Christine often heard her father's voice in her dreams. So close that she swore she could touch him, yet never close enough to fill the void he left in her heart.

She was lucky for her position as a ballerina in the Opera Garnier. It gave her work, somewhere to live, and a sense of purpose, but there was always something missing. When she actually focused in classes, she was amongst the best dancers there. But that was rare, and so often her mind wandered to the point where Madame Giry wondered if she was safe to be in pointe shoes.

She cried herself to sleep at night, but she never knew why. Of course, she felt quite unfulfilled and out of place, but there was something bigger. She was alone. Breathtakingly, heartbreakingly alone. And it was something that, someday, would surely break her spirit.

She could never sleep anymore. Of course, she could, but she knew that she would only wake up in tears from a nightmare that she could never remember. She always found it easier to read, write, and pass the time somehow in her crushing solitude.

Her dormitory in the opera was small, just enough room for her dressing table, her bed, and her wardrobe. On the furthest wall from the door, there hung an ornate mirror that took most of the whole wall. It was there when she arrived, and she did not have the time nor the energy to take it down. So there it stood, serving as a constant reminder of how alone she was in the world.

These last few weeks had been particularly hard for Christine. Her depression crashed torrents of object sadness into her mind, enough to threaten her eyes with tears at all hours of the day. In response, she threw herself desperately into her dance studies, seeing mild improvement in that area of her life. Madame Giry was pleased, but her legs burned, her feet suffered, and her heart remained empty. But, at least she felt something now, other than emptiness. She could not force herself to eat, and as the weeks passed, she shrunk gradually, until she forced herself to eat small amounts so that she stopped feeling bone. She was dying, of what she did not know, but she was dying.

Today. Today the ballet corps started to learn the ballet for the opera's newest addition, Faust. It was long, and difficult, but under Madame Giry's strict instruction and deft use of a cane, the girls were able to do it decent justice. Christine stayed in the corner of the class, staying silent and introspective while the other girls giggled and talked amongst themselves as they stretched. She wished she could talk to them, but she knew that she was an outsider. Up until a few weeks ago, she was the worst student of the class, an utter embarrassment. Half the time Madame Giry yelled at her about her disappointing lack of flexibility, and the other half of the time she was on the floor after falling. She wished she could find family in this small corner of the world, but there was no one. The only time Madame Giry spoke to her now was for small corrections, since she actually forced herself to focus. But at least she was not being yelled at anymore.

Tonight. Another night without sleep, another day without feeling. After writing for God knows how long and thinking about God knows what, she decided that if she spent another second in this room, she would most surely die. She thought about going to the stage, but it felt too open, too exposed. The thought for a moment before she decided on the roof, for maybe the stars would give her a sense of reason.

It was fall in Paris. Not late enough in the year for snow, but enough for it to be bitterly, deathly cold. Christine was aware of this fact as soon as she was outside, but the painful chill she got from the air was enough to keep her awake, and she enjoyed that. It took her some effort to sit on the base of the statue of Apollo's Lyre, but she managed it. She looked up to the stars, hoping to receive guidance, but they only served to remind her of how alone she was. In an effort not to cry, for she always wept, she sang to herself. The night air stung her vocal chords and made her shiver with the cold, but she sang, her voice drifting into the night and, for once, making her feel a fraction more alive.

If he spent another second in this house, he was surely going to die. Erik had holed himself inside his underground dwelling for days staring at the same pages of his manuscript, then getting up and pacing for a time, then eventually sitting back down at his piano. I need fresh air, he thought to himself, urging himself to get up. He checked the time, pleased to see that it was the middle of the night, and decided that he was to go to the roof. He concluded that no one would be there, on a night as cold as this.

A small passageway of his own making led the way to the roof, and with each step the air around him grew colder and colder. As soon as he opened the entrance from his passageway to the roof, he froze, standing completely still as he realized he was not alone.

Who was that voice? Normally, upon sensing the mere inkling of another human being, he would have turned and ran, but it seemed as if an invisible force froze him to the spot. And that force was her voice. It was absolutely extraordinary, breathtakingly beautiful, yet with one fatal flaw: it was miserably untrained. This voice could take the world by storm, Erik concluded, sighing with wonder as he continued to listen.

He had to find out where this voice was coming from. As if nothing else mattered anymore, he had to know. And so, as silent as a lion hunt, he prowled further onto the roof.