“If I am the phantom, it is because man's hatred has made me so. If I am to be saved it is because your love redeems me.” His deathly breath brushed my cheeks. I closed my eyes, replaying possibly the most loving words that would ever come from those cold lips.

He is Erik, the Phantom of the Opera, the lonely man who hides his deformed face from the public, who falls in love with the young soprano Christine Daaé and fights bitterly for her affections, who began my journey of exploring the strange new world of classic literature and eventually changed me from inside out.

Speaking of classics, I was never a big fan. I had always liked reading, but classic literature was one of the genres that a normal teenager like me wouldn’t touch unless it’s under the label of assigned for English classes. Maybe it was because the word “classic” has lived up to the reputation of being tedious and only for smart people, or maybe it was because I had some self-awareness of my ESL English level — anyway, I did not find myself suitable for anything related to classics.

What I did find interesting, however, was musicals. To me, musicals were a form of storytelling without having to look up unfamiliar words every three sentences. The stage is like an open page, and actors act out their own interpretation of the text. I smiled at Maria’s determination as she marched across the stage in "I Have Confidence "in "The Sound of Music," felt Eponine’s pain as she cried out "On My Own" in "Les Miserables," grinned with Sophie as she found her mother’s diary and started humming "Honey Honey" in "Mamma Mia." However, it was on a school trip this February when Erik came to my life at Her Majesty’s Theater in London.

"Floating, falling, sweet intoxication / Touch me, trust me, savor each sensation…" As he sang, the night which enveloped London shattered. Erik’s music caressed me from another world.

I have a relatively long reflex — it took me days to realize that "The Phantom of the Opera" was adapted from a novel written by Gaston Leroux. I was still in London when I found out where Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Erik was originated from. I sneaked into a bookstore near our hotel on one early morning with some curiosity and a string of hope that I would come across him on one of the bookshelves. And there he was, sitting quietly under a boring wooden plate labeled “classics.” Even from a yard away, I could smell the rigid structure and overflowing literary devices. My heart dropped. After some hesitation, I grabbed "The Phantom of the Opera" by its spine.

It only took a little curiosity to be drowned in the ocean of literature. I threw myself in classic’s embrace and fell for Erik for the second time. In Gaston Leroux’s fantasy world, in the underground labyrinth, I officially met the original masked figure who haunts the depths of the Paris Opera House face-to-face, word-to-word.

Leroux’s words were licked by fire. Every single detail was described in a heart-twisting way that left me uneasy. The Angel of Music had made me his faithful follower. Step by step, the gothic Parisian tale unraveled in front of me, and I couldn’t do anything but keep turning the pages, eager to find out more. Strange words popped out and drove me to Dictionary.com occasionally, but never stopped me from reading on. I was gingerly avoiding the heartbreaking ending that I already expected; however, when I eventually got there, it was an overwhelming sadness of witnessing the end of a legend, yet a thrilling satisfaction of coming all the way here.

Following Erik, I was introduced to Scout in "To Kill A Mockingbird," entered Hassan’s life in "The Kite Runner," bid farewell to Dan and Ann in "Where the Red Fern Grows"… Somehow the phrase “classic literature” didn’t seem that distant anymore. From Erik, I started to realize that classics were categorized into classics for a reason. The simple definition on Dictionary.com — “of the first or highest quality, class, or rank” — doesn’t quite cover the whole iceberg. The richness of knowledge, the glamor of fancy old words, the joy and tears of timeless stories, are things you would not find on bookshelves filled with something like "Fifty Shades of Grey."

Erik closes himself in, yet opened me the door to a new dimension. I was a shy girl, always self-conscious about my English skills whenever I spoke and wrote. As a third culture kid, constantly moving around the world did expose me to different cultures; nevertheless, it also left me with the illusion that I was never native, knowledgeable enough to raise my voice anywhere. When it came to writing essays in English classes, I was trapped in the traditional five-paragraph structure, scared that trying new styles would violate some rules that I didn’t know. My own writing didn’t even sound genuine to myself.

“All I want is to be accepted.” Erik speaks on my behalf.

Somehow Erik, with other literature pieces, carried out my courage to break my shell through words. I started writing journals, even though I knew there’s still a long way to go to catch up with the native English speakers; I began burying myself in books, even though I knew I would encounter countless new words; I developed the habit of collecting quotes as I read, even though I knew some of them could not be more cliché. It was hard in the beginning, but once I got the momentum going, words flowed from my fingers. The red notebook where I kept my quotes earned me the first A in English. When my English teacher in Singapore read my journal entry out loud as the sample to the entire class, I proudly smiled at the invisible Erik, whose ghostly tone echoed in my mind, “If I am to be saved, it is because your love redeems me.”

Peeking through the crack on the thick wall of the Paris Opera House, I discovered a palace with sophisticated machinery and forgotten legends; flipping through the pages of the thick books called classics, I found a paradise where stories, songs, words, and lyrics live forever. Erik has transformed me from a musical nerd to a bookworm and led me to the world of literature, where I could freely express myself. Now, if you ever find me walking down the street holding some ancient tales in my arms, don’t judge. The Phantom has crept up on me. I have become his phan.

#punintended