Chapter 1

****Erik's POV****

It had been about a year since that fateful night. Oh how I remember it well, even though it was just a night out of the many of when my heart had been broken by Miss Christine Daae. It seems like it was almost yesterday that I was forced to flee the place that I called home, but since then I have returned to my lair, surprisingly when they raided my home only one thing had been taken; my music box. While I was in hiding I have become a legend with few believing in my actual existence, pathetic really I mean they all saw me, they all heard me and within a year they forget about me, though that is lucky considering that they didn't destroy my home nor do they have cops patrolling my little corner of the world.

I had just woken up for the day, it may not seem like it but I do take pride in my appearance; hence why I hide my horrible ugly face from the world, that and well my face is a bit of a safety hazard. For some reason that day I had an urge to go outside and walk around in the sunshine, so I stood there at one of my newly replaced mirror adjusting my wig and putting on my favorite white mask.

"Well that's as good as it's going to get. Guess I am off." I said as I walked from the mirror to my beloved organ, lifting the bench seat I grabbed my pouch of coins, never know might need to buy paper, ink, food, candles, mask supplies (No I didn't steal the money, you would be amazed on how much money people drop….what I have to get my money somehow, god knows I don't get my 20,000 francs a month anymore) then I headed off to my boat, which I had retrieved soon after returning to the underground. I guided the boat to an exit that lead to the surface.

It was a partly cloudy day with the sun breaking through the clouds; a fresh dusting of snow covered the streets, the sense of the past holiday cheer still hung in the air. The streets of the city were quite easy for me to just melt into; I just kept my head down and kept walking making no human contact what so ever. Though given the fact that there was ice on the ground, I should have really well paid attention to my surroundings rather than my feet that day.

After about maybe about two hours of wandering around I decided to go back to my lair. As I stated before I really should have been paying attention to my surroundings that day, for the next thing I knew I was on the ground with a young woman of about 20 years of age on top of me. First thing I did was to make sure my mask was still on, thank god it still was, second was to get out from under this woman and help her up from the ground.

"I am so sorry sir, it's just that the ice," she said as I grabbed her hand and started pull her up from the ground.

"It's ok, as long as you're not hurt," I said I messed up on that last word so it basically sounded like hurrrrrtttt. For you see this lady was gorgeous, even more gorgeous than my Christine, was that even possible? Actually as I looked into her eyes I felt some of my feelings for Christine seemed to melt away, also I could see in her eyes that she felt something to, or at least I thought I did…I have been wrong on that before.

"My name's Erik," I said, introductions are important I was going to at least tell this young lady my name…this time.

"I'm Evangeline."