You Deceived Me

PROLOGUE

It was night, the time that Erik always went out. He didn't want anybody or talk to anybody. They'd only ask about the mask and what lie behind it, a monster. Erik jumped up onto the balcony, as quietly as he could, hoping not to wake his pray. I wonder what she'd think of me, I'm not only a murderer but now a kidnapper!! How pleasant...Erik thought. I wonder if she'll look anything like her mother. He walked into the lightly painted room and up to the crib. Surely I ought to be sent to hell when I die now. Erik clenched his teeth together, his heart shattered into even smaller pieces, his hands, which were now tightly knotted up in fists trembled. Erik's whole body shook with unbearable pain. No, no, no... not those eyes...not that look. She is her mother's daughter.

Erik put his gloved hands out and carefully took Christine's baby girl into his arms. He couldn't tear his gaze away from those beautiful, big, innocent, chestnut eyes. They were Christine's eyes. The eighteen month old girl even had little brown curls on top of her head. She was so incredibly precious. Erik's eyes filled with warm tears, and soon his white mask that covered the right side of his face was dripping with salt water, along with the other side of his face. It hurt so much, it pained him to know that Christine and Roaul were the proud parents of this healthy, heavenly girl. Erik didn't even know what he was about to say until he heard  the musical tune escape his lips.

"Say you'll share with me one love, one lifetime...

Masquerade paper faces on parade....

There won't be a day that I don't think of you..

Christine I love you." Erik felt the memories all collide together, everything came rushing back to him in a moment as he looked into the little girl's big, wide eyes. I hate you, I will never treat you with anything but cold, and bitter disgust. Your one of the other reason Christine can't come back to me. You are an obstacle..that I must rid from her and take upon myself. Wait, take upon himself? He didn't want some little girl holding him back...!! But he needed her to be away from this place.

Madame Giry!! Of course she wouldn't mind taken on such a small task for him. She had always helped him in the past...but he hadn't seen her in months. Many months. Perhaps a year? Without thinking anymore of such nonsense, Erik jumped off the balcony which was just feet from the ground and hurried blocks down. To where he hoped the good lady still lived with her daughter.

"Monsieur Erik, what a...surprise!! What are you doing here-" Madame Giry asked, but then her eyes fell onto the baby that Erik held tightly and protectively in his arms. Did she think it was his? Erik shoved the baby into her arms and started to walk back down the hall when..

"Monsieur, what is her name?" Madame Giry called.

"Um, her name is..." Erik hadn't thought of that before." It's 'Alaina', meaning 'fair one'. For, Madame Giry, is she not as lovely as a rose?"

"Quite. If I'm right she is even far more beautiful than the rose you gave her mother, all those years ago." She knew!! Madame Giry knew, but how? 

"Yes, indeed." Erik replied firmly. Turning around for the first time.

"Why, Erik?"

"I had to!!"

"No,no you didn't..."

Erik stormed up to the woman now. And looked at her with dark eyes, eyes that Madame Giry had known forever it seemed.

"Just keep her. Deal with her. If though, she is a burden and you get too old to handle her then, on her seventeenth birthday I will tale her, for you. But until then I sha'll not hear, or even see, the child."

Madame Giry nodded and sighed. When will he ever learn? And with that he glanced at the child and she thought she saw....something...something like love in his eyes, but only for a second and once more they turned cold. Like the shadows he had stowed away in for too long.

Would he ever find a way to bear the unbearable? He has been, and for too long...too long. He is broken and shattered. Erik is...alone. And with those thoughts, Madame Giry watched Erik leave with a dramatic swoosh of his cape.

It's not his face, it's his soul where the true distortion lies...if only people knew, like I know, what he's seen, heard, felt and been through..and then the lady went inside her apartment to show her daughter their newest visitor. I wonder if he will come back in seventeen years?