Belle

I lived in a world where outer beauty is the only kind that people see. I’d rather observe it from a rocking chair at the library back home, bearing down on an incredibly scripted work of art. Although, one more hour in here and I may forget beauty entirely.

The wheels scraped against a jagged rock, jolting the dusty carriage and thrusting me against my seat. I screamed in frustration against the dirty rag binding my mouth; the two criminal men on either side of me smirked. The taller one raised his eyebrows. 

“I want to hear what she has to say. Unbind her.” Shoving my tangled, matted hair to the side, the shorter man removed the cloth gagging me and waited as I caught my breath.

“Where are you taking me?” I demanded, trying my best at interrogation. I was bluffing, and the look they shared above my head showed me they knew it. Did they have to remind me who was the powerless one in this situation? The two of them burst into ugly laughter.

“Do you really--” The taller paused to chuckle. “--think we would tell you that?”

I didn’t answer, just stared at him and fumed silently, trying to ignore the painful scratchiness of the rope binding my hands at the wrist. 

“She’s got guts, but nothing to fuel the engine,” the taller one observed, nudging his friend. I’d never heard anyone sound so idiotic in my life.

Leaning my forehead against the window, I caught a glimpse of a single red rose against the grey-black nighttime swirl of trees; a stand-alone flower against the night. I felt a connectedness to it, so out of place in the terrible darkness when danger was everywhere and I wasn’t sure I would make it to daylight. We slowed to a stop and the rose remained in sight, framed by the window, looking surreal. 

It stayed burned beneath my eyelids even as one of the men thrust a blindfold over my eyes and I was lifted painfully off my feet.