A/N: This week's chapter comes with a little bit of bad news- I'm currently having a terrible case of writer's block and I'm still unsure as to what direction I want this story to move along, so I'm thinking of taking a one week hiatus to plan out the future chapters of the story and so on. Any suggestions would be welcome!

Savannah White: Thank you again for the blog post xx

Guest: I'm so glad it made you feel all mushy inside (;

Masked Man 2: I'm so happy that people tell me they actually look forward to Mondays now hahaha. I look forward to them too, because I get to post a new chapter up and see what you guys think!

Now this chapter is not one of my favourites- it's a lot longer than everything else, but I couldn't see how I could cut it down and it didn't make sense to split it up. It's probably a little too draggy in parts, and really serves only as a verbose chapter until I figure out how to move this story along, but I hope you guys enjoy it anyway.

Chapter 17: Erik's Story

Paris, 1894

As the mask fell away from his face, and Erik felt the cold air upon his flesh, he braced himself for her reaction. After all, she had flinched the first time. The second reaction could very well be similar, or even worse. He looked her steadily in the eye, and was surprised to see only a steely determination, as though she was bound on stripping his secrets bare to the bone.

"See? I didn't run." She whispered.

He felt a strange lump in his throat. "You haven't seen me fully yet."

If he made excuses now, the hurt at her horror later on would be dulled.

Her reaction was to take him by the hand and pull him out of the shadows, toward the place in Box Five where a steady stream of light filtered in through a gap in the curtains. He resisted at first, but then let himself be brought forward. There's no going back now.

As the light fell onto Erik's face, he flinched with memories of a past long gone, of jeers and shouts, of the harsh crack of a whip upon naked flesh, of pain. It had happened many years ago, and yet it still haunted him from time to time. The flinch did not go unnoticed by Amélie, whose heart was pounding like a drum within her chest. She steadied herself and looked at Erik for the first time, without the mask.

The ravaged part of his face was uneven, with slightly bumpy flesh that looked raw in places where it had been rubbed raw by the mask. His lips were slightly bloated and uneven on that side of the face, and drooped slightly. It made a startling image, against the unblemished side of his face, the strong jawbone and untouched flesh. Amélie felt a strange sadness within. It was almost as though the heavens had created a perfect being, talented, genius, and then decided to play a cruel trick by putting two opposing halves together, merging heaven and hell.

And yet, his eyes shone with the brilliance of unshed tears, shone with all the sadness of the world, and held within their depths the hidden genius of a brilliant musician. From both sides of his face shone his eyes, so bright even in the darkness. And Amélie knew from that moment that she would never turn him away. She raised a hand and smoothed it gently over both sides of his face, ghosting it over his face.

"I haven't run yet."

"You haven't run yet." He breathed out slowly. "No… you—you haven't… haven't run yet." Amélie hid a grin from him; the usually eloquent Opera Ghost had been reduced to a babbling mess.

He stepped away from her and sat himself in one of the big cushioned seats in the box, trying to angle his face away from the light. Amélie immediately threw herself into the seat next to him, slapping his arm.

"Stop that, Erik. I haven't run yet, and I won't run. You don't need to hide." She chastised. "Please, please tell me now."

He seemed to take a deep breath, and then his lyrical voice broke the silence in the box, soft and low, to voice a story that had been left untold for many years.

This was Erik's story.

"I was born in a small town just outside Rouen. I estimate the year to be around 1868. I am not exactly sure when, because I was never told. I was born to a newly widowed young woman by the name of Madeleine. I know this only because I heard the priest call her that; she certainly never told me her name herself.

For as long as I remember, my mother tried to pretend that I'd never existed. I was told by the elderly priest Father Mansart, who had given me his name, that my name was to be Erik, and only Erik. I did not know why at the time, but now I understand that it was because Madeleine refused to name me, refused to have anything to do with the child she had spawned.

In those early days, I was confused, bewildered. Can you imagine it, Amélie? I lived in a relatively large house with the most beautiful person I'd ever set my eyes on—my mother. Her hair was mahogany brown, and it gleamed like polished wood. Her skin was fair and radiant, and her eyes were large and green. She moved with a grace that the clumsy child I was could not fathom. Her voice was delicate and lilting. And yet, for all her beauty, she could not bear to have anything to do with her only child. I was frustrated, and I could not understand why. Whenever she saw me, she either screamed for me to go away, or she started to cry and left the room.

