The Curse Upon the Opera

Diary Entry I - The Phantom of the Past

"Dear diary,

life, it goes by so quickly, for me too quick. I am but sixteen years old yet I fear I might be taken by death's cold embrace. It scares me. I have not made peace with it, I don't know how I will. I am saddened to inform, my dear diary, that my beloved father has passed on. 

For a long part of my childhood I would walk between those stone cold graves, sometimes catching the gaze of the lifeless angels. Not alive, yet always watching. My mother died when I was young, but I remember her well. She was always troubled, but I knew she loved me. She died a seemingly peaceful death, surrounded by her loved ones, yet I could tell she was troubled even then. It's been some time since that, I've grown and pulled myself together, another hit was enough to get me where I was, however.

As I'm writing this I'm sitting on the bench by my father's grave, "Raoul de Chagny, loving husband and father", he was. He tried his best to keep our spirits up, yet when my mother passed I could see the same expression as she had from then on. A year before his passing he brought a music box back, a monkey playing cymbals, dressed in some oriental attire. It was rather strange yet I was fascinated, my father wasn't pleased to see my enthusiasm, however. 

Dear diary, moving forward it's only me and my brother, Gustave. He may be twenty years old yet he's still a kid to me, he never learned how to be independent, like a bird in a cage they kept him. An exquisite baritone, a child prodigy. I was always jealous of how much love he got, but I understood it. I wasn't born a prodigy, nor was I talented at anything really. I tried singing, they shut me down, it was almost like only he was allowed to sing. I still don't understand, but I know they probably did it for my good, even if it might've hurt, I don't know anymore.

I need to uncover what has been hidden from me. I don't want to live the lies anymore, my parents are dead and I need to make peace with that somehow. It may be selfish, I know, but I need to move on. Tomorrow I shall go into the ruins of the old "Opera Populaire", both mother and father have history there. Could it be something related to the infamous Phantom of the Opera? Was it just a hoax or was there more to it? I will write an update tomorrow night."

That's all she wrote.