Before The Opera: Prologue I knew I was saved the first time I saw her. They were on the beach, she and her father. It was night, but there was enough of a glow emanating from the full#moonthat I could study her face. She was only eight years old, yet I was certain I had never laid eyes on anything so beautiful. That night finished my period of nomadic wandering, of trying to distance myself from what I was. From that moment on, there was no Erik, only Christine. Every moment I lived, I would share with her. She would be my Angel, and I would be her knight. I crafted the Mask that night, beneath her bedroom window. I made myself beautiful, someone worthy of loving an angel. I whispered my heart to her until dawn, loving the air we shared through the open window, loving that tiny sleeping form, the ring of dark hair, the soft, sweet little-girl snores. Words of love filled me, words that could not yet take form, the kind that one cannot say, only feel. My love. My love, my love, my love. My sweet love. My Angel... Someday, someplace beautiful, she would hear those words from me.