I idolized her, and she wanted nothing to do with me at all.

As a child, I was… precocious. I demanded attention, perhaps because I so craved it, so desired for my mother to bestow one kind word upon me. But it was not in her heart to give it to me.

Instead, the only affection I ever received was from Sasha, my mother's cocker spaniel. Sasha saw beyond what my mother could not see; she saw the child within, starving for attention, for acceptance, and Sasha, amazing, amazing Sasha… she saw fit to give me the love I never received from my mother. I loved Sasha, and she loved me in return."

It seemed as though Erik was weaving a masterful story for Amélie's entertainment, and yet this was his own story, so laced with a sort of bitterness that stung Amélie's heart. As he spoke, he casually stroked the white mask resting on his lap.

"You must be curious about the mask; they all are.

As I said, my mother wanted nothing to do with me. The only thing she ever did for me was to make this mask for me to wear. Up till the day of my fifth birthday, I had been living a life of solitude, closed within my own room, with only the presence of Father Mansart, who taught me my lessons and encouraged my music prowess, and the occasional visit by Marie Perrault, my mother's only friend.

On my fifth birthday, somehow, Mademoiselle Perrault managed to convince my mother to hold some kind of a celebration for me. At least, I imagine she had been the instigator, since I doubt my mother would have had thought of it. It was on my fifth birthday, that I first saw my own face.

Imagine it, Amélie… a five year old child so excited that for the first time in his life he would be allowed to sit at a table and eat a meal with his mother. He had no idea what the meaning of a 'birthday' was, but if it meant that he could spend some time with his mother, even ask for a present from her, he did not care about anything else. And this foolish, foolish child, actually dared to ask his mother for a gift of two kisses. Stupid child!

My mother was horrified, as any other person would be. She screamed at me, shouted that I was never to ask such a thing of her ever again. I was to never ask for anything that would involve her touching me.

And that foolish child of five years…" Here Erik laughed hollowly, and began to unbutton the cuffs of his sleeves. "That foolish child, he lost his temper, and demanded to know what was the point of requesting for a birthday gift if it would only be refused.

It was then that my mother dragged me to the large mirror in her room, forcing me to look myself in the mirror, and it was then that I saw myself for the first time.

I was horrified, repulsed. I did not understand who the monstrous being in the mirror was. I thought it was the stuff of nightmares, out to capture me. I screamed, and I struck out at the monster. And when the monstrous being similarly struck out toward me, and the glass shattered, when I realized that the monster and I were one and the same, my hopeless dreams and illusions shattered along with it. For the ugly monster I so hated was myself."

Erik pushed back the sleeves of his shirt to reveal his wrists, marred with scars, the very scars that Amélie had been so curious about the first time she had seen them. "The glass cut my wrists, and I knelt on the floor, crying. My mother ran out of the room in hysterics, and if it were not for Mademoiselle Perrault, who had just arrived for my birthday, I might have bled to death in my mother's room. Mademoiselle Perrault heard the noise, and investigated. She found me, sobbing and bloody, and somehow managed to calm me down enough, such that I let her bathe and bind my cuts. She was a brave woman, Mademoiselle Perrault—much braver than my mother had ever been, and she saved my life that day.

The next morning, my mother presented me with a white mask that she had spent the whole night constructing. It would cover up half of my face. She bid me put it on, and being the besotted child, I did as she told me to. I imagine the other half of my face must have so resembled my father, for she looked at me and immediately began to cry again.

I was to wear a mask from then on. It was the only way my mother would tolerate seeing me around the house. Some years passed, and each and every day was spent in the isolation of my own room. Music was my only companion and solace. Father Mansart was impressed with my musical abilities; he encouraged it, and taught me what he knew, though it was not much. My mother, on the other hand, detested my capabilities—she saw it as another sign that her child was possessed by the devil. When Father Mansart kindly suggested that I be allowed to play the church organ during Sunday mass, my mother flew into a rage and shouted that for as long as she lived, I would never be allowed out of the house.

But Father Mansart's words had made me curious. I wanted to know what this church organ was, what playing on it felt like. That very night, I picked the lock on my window, and crept out, climbing down the tree outside. I had no heed for danger. I simply did it."

