DON JUAN
UNBOUND:
The Opera Phantom's
own story
by Erik,
the Opera Ghost
translated and edited
by Mark P. Steele
Chapter 1:
The Wolf's Howl
©2002 Mark P. Steele and Eye-n-Apple Productions
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I am Erik Lysarus. For years I have gone by the identity of the Opera Ghost, hiding behind masks of illusion and deception, moving in the shadows and behind the backdrops of a world where all is insubstantial and changing, where the bright colors and lights of sharp edged reality soon give way to the diffuse, indistinct images of deceit. But at my heart is music -- the pure, inspiring sounds that ease the souls of men and women alike.
I live in the depths of the underworld, where the rivers of Leukotia meet and combine to form a stagnant pool of filth -- while those above, perfumed and garbed in colors only fit for the Mardi Gras celebration, turn up their noses at the merest hint of the world which they little suspect lies so near beneath their feet. Lit by the flames of innumerable torches and furnaces, my world sparkles and shines with its own vitality, drawing its strength not from the posturings of the world above, but from the solid bedrock beneath. Without this, without that solid strength and support which my dominion rests upon, the entire edifice of "civilized" humanity would soon come tumbling into the depths which it tries so vainly to ignore...
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