Part One

Chapter One

Christine saw the panic in his eyes, followed by abrupt emptiness, and looking back she could never be quite certain when she began to scream, that horrible, blood-curdling scream of anguish, grief, rage and disbelief -- one which had been mounting silently but surely since her fiancé had reached the house by the lake.

Her vision -- indeed her mind -- was fogged with her myriad of emotions as she stumbled over to the broken body of her childhood sweetheart, the frigid water of the lake enclosing her up to her waist. The ornate wedding dress clung to her legs, making it difficult to tread through the water, but she scarcely noticed as she traveled to the vicomte.

She had to reach him before it was too late!

But when she wrapped her arms around his now limp body, and stared into those crystalline blue eyes, once so vivid and youthful, now lifeless, she knew she was too late. She'd been too late since the fire of rage had roared to life in Erik's eyes.

She'd been too late from the very moment Raoul had entered her dressing room the night of Hannibal, when she'd told him of the Angel of Music teaching her. From that moment on, it had been too late for him, for them. She'd helped kill Raoul, just the same as if her hands had tugged the rope along with Erik's.

He should have never found me…

She was barely aware when she began to slide downward into the lake in agony and shock, sobs racking her weak body.

Meanwhile, Erik watched it all from the banks.

And for the first time in all the murders he had committed, something hot and bothersome had inched its way beneath his hide, something which kept prodding him whenever he tried to forget and ignore, something which filled his eyes with tears and colored his world with shame. Guilt, it was. For the first time, Erik felt something as human as guilt.

It mounted as he watched the poor, broken girl wail with anguish at the feet of her dead lover, each of her dreams being reduced to nothingness one by one, by his hand.

He had made her feel this emptiness, this sorrow. He had killed her happiness. He himself had slain any chance that she may ever love him, crushed it beneath his merciless rage as if it were nothing more than a pesky fly. He had single-handedly destroyed all he'd lived for the past months, in more ways than one.

No one to blame but himself...

How easy it would be to end it here. One flick of a knife, a few moments of patience, then the blessed darkness he'd desired for so long. He could laugh at how devastatingly simple -- and welcome! -- it would be, on this, the day he'd truly placed his soul beyond any repair, or any forgiveness, from the one woman who'd ever given him a chance.

There was a time when he would have committed the most heinous of sins without second thought. But that was when no one needed him.

Reality settled with powerful force. Christine, by his hand, now had no one on earth. No mother nor father nor siblings. No close friends. No warm, comforting fiancé who would graciously whisk her to wherever she fancied, his arms never leaving her.

Christine had no one, that was, save for a deranged masked man, who was once her angel, her teacher, her unrequited lover. Erik would yet again take on another form: her only hope.

Even had he not just ripped everything away from her, the girl was not ready to stand on her own. Though some may have overlooked it, Erik had known since he'd first seen her that this girl was constantly reaching out, begging for someone to guide her, whomever it may be.

And now it was to be him...

Beside this, if left behind with the body, the crowd would, albeit insanely, assume that Christine had committed the crime, and without anyone to fully be able to say otherwise, for no one else had witnessed the events which unfolded after the kidnapping during Don Juan Triumphant, Christine could be arrested, hanged, even.

A master of the art, Erik pushed all emotions away, far away to be dealt with when he had the time. One quick glance around his home. An entire material inventory of his life rested there: relics from Persia, his entire collection of personal compositions, his handsome piano which he'd fittingly paid a handsome price for. Everything he'd ever owned and everything he'd ever worked for, left to the mercy of a bloodthirsty, ever-approaching crowd.

He stiffened his resolve.

It's the price you must pay for breaking this child, coward, spat his conscience. You're in debt to her now. Keep her safe. Think not of yourself. Leave now, a moment later and the marauders will arrive.

"Christine," he called stonily. It almost frightened him how emotionless and controlled his tone was in comparison to his mind. "We haven't much time."

Unsurprisingly, she did not stir. She did not even acknowledge that he had spoken. From utmost respect to complete lack of recognition.

She gives you more than you deserve.

He crossed the waters and pulled Christine mechanically to her feet, as he knew she would never leave of her own accord, more content in mourning her lost lover for eternity.

"We must go."

Through the catacombs they escaped as behind them the mob discovered the vicomte's corpse, eyes and flesh cold, and Erik's residence of many years. The sight of the body was met with many shouts and shocked expressions.

"The Vicomte de Chagny?" everyone breathed. "Such a young man! Bright future! What evil has done this?"

They would see the intricate way the Punjab was tethered to the ceiling, where it could be tucked safely out of sight until a whim and a snap of his fingers summoned it. They would see the magnificent house by the lake, its heavily armored door foolishly left ajar, and they would simply stare in puzzlement and a bit of wonder as they pondered who had taken the time to build such a house five stories underground, and why. But they would not venture in just yet. Everyone was far too distracted by the vicomte.

But Erik, unaware of the reality of these events, was lost in a torrent of regret and woe as he settled Christine in a small safe-hold chamber, a fortunate foresight of his when he'd first explored the catacombs of the opera. It was nothing more than a small, unadorned room, uncomfortable and stoic. However, to reach it, one would be required to navigate a complicated system passageways known only to Erik, and then, if they reached that far without becoming lost, decode a cryptic lock Erik had designed to secure himself in case of a catastrophe such as this one.

They would stay there for the night, until the public retreated to its bed. Then they would run. But for the moment, he watched Christine lay upon the stone ground, her back facing him as she sobbed, at first, then simply stared in silence.

I'm sorry, angel...