When Erik woke, his eyes burned as he tried to adjust to the light in the room. Once adjusted, he looked around. Where was he? What had happened?

His head pounded and he felt so weak that all he wanted to do was sleep.

Suddenly he jolted up as he remembered the night's events.

Christine.

Was she alive? Who was that figure standing by her? Did she get help? Erik needed to know.

He examined his surroundings. Someone had taken him to the Phantasma Infirmary. He tried to get up to find Christine. After a few attempts, he was able to get to his feet.

He took a few unsteady steps toward the door, but as soon as he was about to turn the doorknob, the door opened slowly causing him to stumble back, gripping the wall for support. When he looked up at who entered the room, he saw a familiar face looking back at him with a concerned look.

"Erik. What are you doing out of bed? The doctor would be furious!"

Erik took a moment to process who he was seeing.

"Nadir? What are you doing here?"

"Well, I decided to come to see an old friend! Is that really such a surprise?" Nadir said with a smile.

Erik scoffed, moving back to the bed. "After 23 years of nothing but a few letters, yes it is a surprise you would want to come to see me."

Nadir moved to the chair next to the bed and sat. He chuckled and gave Erik the glass of water that had been on the side table. "Come now, Erik. You know I never meant to lose touch with you. When I heard that you had been discovered at the Opera House, I feared it would have been the end of you. The papers made it sound as though you died a horrible death."

Erik rolled his eyes. "Do you really think I would be so foolish as to let myself be caught? I escaped through a passage and watched the mob come into my home and destroy everything, but they never found my body. They spread stories about the great slaying of the Phantom of the Opera, but I escaped here with Madame Giry and her daughter Meg. Still, it has not been easy."

"But look at what you have been able to accomplish here! This park is fantastic. As soon as I saw the pictures on the front page, I knew it was you who had created it. For who else could come up with such beautifully dark ideas?" Nadir said, trying to bring his spirits up.

Erik took a sip of water as he continued playing the events that had taken place. He closed his eyes, envisioning every moment in his mind. He remembered seeing Hashem fall to the ground and seeing the dark figure that had hit him walk over to Christine. He thought for a moment, trying to make out any details he could about them.

Erik looked toward Nadir. "How did you know I was here?" Nadir was silent for a moment.

"Well, I just… I heard everyone talking about the owner of the park, the famous Mr. Y. They were saying he was in the hospital. I knew he was you obviously, so I came to be here for you."

"Nadir, do not lie to me," Erik said, his eyes full of seriousness. "Were you the one who saved me last night?"

"Yes, Erik. I did save you." Nadir responded, matching Erik's seriousness.

"And Christine? Where is she?" Erik frantically asked.

Nadir sighed and put his hand on Erik's shoulder. "Erik, I'm so sorry. I tried my best and so did the hospital."

Erik's head fell into his hands as the tears flowed from his eyes.

Nadir patted his back. "She is in a room a couple of doors down. She lost a lot of blood and her pulse was extremely low when I found you. She lost consciousness and hasn't woken up since. I hope she will be okay. For your sake and your son's."

Erik jumped back up, turning his body to face Nadir. "Gustave! Where is he? Did Madame Giry or Meg find him?" he asked, ready to walk out the door to the best of his abilities to find his son.

Nadir grabbed his arms. "Erik, please. Calm down. All of this stress is not good for you. You are still weak from the attack. Gustave is just fine. I found him backstage after Christine's performance and after one of your employees told me what was happening, I sent him with Madame Giry to stay safe." Erik sighed a sigh of relief.

"Nadir I have to see Christine. Please. Let me go see her." Nadir thought for a moment and nodded. "Let me go talk to the doctor about it and we'll get you a wheelchair."

When Erik was finally able to see Christine, he got into the wheelchair Nadir brought him and looked up at Nadir. "I'd like to go in alone please." Nadir smiled softly. "As you wish, old friend."

Erik pushed himself down to Christine's door ready to go in and sit by her holding her hand until she woke up. When he got to the doorway however, he saw Raoul sitting there instead. Erik could tell he had been crying, but this man had no right to be there with his Christine.

He then heard Raoul whispering something quietly. Erik thought it had perhaps been a prayer, but he instead heard him apologizing to Christine.

"Christine, I am so sorry… This was not how this was supposed to happen... You weren't meant to be hurt... You were meant to be left unharmed... This is all my fault… I'm so sorry dear Christine..."

Raoul was sobbing now, but Erik had become furious. His fault. Erik didn't know how, but he knew that this was all Raoul's fault. He had a confession.

His rage gave his body strength and he stood moving quickly to Raoul. He pulled him up by the neck and screamed at him.