Erik's voice had grown a little wistful, as though these particular memories had been the happiest ones. "I stole into the church, and in the darkness of the night, I played the church organ for the first time in my life. It was magnificent, and I was spellbound. As each and every note resounded around the church, magnified and glorious, I sat there, insignificant and small on the bench, reveling in the sound. I knew then that I had to go back again.

This happened every night, until someone saw me by chance and started the rumour that a ghost had been haunting the church every night, playing unholy melodies. The rumour made its way through the small town, and my mother learnt of it eventually."

Erik broke off, his fists clenching angrily. "She immediately sent for someone to board up the windows of my room with wooden planks, nailing them completely shut so that I would have no way of leaving the room through the window. And just like that, she snuffed out the only enjoyment I had in those long, lonely years.

I made do with what I had. I composed music, and studied architecture. I enjoyed sketching buildings; I had a dream that one day I would make those buildings come to life. Mademoiselle Perrault had brought a book for me for my fifth birthday, that fateful day, and I devoured the contents of the book, hungry for knowledge. That book taught me ventriloquy. I practiced and practiced until I had perfected that skill. There was nothing much to do with my days locked up in the house."

He paused, and suddenly Amélie heard a thousand small voices call out 'Amélie' from all around the box. She smiled a little despite the somber atmosphere in the box.

"Then everything changed when Sasha died. Sasha was getting old for a dog, and she had been sick several times already. One day, she wandered out into the garden, and I knew I had to get her back. She could not walk very well anymore, and her eyesight had deteriorated greatly. I went out, intending only to fetch Sasha.

I was seen.

A few of the village boys saw me, saw the freak they had heard was kept locked up in the house at the edge of the town. They saw the mask, and assumed correctly what was hidden beneath.

I felt the first rock hit me. It was perhaps but a small pebble, but to that foolish boy, it felt like a giant boulder crashing down from above. It would be the first of many things thrown at him." Erik's voice had gone soft, and Amélie thought she could almost feel the naked pain he had felt. "They shouted, and they called names, and they kept throwing rocks at Sasha and me.

I wanted to protect Sasha. She was hit by the rocks, and she kept whimpering. I tried, I tried so hard to shield her, but they got Sasha again, and again.

In the end, it was my mother who dragged me back into the house, screaming at the boys to stop, and screaming at me for having gone out of the house. I didn't care that she had saved me, that for once she had brought herself to touch me, to drag me in. All that mattered right then was that Sasha, clasped tightly in my arms, was no longer moving. Her little chest was no longer heaving with the effort it took her to breathe in those last days, and her little paws were no longer struggling to live, for Sasha was gone. Her eyes were open, but unseeing, glassy and empty, shining like orbs sprinkled with stars from the heavens.

I screamed. I remember only screaming, and screaming, until the blessed oblivion of darkness came.

The next time I awoke, I was in bed, all bandaged up, and my head felt heavy. I could hear voices from the other room—my mother and the new doctor in town, that fancy young doctor who had only arrived not long ago. They were talking about sending me… sending me away, far away to an asylum. I could not hear much else of what they discussed, for my head was heavy and I fell in and out of sleep intermittently.

That night, after the doctor had left and my mother had gone to bed, I climbed down the stairs, picked the lock of the front door, and disappeared into the night, taking nothing more than the clothes on my back. For the first time in my life, I was finally free."

He laughed then, a cold laugh that held no humour in it. "Freedom came with a price too heavy to bear. That freedom lasted only mere hours.

I had nowhere to go, nobody to turn to, and no money. And for the first time in my life, though I was free, I was finally alone in the world. I huddled in a small alley, trying to keep the cold away, wondering what would be my next move.

The next morning, they found me. A gypsy camp had set up their travelling fair in a nearby town, and a group of gypsies had seen me in the alley in the dim morning light. It was early morning, and there were very few people around—the ones who were around were all rushing to get to where they wanted, out of the cold, and could not be bothered more about a group of unkempt gypsies in an alley, much less the small boy the gypsies were crowded around. The gypsies were curious about the mask. They wanted to know what hid beneath it, whether it would be a good money-making venture.

It turns out I was. A good money-making venture, that is.

For me, that freedom had lasted only a fleeting moment, before I was locked up yet again. Only this time it was in a cage, and I had no way out.

