Pentimento: a dystopian Beauty and the Beast (21 page)

Iris had a fraction of a second to seize the opportunity. Fueled by her frustration, she dashed toward the door and knocked the girl to the floor. It was an unexpectedly hard hit. The girl fell, holding her head.

For a tiny second, Iris thought she'd pull her veil and see her face. It didn't sound like a good idea. Someone was going to come after Iris soon and she had to run.

Iris ran in the hallway with the stars beneath her feet. She ran faster than she thought she could. No one had come after her yet, but she knew it was inevitable. She didn't even know where to go, and what to do. The one thing that dawned on her was yelling Zoe's name.

"Zoe! Where are you? It's Iris. Please tell me you're alive!"

The white walls were misleading and suffocating. Iris realized her only guide were the stars. Men had been guided by stars all their lives, staring up at them and learning from them. Iris had them right beneath her feet. This must have been how Gods felt.

Finally, Iris came around to a huge opening to a newer place. There were no doors and no guards. Only a breathtaking scene like she had never imagined. She saw a vast green area with bending palm trees, swinging to the golden rays of a not-so-distant sun. She wasn't sure it was the same sun she saw on Earth. This one splayed the right amount of light and heat in a constant beam, never too warm or weak. The sky was pinkish, and void of stars. Rainbows were a dime a dozen. Birds on the tree sang actual songs, like humans did. Everything seemed to revolve around a certain spot: a waterfall.

What kind of ship was this, with a whole world inside it?

Iris ran down the slope toward this magnificent scene. She felt like a child again, running into her papa’s arms. The feeling was so euphoric, that something inside her told her this wasn't real. It just couldn't be.

On her way down the slope, she saw there were way too many girls gathered down by the waterfall. They were swimming, singing, and laughing. And they were definitely human.

"Hey!" Iris shouted, walking barefoot on the wet grass. "Someone help me!"

The girls didn't pay attention to Iris. Their own content seemed to blind them from seeing the Bride escaping her chamber. Their movements were minimal, and they seemed hypnotized.

It dawned on Iris that these girls must have also been Brides. She'd found them. Finally.

As she ran, she was eager to see their faces. She'd recognize one or two for sure. Would she see Eva? Zoe, maybe? But she could only see their backs, as they sang and played happily in the water.

"Hey! Can't you hear me?" It was if she were invisible. "Did anyone see a girl named Zoe?"

Iris was only strides away from them, when her legs brought her to a stop. She thought one of the girls glanced at her briefly, then turned around. But it wasn't possible because this girl looked...

Iris lowered her head and stared at the grass. She didn't know why she did that, but she knew she was in for something horrible. Did she really see that? Was the girl's face real?

"I'm here Iris," a voice told her. It was calm, sad; and torn into pieces. So much so, she didn't recognize it was Zoe's in the beginning.

"Zoe?" Iris wondered, her head still lowered. "Is that you?"

"It's me, Iris. You have no idea what it means to me, you coming here for me."

"But Zoe," Iris was trembling. The girl’s face she’d just seen was appalling. "I can't lift my head up to see you. I think I saw a girl who looked..."

"I know," Zoe's sad voice said. "I know what you have seen."

"Tell me they haven't done the same to you, Zoe," Iris said. "Please tell me you don't look like the girl I just saw."

Zoe didn't answer her. It was the only way to get Iris's curiosity to raise her head and look at her.

Iris raised her head slowly, hoping and praying she was wrong about what she had seen. She found Zoe was wearing an even brighter dress than hers. But that wasn't what Iris was afraid to look at. It was Zoe's face that was horrible. She looked so ugly, deformed, like it wasn't her face anymore. Even her hands looked the same way. Zoe looked like a monster. It was so grotesque and obscene, Iris couldn’t comprehend how the Beasts had turned her into this shape. It was as if they’d performed a surgery on her to make her look that way.

"Who did this to you?" a scream escaped Iris's chest. "Did the Beasts do this to you?" she stepped forward and shook Zoe. "Why? Tell me. Why do they do this to the girls they take?"

"Just calm down, Iris." Zoe pleaded.

"I won't calm down. Don't be afraid of them. I will get you out of here."

"Please, calm down." Zoe repeated.

