My dreams were getting worse.

Every night, I was thrown wildly into another world. Every night it was the same. I stood alone, in a vast expanse of darkness. There was nothing there. There never was. There was no ugliness, but no beauty; no sadness, but no happiness; no despair, but no hope. I could not see. I could not smell. I could not feel.

But I could hear.

In this world of darkness that I visited in my dreams… there was a voice.

I was haunted by this voice. What the world lacked in beauty, that voice made up for a hundred times over. It held within its enchanting tones both sadness and happiness, both despair and hope. It soothed my fears, and at the same time it fed them with a fire that would not be doused.

Even in my waking moments, I was haunted by the voice.

His voice.

I had never seen the source of such a sound, but I knew that it could be no other. Who else but he could make such music – a perfect combination of the triumph of heaven and the malice of hell?

I loved it, and yet I could not stand it. I drowned in it, gasping for air and unable to breathe, and at the same time I lusted for more. I loathed it, but I knew I could not live without it. That voice was the very air I breathed, the food I ate, the blood running through my veins, the―

Oh. Heh. Sorry. I guess I'm going a little overboard. You get the picture.

Right. Introductions. Okay.

My name is Alex Carter. Well, it's actually Alexandria, but no one needs to know that.

I'm your average teenage phan. There's not really anything that special about me. I'm kind of a nerd, I love POTO (whoever doesn't seriously needs help), and other than that there's not much to say. I don't have too many friends. I don't really like people all that much.

Anyway, other than my creepy dreams… which I can't decide whether I like them or not… I'm a pretty normal kid. Just a little obsessed. Heh. Just a little.

"Alex! Get down here!"

Oh, crap.

Of all the days to be late for school…

"I'm coming, Mom!" I yelled, stumbling out of bed and across the room. "Just give me a minute!" I could hear her grumbling to my father downstairs about me never being up on time, but I knew she wouldn't come down on me too hard for it. She never did. She woke up late all the time, too.

I yanked on a pair of jeans and a clean shirt, already hurrying out of my room. I almost tripped down the stairs trying to pull my shoes on, and then I remembered that I had to go all the way back up and get my backpack. Then I came downstairs again, and then I remembered I had to go back up and get my wallet and my keys.

My mother didn't even look up when I came dashing into the kitchen. She just held out a plate in my direction. I grabbed a piece of toast and stuffed it in my mouth while I pulled on a jacket.

"See you later, Alex," my sister said with a lazy yawn. She was still in her pajamas, just to rub in the fact that she didn't have to go to school for another hour. Grr. Jill was two years younger than me and her school didn't start until nine.

"Bye," I called over my shoulder, and then I was out the door.

The bus driver was so used to my tardiness that she didn't even make a smart comment. I hurried up the steps and collapsed in my seat, breathing heavily.

"Morning," Jenny said from the seat beside mine. She was leaning against the back of the bus with a book in her lap, as always. She, of course, was dressed in matching clothes and had perfectly combed hair. She always woke up at exactly the right time in the mornings, unlike me.

"What's the book today?" I asked, yawning tiredly.

Jenny held it up without taking her eyes away from the page. I bent down to look at the cover and smiled to myself. "Phantom of the Opera," I said with an appreciative nod. "Good."

"Glad I have your approval," she said distractedly, turning the page.

I rolled my eyes at her.

We got off the bus, Jenny still with her nose in the book, and met up with Paul, my other best friend. He was probably the nicest person I knew. I used to have a crush on him, but I gave it up the day I pledged all my love to Erik, the Phantom. (Pathetic, I know.)

I wouldn't have gone out with him anyway. Jenny is completely head over heels for him, and me going out with him would make her feel awful. I'm a sap like that. If one of my best friends wants something, I'll give up what I want to let them have it. A few people have told me that's very selfless and admirable. Most just tell me it's dumb.

Whatever. The point is, I love the Phantom and Jenny loves Paul, and I'm not sure who Paul loves. Got that? Good.

Jenny gave Paul a distracted nod as he fell into step beside us. Even her extreme crush for him couldn't tear her away from Phantom of the Opera. I grinned. That was a fact that made me proud. Watching others appreciate POTO always made me proud.

"So," Paul said conversationally, "you guys remember your tickets?"

"Damn straight," Jenny said without looking up. "Do you really think we'd forget tickets to see Phantom of the Opera? What kind of phans would we be?"

"I can't believe the school is actually being awesome and sending us to see Phantom of the Opera," I said with a laugh. "I mean, usually it's Fernbank or some science center, but this – this is beyond cool. And they're taking us to the Fox, too!"