When the gypsies discovered I could sing, on top of my gruesome face, it was like they had struck a windfall. They were disgusted, yes, but then they realized me for what I was—a money making machine. They proclaimed me the 'living corpse', the one so hideous that he looked like he had come back from death, walking the precarious plane between the living and the dead. 'The living corpse sings. The living corpse performs magic. The living corpse makes flowers sing. See it for yourself, if you don't believe it!' Ah, I remember the words they shouted out to make people visit my tent. How can one forget? 'The living corpse', a befitting moniker, don't you think?

I was fed little, clothed in scraps, and beaten almost daily. The winters were cold and harsh and especially bitter, more so because I had nothing to keep me warm. As much as I was a money-making machine for them, I was treated no better than one of their animals.

If I refused to do anything, I was whipped. If they were bored and had nothing to do, they whipped me. The new wounds reopened old ones, even before the old ones had scabbed over. New scars formed over old ones, but as each day passed, I felt nothing any more. They could whip me all they wanted, but evoked no response. I would curl up in my cage, singing to myself in my head, and thinking of all the music I would compose once I escaped. But what hurt the most was the people who would scream. The people who would press themselves up against the bars of the cage eagerly, to see what horrors awaited them, only to recoil in terror. Every scream, every gasp of shock, embedded itself into my heart like a nail pounded in with a stake.

Escape seemed like a far off reality that would never happen.

One day, the gypsy camp set up their fair in Paris. One of the bystanders who had come to visit the fair took pity on me, and she helped me escape. I killed my jailor and captor—it was my first kill, and I felt no remorse. I felt only triumph."

"Who helped you?"

Erik paused for a moment, seemingly searching for an answer. "I… I do not recall. I ran away as soon as I was freed."

He shifted uncomfortably. Amélie frowned, feeling as though there was something Erik was not telling her.

"I ran away, and from then on, my life was my own." Erik continued, ignoring Amélie's frown. "I went to faraway places. I travelled the world. But everywhere I went, captivity chased me like a hound after a wild hare. When I arrived at Persia, brimming with hopes and dreams, my dreams were again shattered by the cold steel bars of an intangible cage, closing in around me once again."

He told her of his times spent as a stone mason, of Giovanni and Luciana, as he had once told Antoinette. He spoke of his times in Persia, of the cruelty of the Sultana, and of the numerous deaths that he had wrought with his own hands.

And throughout his almost monotonous monologue, Amélie was constantly surprised and awed that this one man could have been so strong, in a life that had thrown him much more woes than the average person. There was a warm feeling within her, something like amazement at Erik's strong determination to live, and it made her want to hug him tight, even though she knew that he would not allow it.

As he finished his story, his shoulders sagged slightly, as though a large weight had been taken off them. He looked at her.

"Are you not going to cry now?"

She stared back at him incredulously. "Cry? Whatever would I be crying for?"

"I'm not so sure myself. I expected you to be crying, and telling me that you were sorry that all these things happened to me." His tone was sardonic. "Is that not the normal reaction when people hear tragic stories? Or perhaps you want to run away, because here you are sitting right next to a murderer."

"I'm not sorry that they happened to you, Erik." At his disbelieving look, she held up a hand. "It is unfortunate that those things happened to you. But I'm not sorry because without those things, you would not be the Erik I know now, and you would not be here with me right now. And for that, I am thankful."

He was silent and contemplative.

"For the record, Erik, I haven't run yet, and you don't have to think that just because you've told me all your secrets that I'll be leaving any time soon." She told him seriously.

"And now, I will leave you alone, because I know you want to brood over matters like you always do. I do think sometimes you think too much." She declared. "I will expect you to be waiting promptly at the chapel passageway for our usual meeting this week. Goodbye, Erik."

Before she left, she paused, as though she had forgotten something. Then she turned back toward him, and bent down to gently kiss his cheek. "Happy belated birthday," she said softly.

As she left the box, she thought she heard his faint whisper. "Goodbye, my little rose."

My little rose?

My little rose? Where had she heard that before?

A/N: As always, please read/review/favourite/follow/let me know you're reading! I haven't decided on the one week hiatus, but I guess you guys will know the result of that, depending on whether or not a new chapter gets uploaded next week! Meanwhile, please have a good week ahead. xx