"Remember when you told me to avenge you as you got on the ship?” Iris said, tears flooding from her eyes. “I swear, I’ll make them pay. Just answer me. Did the Beasts do this to you?" Iris's face reddened, pondering the unimaginable possibilities. Did the Beasts envy human beauty, so they destroyed it? Were they experimenting on humans like lab rats? "Did Andre do that to you? Is that what he is going to do to me when my time comes?" Iris followed.

"There has been a horrible war, Iris," Zoe said, tears trickling down her face. She sounded like Andre, answering a question with irrelevant thoughts.

“What?” Iris’s puzzled pupils grew bigger.

“A horrible war in The First,” Zoe said. “It destroyed everything on Earth. Everything,” she stressed. “Our ancestors, the few of them who survived, were left with deficiencies, diseases, and illnesses.”

“Why are you telling me that, Zoe?” Iris wondered.

“It was nuclear war. The skies turned gray. The plants died. And the animals turned into sick monsters,” Zoe recited a story that seemed so important to her. “Just like the Ruins where you practiced your Pentimento.”

"Listen to me, Zoe,” Iris shook her harder. “You’re hallucinating. They drugged you. It’s the red rose. I can help you."

“I’m not hallucinating,” Zoe pushed her arms away, crying even harder. “Our ancestors didn’t look pretty. It was the aftermath of the radiation. They weren’t capable of bringing normal offspring to the world.”

“Offspring?” Iris couldn’t help but finally listen to Zoe. She’d never seen Zoe so insistent on speaking her own mind. What did she mean by offspring?

“Yes. Offspring. Us,” Zoe said. “We’ve never been cured. We’ve never been the humans we think we are. We’ve never been beautiful. We’ve always been the Beasts.”

Before Zoe could explain further, the girls in white forcefully dragged Iris back to her room. She tried her best to free herself, but they buzzed her with their weapons.

“Ouch!” Iris cried out. The pain of their instruments were suddenly intolerable, or was it the shock of what Zoe had just told her?

Iris couldn’t help but think that the Beasts tampered with Zoe's brain. Zoe had been susceptible to hallucinations since her accident, when she thought that Colton was one of the Beasts. But why did the Beasts hurt her so much? Why deform her this way?

Master Andre was waiting for Iris in her chamber. The white girls bowed their heads and stood behind her as he sat on a chair, covered in a white veil.

"Leave us alone," Andre waved his gloved hands. The girls complied immediately and left.

"What have you done to Zoe?" Iris gritted her teeth and ran into him, hitting and kicking his tall and strong frame. Andre stood up, held her by the arms, and pushed her with her back against the wall. The green scary eyes watched her from behind the veil. Iris hated herself for continuously feeling this attraction toward him. He’d hurt all those girls and did these horrible things to their faces. He’d hurt Zoe. And Iris still felt like she wanted to crash into his arms. What kind of person was she?

How. Could. She?

Andre said nothing. He had his grip firm on her, and waited calmly, until every pore in her skin eventually gave in to his masculine dominance. She thought he was enjoying his power over her. The silent, almost godly, power of the Beast. It occurred to her that the Beasts must be an only-male species. That explained it all. The girls were only slaves, and the Beasts needed to produce children and save their species. Maybe they needed love. The kind of love only a woman could provide. That must have been it. Of all conclusions, this was most sound to her. But why hurt the girl who could grant you the love you needed? And why mess with her mind?

Why did Zoe say we’re the Beasts? Why?

Iris tried one last kick at Andre, throbbing like a dying fish. Then, when she finally realized he was much stronger than her, she did what she had no memory of doing ever before. She cried for the first time since her mother’s death.

"Surrendering isn't a bad thing." Andre said. It puzzled her how soothing his voice was, comforting in the strangest ways.

"I don't want to surrender," she sobbed.

"Sometimes we have to in order to see."

"See and clear my head," she said. "All this crap you try to feed me. All this crap you fed Zoe’s head." Andre softened his grip on her, and she let her hands slide as she knelt down on the floor. "What did you do to her? Why do you take girls from The Second? Why girls? What kind of animals are you?"

"Girls are the flower of life," Andre knelt next to her. So close, she wished she could see his face now. "Men can conquer, build, and perform. But they can't give birth. They can't nurture. They can't seed love. Love might be something they can give, but can’t incept."

