I own nothing! I don't own The Phantom of the Opera or any of the Characters therein!

Sarah sat up in the dead of the night in her classroom turned bedroom and workspace. She looked at her fingers and sniffed to find that she had the faintest smell of her Erik, her phantom, still on the fingers that she had used to touch him.

"It was real," she murmured in shock. "Oh my phantoms, it was real! I touched him!"

She squealed in excitement before hearing a large bump in the night. She flinched, not usually superstitious, but this felt different. She had developed a sixth warning sense over the years, one that would normally have only come with motherhood. The noise continued, and she began listening around for the source.

"That little bitch," she heard, and she gasped quietly in horror as she recognized the voice. How had she forgotten one?! "She may have killed all the others, but I'm still going to kick her sorry posterior when I find where she's hiding. Now, we know it's around here on the bottom floor here somewhere…"

"Hey, what about this room? my little brother says that nobody ever goes into there," a girl said, and Sarah nearly face-palmed at her stupidity for leaving out some of the siblings of those that she killed.

"It's locked," he hissed. "Where's the lock-pick?"

Sarah swallowed as she pulled out a knife, her heart clenching at the fact that she would have to kill two more people within five minutes of each other. however, right as she heard the lock be picked, Erik had decided to make an appearance beside her. he motioned for her to hide, ignoring her lair, and she went to hide inside the adjoining classroom.

"What was that?" the girl jumped.

"Screw it! let's just find out just what this phantom… is… oh shit," he murmured as he saw the phantom of the Opera. "The-the phantom's a-a-!"

The two were about to scream when Erik lunged out with a Punjab lasso. He grabbed the boy and snapped his neck immediately. But as he reached for the girl, she was about to scream when he, too, heard a sound in the night. Quickly putting his hand over her mouth, he listened intently and began to survey his surroundings.

"Phantasma?" he murmured, and Sarah crawled out into her lair. "Good, you are safe."

The girl's eyes widened before he snapped her neck as well. Sarah looked away and began crying silently for reasons that he could not fathom. For someone who had killed more people in a seven-year span than he had, she most certainly had a problem stomaching her job. He then recalled her words of why she had remained hidden. It was no wonder she was so widely hated like he was, she played his role so well that people had the audacity to try to steal into her hideout in the middle of the night!

"Thank you," she murmured as her voice cracked. "It never gets easier."

"No, it doesn't," he said softly. "Will you take off your mask?"

"I will if you will," she countered, and he glared at her. "Hey, I can't have them seeing my face."

"I shall chase them out," he said calmly before turning away. "I shall knock the tune of Don Juan triumphant when I return."

She nodded and let him leave, the door shutting behind him and locking. She was glad he'd taken the bodies as his own two kills – she couldn't stomach much more of this job, it was spreading her too thin, she was breaking from isolation and murdering. Sobbing began to overtake her as she realized just how much of a destroyed monster she was – raped at twelve, a cold-blooded murderer ever since, almost all of them capitol murders, and worse yet she hadn't even begun to try to assimilate or move off into society in a different country like France yet.

She opened the door as he returned, and he wasn't at all surprised to find her crying. After all, she was a woman playing his role and killing as many people in seven years that he had in more than twelve, which was saying something. Forever and a day had passed from what he could see as he now looked over her home with interest, but saying nothing about there being no lights of any kind inside.

"Sorry," she hiccupped as she flicked a switch of some sort, and he cringed and closed his eyes as a flood of light hit him.

"Such technology," he marveled. "Light has been harnessed so well… and… what is that?"

"Huh? Oh, my laptop," she said looking at it with him. "It's like a file folder for a lot of different things, like artwork and writings and music-stuff, and can sound like instruments, and do all sorts of stuff you want it to. but I've usually been using it for my revenge plans up until now…"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm sick of killing, I want to make something instead of destroy it," she sobbed as she curled up onto the floor. "I've been alone for too long! You were the first person I've ever touched in seven years aside from luring my two brothers to me and killing a mass of people! The last person that I touched without ill intentions towards was my friend who died trying to save me!"

Erik simply stood and stared at her in shock as she spilled both her guts and her story out to him in ragged breaths and sobs. Humiliation was something he normally loved, but this young girl, this young nineteen-year-old girl, who couldn't have been much older than Christine, had been through just as much in seven years as he had been in his whole life.

"I know how you feel," he said softly at long last. "I've been isolated ever since Madame Giry saved me from a gypsy caravan."

"I know," she rasped. "You're history for us, remember?"

"Yes, I recall," he said nodding. "Is there a piano nearby?"

"Choir room," she nodded standing up. "It's across the school, but I've been trying to get an electrical keyboard in here."

"They have pianos with electricity?" Erik asked shocked, and she shook her head.

"I keep forgetting that you're from a different time and have no idea what I'm talking about. Electric pianos are compact ones that use electricity and a mass of technology to create the music instead of wood and strings. Even I don't fully understand them except for the fact that I can get different sounds from them when I want if I've pressed the right buttons."

"Buttons with technology?"

"You'll see," she muttered. "Just watch."

He shut the door behind him and followed her confused, albeit very impatiently, as she led him towards the choir room. he could hear her humming out a soft tune raggedly as she walked. There was but one line that he caught.

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