The Phantom's opera

20 questions*

I woke up for the second time that day, feeling slightly less drowsy. I smelt something good, the scent seeming to come from another area of the house. Getting out of bad was a lot easier, as my body was compelled to find the source of the smell. After searching for a while I found Erik, in a kitchen, cooking.
"That smells amazing." I complimented genuinely.
"I was trying to find a way to wake you up and since you didn't respond so well to the first method, I decided to take on a more subtle approach." He joked. I couldn't believe what was happening. Here, the oh-so-fearsome phantom of the opera, was in front off me, making jokes and cooking. It was strange to see a murderer being so... human. Well, he technically wasn't one yet, but he'd become one. It suddenly occurred to me that Erik probably hadn't done anything yet, as it seemed like the story hadn't begun yet. Maybe they're was a way to influence him, to teach him that killing is wrong, to stop the whole story from happening. Maybe I was sent here for a reason, and that's to save Erik from himself. Maybe helping Erik will be my ticket home.

"So what do you do at the opera house?" I asked trying to make it sound like I was trying to strike up conversation as much as possible and not like I was investigating.

"It seems to me like to already know the answer." He said as he passed me a croissant.
"Oh, I do. I just want to hear it from your perspective." I responded, taking a bite of the croissant, which was amazing. However it was hard to tell if Erik was a really good cook or just the factory produced ones I've gotten from the shops were bad.
"I would say I'm just an unorthodox manager. I try to make sure the productions are perfect in every possible way, and since I can't be seen, the opera ghost gives the opera house some personality." I simply nodded and continued on enjoying my croissant. It interested me that he only thought of himself as a manager instead of an owner or like the king of it. I was almost fascinated with this man before me. He was nothing like the man portrayed in the book, movies and musical. It was crazy to think how much this man man would change just because he fell in love with some girl.

"I wanted to start your integration with, well, clothes." Erik suddenly piqued up "when you went back to sleep, I went and bought you some clothing, but looking at you now, they are probably too lose." He handed me an 19th century dress. I inspected the dress, and though I didn't have much expertise in this area if fashion, I could already tell that that the dress was going to be to big.
"That's fine, I sew. Loose clothing is an easy fix." I said, still inspecting the dress trying to figure out how to take it in and if I could do it by hand if need be.
"You sew?" He asked a little shocked

 "Why do you act so surprised." I shot back.

"I just didn't think you would be into something like that." It was a pretty valid answer since he was still going off first impressions.
"I guess I don't really look like someone who would be into it based off appearances, but as you would know appearances aren't everything." He seem to be a bit taken aback by that but I continued on "since we'll be living together now, we should get to know each other so there's a little less.... miscommunication. In my time we have little game called 20 questions. We essentially just take it in turn to ask a question until you've asked 20 questions. Oh, and you have to answer truthfully."

Erik at first scoffed at the idea of playing a game but after a little more convincing he agreed to humor me and play the game. We went back and forth. At the beginning we asked and answered basic icebreaker questions such as favorite colours and books but the further we got on the more interesting and direct as the questions went on, he was very interested in the future and I mainly just tried to reaffirm everything I knew about him just to double check, however staying away from anything that had to do with the mask. I was able to find out that he had literally just taken 9 year old Christine as his pupil and was actually coming back from his first lesson with her when he had attempted to kill me or as he said "bumped into me". We actually continued on past 20 questions because it was actually really fun. Erik and I kept making jokes during it. Some of his jokes were a bit savage but I had always been able to deal with intense Bantb and didn't take it to heart. Erik was actually quite a cool guy. It actually confused me why he was different to the way he was in the book. Maybe it was that we had something in common and that helped him make normal human conversation with me. I could actually be onto something, because before he found out I was totally alone, he was actually the phantom towards me. We had to finish the game around lunch time because Erik had some work around the opera house. He told that I could go anywhere I wanted in the house, just not to go in the lake or his room.
"Is that because you sleep in a coffin or do you actually have a valid reason why I shouldn't go in there?"
"Just don't." He sighed "I'll be back soon."