"Is that what it's all about?" she stared at him behind the veil. "You need babies... and... love?"

Andre's silence should have driven her crazy. Instead, she cried some more. Was it possible that whatever Zoe said was true? That they were the real Beasts? In what sense? This couldn’t be. “Show me your face,” she demanded, drying her tears. “Show me your face, now!”

"Do you think you are ready to see it?” Andre said.

Iris discarded his words and nodded. She had to see it at all costs now. She had to prove to herself that he was a Beast, she had to make sure Zoe’s words were just hallucinations. This was what all of this was about. This was the big Pentimento moment, when she was about to see how the Beasts who ruled them truly looked.

“As you wish, Iris.” Andre stood up and took a few steps back. Iris stood up with her back against the window with the stars. She could hear him breathing heavily underneath the veil. She saw him lift his hands to his veil, but then stopped hesitantly. "Would you like to pull the veil down yourself?" he said.

Iris didn't say yes. She just walked toward him, tilted her head up to meet his chin and tiptoed to pull it down.

Andre looked like Zoe, horrendous in every which way. At least Zoe looked like a damaged human being. Andre was far from it. He was a freak of nature.

The most tolerable feature in his face were his green eyes, which looked a bit yellowish, like a demon's. It was hard to tell cheek from ears and mouth from chin in his face. The Beasts looked pathetic.

"No wonder you hide your ugliness from us," Iris said. "None of us would’ve followed a Beast’s order if we had seen what you look like."

"So you think I am ugly?" Andre said.

"Ugly? Are you kidding me?" she shook her shoulders. "Grotesque is a compliment to your kind."

"I've been called worse. In the beginning."

"What is that supposed to mean? You think I could love you if I spent more time with you? If I got used to what you look like?" Iris said.

Andre, like usual, spared his words. This time, Iris wasn’t frustrated with him. His ugliness was a relief in many ways—although her heart had really wished he wasn’t. It lessened her attraction toward him--or what she'd had felt initially--and it proved to her Zoe’s talk was just hallucination.

Iris turned around and looked at the beautiful stars, wondering why such a beautiful world would be owned by such ugly Beasts. At the end of her stare she saw a memory. It was of her learning about Pentimento in her father's basement as a kid. A wonderful memory, one that had only shaped her mind. Only this time, she remembered one day when she had woken up late at night and decided to sneak one last peak at the Beast in Fragonard's painting. That night something strange happened. When she inspected the painting underneath, the boy wasn't a Beast. He was unearthly beautiful. Iris rubbed her eyes, and then the image was gone. The boy was a Beast again. Her eyes must have been playing games on her. She must have wished the boy to be beautiful so bad, her mind had granted her that illusion for a fraction of a second.

Yes. It was an illusion, she told herself now, because the ugly Beast in Fragonard's painting was Andre.

Zoe had been pleading to meet Prince Andre in private for some time. Since Iris had arrived, he’d been busy with her. It was no secret that he’d been deeply in love with Iris since the first time he’d laid eyes on her. It was a critical situation for the prince, since the king and queen of their world would have never allowed a beautiful man like him to couple with an “ugly” from The Second.

Andre had promised Zoe answers when she first came, but he'd said he'd do that after Iris knew who, and what, she was. Now that Iris wasn’t capable of seeing what the stars really were, Zoe thought the Prince owed her explanations. Finally, she was led to the prince’s chamber, where he awaited her with hands laced behind his back.

“Zoe.” He bowed his head with respect. “What can I do for you?”

“You promised me answers, My Prince,” she said, secretly envying his unearthly beauty. She'd learned it was better for him never to descend to The Second, or the girls would go crazy.

“I did, indeed,” he said. “Please, sit down. I’ll have to make it brief, though. You know I need to watch Iris most of the day.”

“How is she now?” Zoe sat opposite to him.

“Still not seeing the stars,” Andre sighed, and sat down. “She’s a stubborn girl.”

“But you like her stubbornness," Zoe nodded her head slightly.

“You’re right. One should accept the person they love for who they are,” he tapped his hands on his lap. “It’s just that the king and queen are on the verge of wanting to get rid of her.”

”But you will not let that happen, right?” Zoe was worried. She loved Iris more than anything, and although she knew the truth would be shocking to her, she hoped she’d find it out sooner, rather than later.