"Yeah, well, we've been through enough crappy field trips that they owed us a nice one," Paul said with a shrug.

I sighed happily. "I had the Phantom dream again."

"Oh, is that why you were late?" Jenny asked, glancing up at me.

Paul pretended to be shocked. "You actually stopped reading for a second!"

"Yeah, well, it's at the part where Raoul shoots Erik, and I need a moment to fume at the stupidity of fops worldwide," she said with a growl. "You don't shoot the Phantom! How dumb can you get?"

"He is a fop," I reminded her.

She mumbled something under her breath – I don't know what, but it sounded deliciously violent – and went back to the book. Paul rolled his eyes slightly and I laughed at the look on his face.

Our English class had just read Phantom of the Opera, and our teacher had decided to take us on a field trip – the first, and only, field trip we'd had all year. They were taking us to the Fox Theater to see the musical. They broke the news to us on my birthday. I had never gotten a better present.

Seriously, though, if they didn't choose someone with a really good voice to play the Phantom… well, I'd be mad. If they didn't do him justice, I was going to have a fit. Gerard Butler did all right, but even he was a little rusty at times…

(A/N: GB fans, don't kill me! It's true, he did a great job with few exceptions, but when you think about it, even he couldn't really portray the Phantom's voice. No real person can, actor or not. That's what makes him the Phantom, and that's why we love him!)

"Come on," Paul said, taking us both by the arm and pulling us towards one of the buses. "We'll be late."

"Nothing new for Alex," Jenny muttered, trying to turn the page with the arm he was holding.

I stuck my tongue out at her, but I didn't have a comeback. What she said was the truth, after all, I had to admit it. I always managed to be late for everything.

If there was one thing I would absolutely not miss a minute of, though, it would be this show.

I followed my friends onto the bus and we sat down together, Jenny and me across from one another, Paul behind me. We didn't speak as the bus started up. This felt like a moment to bask in the awesomeness of what we were going to do.

I was preparing myself for the best day in a very long time. Jenny still had her nose in her book, but I could tell from the excited look on her face that she was trying to hold back her own excitement.

We pulled up at the theater and got out. People were turning to look at us as we strode in. I knew what they felt like – I always hated going somewhere sophisticated and having a group of schoolchildren show up to ruin it. Everyone hates schoolkids, and even though we were more mature than the six-year-olds you see at the zoo in a big group with matching t-shirts (A/N: shudder), we were still schoolkids.

We filed inside. Some of the girls were almost as excited as me and Jenny – novice phans, pretty dedicated to the Phantom but not as much as me or Jenny. Paul was dedicated to the story, not the Phantom, but if he was a girl, he'd be just as gushy as we were.

We went inside. I saw the usher groan silently at the sight of a huge group of teenage kids. "May I help you?" he said weakly to Mrs. Lawson, our English teacher, who was accompanying us.

"Yes, we need to find our seats, please," she said, offering him her ticket. "They are all right around one another, so you won't have to point them all out."

The man looked very relieved. He found her seat and pointed it out to her. We all followed her and located our seats. I was supposed to sit between Jodie and Katie, two girls who couldn't stand me, my friends, or Phantom of the Opera.

I stood over my seat, scowling, as they came over. It was just my luck. Jenny and Paul got to seat on either side of Sabrina, but I had to sit with these two. Wonderful.

I could tell they were thinking the same thing I was. I glanced over at Jenny, seeking some sympathy, and managed to catch Sabrina's eye. I raised my eyebrows and she immediately nodded, looking relieved. I climbed over the back of my seat, ignoring the look of disapproval I got from the usher, and we quickly swapped tickets. I fought past the rest of our class and plunked down between Jenny and Paul with a sigh of relief.

Jenny looked slightly disappointed. I knew why.

"Jenny," I said to her, "you wanna switch seats with me? You're taller, and I can't see over the head of this guy in front of me."

A grin spread over her face, and she quickly agreed. We switched spots and settled down again. She would take any opporunity to sit next to Paul. I sat down in her seat and propped my chin on my hand, watching the usher. He was actually kind of cute…

No, I reminded myself. You're here to see the Phantom, not ogle over some random usher.

Meanwhile, Jenny was making herself comfortable next to Paul. She loved the Phantom almost as much as I did, but she didn't have any qualms about also having a crush on our best friend. I don't think he even noticed. Guys are like that sometimes. Okay, a lot of the time. (A/N: Yes, I am a girl.)

The lights darkened all of a sudden. My thoughts immediately deserted the usher, Jenny, Paul, and everything else in the world besides the wonderful musical we were going to see.

