once it was dry, he tied it on and examined the result in one of the gilded mirrors. It looked debonair to him – especially after the itchy, demeaning burlap sack. Clothes from the costumes vault, once stapled and stitched, gave him the appearance of any other young patron of the Opera Populaire. The night he designed his first "costume", he stood happily before the tallest, brightest mirror he could find and admired the illusion.

Wearing a mask was not merely a habit or a vanity. There were mirrors everywhere in the great Opera house. That the elegant gentry might not miss a moment of their own attractiveness, there were mirrors in the hallways, in the tea and reception chambers, and on the entryway walls. Even some of the ceilings were mirrored to spread light evenly through the tastefully decorated rooms. Once, Erik had been curious about his appearance. Now that he had was the face of a murderer, any curiosity about the exact nature of his curse was quashed.

Less than a fortnight after he floated through the grate, Erik was certain that he would never desire another home. Stealthily, he watched the denizens of the Opera, admiring the grace of the dancers, the talent of the musicians, and the powerful self-possession of its patrons. He knew that he was of noble birth and his child's heart longed to emulate those of "his class." Like a shadow he followed them, copying their manners and their port.

Despite his obsession with watching the people of his chosen home, the majority of Erik's time was spent in lowest level of the basements. He had discovered the underground lake that provided the Opera House's water via an aqueduct system. In the middle of the lake there was an island of sorts, a leftover mound of rocks and mortar from the original foundations of the building which stood here long before the Opera House was built. The rocky island inspired romantic notions of faerie-tale castles surrounded by moats. They were always the safest places, so long as there were no invading dragons.

The initial problem was accessing the place. At first he floated across the lake on a piece of wood that had once been a huge door. It wasn't long until he got frustrated with being tipped into icy water, and stole a boat tied to moorings not far outside the opera house. From his vantage point on the center of the mound, he surveyed the soaring arches and glistening walls that made up the foundations of the huge building. Erik smiled to himself.

"This place is mine…" he murmured, at first frightened by the sound of his quiet declaration. A moment later, he straightened and spread his arms wide. Taking a deep breath, he raised his childish voice until it echoed around the foundations. "This place is mine!"

For the first month, Erik slept in the costumes vault on a stack of fabric. After his fiery claim of ownership, however, such an arrangement hardly seemed fitting. If this place was to be his, he would have to build a home. Materials inside the Opera House were abundant. Sets were constantly being built and torn down. The greatest difficulty Erik faced in designing and building his home was his own small, starved body. Soon, a little shack made of flats from the stage and two-by-eight pieces of lumber rose clumsily in the center of his island. Not long after, he began to fill it with cast off furniture from guest rooms, sets, anywhere he could find things that suited him –without getting caught.

Another problem he faced was darkness. There was very little light in Erik's cavernous home. Where the channel brought water through the grate some light trickled in, bouncing off the water and providing a faint glow during the day. At night it was pitch black. Erik quickly learned to take candles from the storage rooms in the servants' quarters so he could move about safely at night, though his night vision had become acute. Though candles were a hazard and bother, they were far better than nights spent trapped on the island.

Though the kitchens and stage prop storage areas provided him with the necessities of life, Erik's favorite place by far was the huge library. It held a comprehensive, frequently updated collection of the finest opera and classical works of music, along with music primers for those musicians who earned extra money by teaching. It also held an impressive non-musical collection for the betterment of the Opera's live-in population. The library provided him with all sorts of knowledge and amusement, but his favorites were books on music, architecture, and magic tricks. He discovered that he had an aptitude for sleight of hand. Indeed, he discovered that he had an aptitude for anything that caught his interest.

One of the myriad things that caught his interest was a pile of dusty, mouse-chewed blue-prints bound in cracked leather cases under a neglected bookshelf in the storage room at the back of the library. At first, Erik hadn't a clue as to what the various lines, circles and hash-marks meant; a few hours of study later, he could see the bones and sinew of the opera house.

The Opera Populaire was a sprawling monstrosity of a building, designed to accommodate artists, servants, guests, and administration. There was a stage and dressing rooms, of course, but there were also living spaces (both dorms and private rooms), kitchens, practice rooms for the orchestra, the singers, and the dancers. There was a chapel, with a nightly mass weekdays, and three on Sundays. (The managers would not have it said that employees of the Opera were godless.) There were entire wings devoted to administration and ticket sales. There were four basements above the lake where Erik made his home.

All of this was interesting to Erik, but the truly fascinating thing were the extensive networks of secret passages. Like Versailles, this building was riddled with passages in the walls once used by discreet servants and trysting lovers. By Erik's best estimation, most people currently living here were entirely unaware of the honeycombed walls. "This place is mine," he whispered with a smile.

Even though Erik soon became adept at moving from passageway to passageway, it was impossible to avoid detection entirely. He haunted the catwalks during performances and the halls at night in search of food and supplies. The servants of the house encountered him most frequently, usually in the form of a flitting shadow, or creaking floorboards. The set crew and managers noticed that unused scenery and props often went missing, but were never able to encounter the thief. Nothing was taken that was critical to a performance, so no one worried about it overmuch. Some half-hearted attempts were made to find someone living in the attics, but of course those efforts were fruitless.

As children will do, the young girls in the ballet corps co-opted the rumors of a sneak-thief, and turned them into ghost stories. Suddenly, Erik heard whispered conversations about the night-time exploits of Messieur le Fantome. The idea pleased him. No one would try to hunt down a ghost. A ghost might do as he pleased, as long as he remained undiscovered.

The managers also welcomed the fanciful stories of the Phantom of the Opera. Since a local paper reported a short column about their ghostly tenant, ticket sales doubled. It seemed that a haunted Opera house was more enticing than a regular opera house. Mssrs. Debienne and Poligny only shrugged and smiled. This ghost was harmless enough, and their resident diva was demanding a higher salary every time they turned around. Also, it kept the servants on their toes and the little girls of the ballet corps in their beds at night. "Be good, or the Opera Ghost will get you," became a refrain sung by the house mother any time her charges were unruly.

Only this last damped Erik's joy. He was tired of frightening people. He had hurt no one, taken nothing that was needed. No matter how much care he took to seem benign, it seemed that people were determined to fear him.