Heartless - A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast (Completed)

7: Crew

7

Crew

            My head doesn't hurt.  My eyes flutter open, blink a few times, stare at the muddy ceiling and realize that I can breathe without my head caving in.  I can think without pain.

            And then everything else slowly comes to my attention.  I'm lying on something soft.  Comfortable.  A bed.  The scratches on my arms are bandaged, the wound on my head is too.  And I'm still in the tunnels.

            But...how?

            I'm in a cave similar to the various ones I'd encountered over the last day, or however long I've been down here.  Only this tunnel has light.  It takes me a few seconds to register where it's coming from – a candle on a table-like structure on the other side of the room.  I sit up.  The candle flickers, sending shimmering shadows across the walls. 

I glance around.  I don't see an exit, only a large curtain hanging over what I'm assuming must be the only one.  There's a table and a candle and...things.  That's the only way I can think to describe it.  Things, clutter, everywhere.  I see piles of fabric which must be clothing littering the table, stools, and floor.  I see bowls, I see unlit candles, and random things that sparkle in the light.  Piles of silvery jewelry and dog tags lie precariously against the rock walls, glistening in the dim candlelight.  Shoes, books, utensils, discarded weapons lounge in heaps.  This cave is filled with knick-knacks and me.

And I realize, suddenly, someone else.

My heart jumps into my throat as I make out the figure, the eyes, of someone – something – in the corner by the curtain.  It's dark, the candlelight doesn't quite reach that side of the room, so whoever it is sits in the shadows comfortably unknown.  But they realize I'm looking at them and they straighten up a bit.  There's a pause.

"Who are you?" I venture.

The figure remains sitting, remains silent.

"Are you a monster?" I ask, realizing as the words come out that they might not be the best choice.

The figure is so still I begin to wonder if it's even alive.  I cock my head, trying to get a better view, but no matter how hard I look there's still no light.

"Can you talk?" I ask, realizing that it's very likely monsters don't speak our language.  Or even understand it.  Suddenly I realize that as much time as we spend studying and hunting these monsters, we don't even know if we could hold a conversation.  And that sends something ugly and icky squirming in my gut.  Like that shouldn't be the case.  Not at all.

I relax a little, assuming that whatever this figure is, it probably isn't going to hurt me or it would've done so already.  But I don't lie back down or look away.  My throat feels dry and I cough.

Suddenly the figure moves and a screeching noise careens its way across the room and I  nearly jump from my bed before I see that it's only a bowl skidding across the ground to the foot of my bed.  I lean over and inspect it.

Water.

I scoop the bowl into my hands, not realizing how thirsty I am until all the water is gone.  The figure hasn't moved and I continue watching it as I place the bowl back on the floor.

"Thank you."

This person is starting to scare me less and less as I sit here and it remains in its place.  I keep reminding myself that it would've killed me ages ago if that was really its intent.  I must be at least somewhat safe.  "Did you save me?" I ask, trying to piece together the last fragments of my life before everything shut off.  "From that monster?  The one that was chasing me."

            I think I see an almost imperceptive shake of its head, but two seconds later I'm uncertain.  I narrow my eyes.  "Did you find me?"

            The head shake is real this time.  The figure is saying no.

            I stare, trying to see past the dim into its eyes.  Eyes can tell me things.  Eyes will tell me if it's lying.  Eyes will tell me whether this is a person, or a monster.

            "It was you."  There's no sound in the room except for my breathing.  "Why would you scare me like that if you were going to help me?" I try not to make my voice sound so angry, but it bubbles through.  "You scared the hell out of me.  Were you trying to do that?"

            And suddenly I feel it.  The tension in the room snapping in two like I'd snipped it with a pair of scissors.  The figure stands and my heart stops beating.  I wish I could pull the words back and tuck them inside of me, never to be voiced.

            It takes a step forward, and another, and slowly the light splashes against an arm, a leg, a cloak.  And the porcelain face of the beautiful girl I'd seen in the tunnels.

            Dirty.

            Smudged.

            Painted.

            Cracked.

            There are holes were eyes should be and the mouth is a permanent smile.  There's a fracture running up the side of the cheek, splitting the face in two like someone glued it back together.  A mask.

            She stalks slowly across the room, her yellow eyes glinting at me from beneath the porcelain mask and as she approaches I see something familiar in her hand.

            The rose.  The one I'd taken.  It lies in her pale, snow white hands, clenched brokenly between fingers, choked so hard that the stem snaps in two and the petals begin to fall.  Fingernails are stained with something dark and gooey, black blood gushes from the thorn's inflicted wounds, dripping to the dirt below.

            "You stole my rose," she hisses.

            My limbs won't move, my body is paralyzed.

            She's next to my bed now, close enough to touch.  I can't take my eyes away from her yellow ones, burning me with fury.  She leans down and her mouth is next to my ear.  "And no one steals from me."  She lets the rose fall to the ground and before I can track her steps she's gone, the curtain across the room swaying back and forth.

            As my heartbeat slows down, I watch the blood from her hand seep across the rose petals, staining them black.