(A/N: For those of you who don't know the Fox, it's really pretty inside. I just went and saw Rent there. It's themed kind of like a castle, with turrets on either side and balconies on either side of the stage. There's a ceiling with a night sky, stars and all, kind of like a planetarium. It's really pretty in the dark. Anyway, back to the story.)

I sat there in a daze as the show went on. I mouthed the words to all of the songs and even started humming at one point, but Jenny elbowed me and I shut up. I always hated people who hummed.

Still, the songs were so… addicting…

I watched all the songs go by, loving every minute of it, storing it away in my mind so I would remember it forever and ever… and ever… and ever… sigh…

Suddenly my eye caught on something.

It looked like a shadow, possibly of a person, and it was on the right turret of the theater.

My first impulse was to look away. Of course there would be shadows, there were people working the spotlights and behind the scenes and everything. I looked back at the stage. But something about that shadow kept bugging me, so I looked back up.

It was still there, but it had moved slightly. I studied it for a minute, wondering what it could be.

It looked human, from the general shape and everything. As I watched it, I saw it move again, and I kept an eye on it while turning part of my attention back to the stage. I had missed a minute of the "All I Ask of You" scene, but I always hated that part anyway, and only watched it so I could throw popcorn or insults at the fop. In the Fox, I could do neither, so I looked back up at the shadow.

(A/N: Okay, I've never seen the musical sob, so I don't know if the songs are the same as in the movie. I know, I'm a horrible phan, not to have seen it. Anyway, I'm going to treat it as though the songs are the same as in the ALW movie. Just in case I'm wrong, which I probably am, can someone who's seen the musical tell me? Thanks, guys! Sorry if I'm screwing this up! Now, back to the story. She had seen the shadow…)

It had moved so that the slightest bit of light shone on it. I could tell for sure that it was human, and I thought I saw a glimpse of a face, but I couldn't be sure what it looked like from so far away. The figure moved and receded into the shadows again, but my curiousity had spiked. Who was this person and why were they roaming around the Fox?

I tried to put it out of my mind and turned back to the stage.

The next time I looked, the shadow was gone.

There, you see? I told myself. Nothing to worry about. Probably just a stage hand or something. I turned back and watched the Masquerade song, one of my favorites.

There it was again! That damn shadow, standing on the other turret this time.

I squinted. If I looked hard enough, I could clearly see that it was a face, a body, a person. I don't know what else it could have been, but still, now I could see it close enough to be sure. It looked like a man, but again, from that distance I wasn't positive.

The next few songs passed like that, with the shadow standing up there on the turret just watching like the rest of us. I watched it with one eye and the Wandering Child song with the other.

"Don Juan" distracted me enough that I forgot the shadow for a few minutes. I watched, totally absorbed in the music and the sight before me, and winced along with everyone else when Christine tore Erik's mask right off his face. In the movie, the audience gasped in horror, and now we imitated that gasp, even though we all knew what had been coming and weren't so shocked.

If I hadn't known the shadow was there, I never would have caught what it did next. It jumped up and stood on the edge of the turret. This made me turn my eyes away from the stage – no sane person would do that! It was dangerous!

Without the slightest sign of hesitation, the figure scuttled up over the top of the archway that was the ceiling of the stage, and then, just when I was wondering why no one else was noticing it, the dark shadow suddenly vanished into thin air.

I couldn't help but gasp slightly. Jenny noticed, but she thought it was just due to the musical. It was pretty intense, after all. But I had stopped paying it any attention.

What if the man up there had fallen? What if he had fallen behind the stage and was lying there on the ground, bleeding and dying and unable to call for help? What if he was lying there and no one knew but me? The thoughts kept passing through my head, getting worse and worse. What if… what if… what if I ignored what I had seen, and he died?

"Crap," I muttered, but nobody heard me over the singing coming from the stage.

I watched the end of the play with mixed feelings. I was elated to be able to see the musical, finally, and was enjoying it, but at the same time I was worried about that shadow, worried that something might have happened and I was the only one who could do anything about it.

I finally made up my mind. I would never be able to live with myself if I didn't at least go check and see if everything was all right. I'd been to the Fox before and knew my way around, at least enough to try and get behind the stage. If I didn't find anything, well, at least I'd tried.

The instant the show ended, I got out of my seat and turned to leave.

"Where are you going?" Jenny called over the deafening applause.

"Bathroom," I yelled back. "I'm gonna try and beat the crowd."

She nodded in understanding. The Fox always has lines longer than those at Six Flags just to get into the bathrooms. My story was a believable one, and it would buy me time.

I slipped out of the auditorium and went to go and find that shadow of mine.