A/N: I wrote this in the mid-90s and found it again today. I copied from the notebook without editing just for kicks. As I recall, I wrote this with the intention of providing more backstory to Leroux's characters with a shifting first person POV. But later I found Kay's novel and figured no matter what I did she'd already done it better. Should I abandon or edit and expand this?
Angel or demon? Man or monster? Phantom or guardian? Who am I? It depends who you ask. To my parents I was a curse upon the family. To the public, I was a freak. An intelligent and gifted freak, but a freak just the same. But to dear Christine, I was the Angel of Music. She turned to me for music lessons and advice, and I made her what she is today. A young diva rising to fame.
But for what? She still believes me to be an angel sent by her father to mold her musical talents. If she doesn't recognize me as a man of true flesh and blood, then I am still lost and forsaken, doomed to forever roam the deepest recesses of darkness. Alone as always.
What if I were to bring her here, to my home? I would show her that I am not an angel, but a man.
No! If she sees me, she will ask about the mask and what it hides.
But how can I prove myself to her and keep my grotesque secret?
I do love her, but I do not know if she can love me. How can anyone love a face such as mine? My own mother could not.
Still, I must try to tell her the truth without frightening her. Even if she despises me, at least then I will know.
Oh, why must I always suffer? Since the day of my birth, I have been cast out from society. My earliest memory is when, soon after I was born, my first mask was placed over my twisted countenance. Another memory is when my mother sold me to a traveling circus.
As a child I was gawked at almost every day. It was within the confines of my freak show cage that I discovered my musical skills. I had found an old violin in the cart used by the circus band for storage. It had not been used in years and would not be missed. Luckily, our circus met up with a gypsy caravan. One of their best musicians helped me tune my newfound instrument and taught me the basics of music. He was the only one of the camp to speak to me, and only because he was blind and couldn't see my horrid face.
Now my violin and music are my only comfort.
My home for so many years has been the Paris Opera house. The Opera is a massive palace of stone and marble, filled with bronze statues. My domain is chiefly the lowest of five cellars, but I have seen every dusty corner and visited every room in the vast building. There are over 2,500 common doors plus over a hundred secret doorways and passages that I added during the construction of the Opera house. It is through these hidden portals that I move about within the Opera house to collect my salary and find out what's going on in the stories above me.
Madame Giry, an elderly box-keeper is one of few "friends" I have ever encountered. She doesn't even suspect my humble roots. She believes that she is preparing a box for a ghost. The Opera Ghost to be exact.
I am not exactly sure how the Opera Ghost name came about, but it is an excellent cover for my existence. Opera Ghost. It is a fitting name for me, one who is unseen, moving about in the shadows. My pale skin is more like that of a specter than a man, and my cold thin hands could be the bony hands of Death itself. Why do my heart and soul cry out for beauty when I am trapped in a cursed body, that of a living, breathing corpse? I know I seek the impossible, but still I must try.