"YOUR FAULT? WE HAD A DEAL! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN GONE! WHAT DID YOU DO?! HOW COULD YOU DO ANYTHING TO HURT CHRISTINE, BOY?! I WILL KILL YOU RIGHT NOW! SPEAK VISCOUNT!"

Raoul struggled to breathe and opened his mouth as if to attempt to speak.

Erik dropped him to the floor, kneeled down as best he could, and whispered murderously in Raoul's ear. "Tell me what you did now or I will not hesitate to kill you right here. It will be so slow and painful, you will wish and pray that death would come to take you sooner."

Raoul coughed, trying to catch his breath and began telling Erik what he had done.

A few hours before the concert just after Devil Take the Hindmost...

Raoul went to another bar trying to figure out what to do about Christine. How could he have made such a foolish deal? Why had he been so stupid? Perhaps because he wanted to believe that Christine would choose him.

As he walked over to a booth, he saw a dark man heavily clothed in black with a drink on the other side of the bar in a corner. Raoul curiously went over to him and tried to make conversation. "What brings you here? A big guy like you looks like you wouldn't have any problem getting anything you desire."

"We all have our burdens. I have nothing left to live for." The darker man said sadly, chugging the rest of his liquor and asking for another few rounds from the bartender.

"I feel the same way. I have made a terrible mistake. I'm about to lose my wife to another man. No, not a man. He is a monster. She thinks he can love her. He is not capable of love, nor will he ever be." Raoul said venomously, taking another shot of whiskey.

"Rough spot, huh?" The man replied. Raoul scoffed and looked at his empty glass. "She will sing for him. I know it. He has this power over her like nothing I have ever seen before. I wish I could kill him, but Christine would never come with me if I was the one to pull the trigger. I'm stuck with no other option than to lose her forever."

He raised his glass to the bartender who brought him another two shots. He quickly drank them both. "Erik, she calls him." He scoffed. "How could she give that thing a name? A human name. He is a disgusting creature who deserves to crawl back into the hole he came from and die." Raoul said slamming his fist on the table. "How could she possibly choose him? His face alone looks like the devil carved every scar himself. He truly is the devil's spawn."

The large man sat up straight. "فرزند شیطان." He spoke softly, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Excuse me?" Raoul replied.

"He is the Devil's Child and the reason I am here in this shithole. He is here you say?"

Raoul nodded. "How do you know him?"

"He was a great mason back in Persia. It was my home. I worked for the Shah as one of his guards. When the Devil's Child was a boy, he was brought to us in a traveling fair as entertainment for the Shah's family. The Shah found some of his drawings that had been thrown out by the fair's leader. He had made beautiful buildings and sculptures. The Shah decided he could be useful, so he bought him from Javier and made him design a few new rooms and torture chambers for the palace."

"Eventually he had worked his way up to be a respectable man in the palace. The Shah then began training him and assigning him assassin missions as he was the stealthiest man around. He truly was a genius. He had previous experience in that area as well. This made him all the more useful to the Shah. He went on many missions and never failed a single one. He was almost the Shah's right-hand man."

"Then, one day he refused to follow through with an urgent order and that resulted in an immediate death sentence from the Shah. We caught him, locked him up, and guarded his cell heavily. Somehow he managed to kill the guards outside his cell and escaped. It was my job to gather troops, find him, and kill him. He outsmarted me and my men. I failed." Raoul listened intently, trying to find anything he could use against Erik.

"This resulted in the death of the Shah's only son. I was then fired and ran as far from Persia as I could. The Shah is out for my head and it is all because of that asshole. I failed my country and it cost me everything. My wife, my daughter, my home. When the Shah had learned that I ran, he found where I had hidden my wife and daughter and he had them brutally murdered."

Raoul couldn't believe his ears. Here he was whining about his minuscule problems when this man had every right to want that monster dead.

He thought for a moment, staring at his drink. "What if we had a way to solve both of our problems?" Raoul said with an evil grin on his face. "What do you have in mind?" The man said scratching his dark, scruffy beard. Raoul took another shot and cleared his throat before continuing.

"Well, I can't be the one to pull the trigger on the beast because Christine would never accept me. You want him dead more than anyone I presume." The large man growled and nodded, angrily chugging the rest of his beer from his giant mug.

"I can give you his exact location right now. You can kill him in any way you want. If you are the one to kill him, then I will be able to step in and comfort the poor, emotionally fragile Christine and we will go home to France to live the life we were meant to have. Then, you and I both win. You get your dead monster and I get my beautiful bride back. Do we have a deal?" Raoul said, holding out his hand.