Finding Beauty (Rewrite)

Chapter 1

~The Beast~

Killing him was the right thing to do.

The young man was standing on the rusty fire escape, his thumb stroking the lushious petals of the sweet scented rose. The irony of his contemplations was not lost on him. In fact, he could imagine himself ripping off the petals and letting them flutter down into the city gutters while chanting, "He was meant to die, he wasn't meant to die," much like how a school girl would decide whether their crush fancied them back.

However, laughter was foreign to him and had been for sometime. His chest was filled with cobwebs and dust, a chuckle at his own misery would do little to awaken the neglected muscles that contracted in one's body to help them laugh. No, it wasn't worth the effort.

Of course, he hadn't actually killed him . . . Right?

Everyone thought he did. The newspapers would say he did. The police who witnessed it all from afar would say he did - even the victim himself would say he did.

No one would say he didn't deserve it.

Melvin had killed his whole family a week prior to his own demise. The young man did not wish to think over all the grimy details once more but it was enough to make the execution of the man easier to bear.

He remembered the three little girls smiling faces on the news. Two were only toddlers and the other just beginning middle school in the fall. His wife was rosy cheeked and plump, her arms wrapped securely around her girls in the photo. She looked as if she would die for her children. He wondered if she had tried to. Did Mrs.Patterson beg her husband to leave their children out of it?

A question no one would know the answer to. Perhaps it was better that way.

A blanket of peace laid itself on the man's deformed skin. He sighed, the breath could be seen in the chill of the night.

Yes, he thought. I did the right thing.

His stuffy chest puffed up and his heavy head left his shoulders. If only the people of New York City understood what he was doing. Ridding the streets of criminals was a noble thing to do. Murals of his excellence were more appropriate than the Wanted signs put up for him.

Alas, even if the city had labeled him something more than a merciless and evil vigilante, he didn't have the looks for a mural of even a photograph. Not anymore. If they saw what he looked like under his mask and baggy get up, they'd be approaching him with pitchforks not awards.

Still, his father, a beloved and honored police detective should be proud. He was fighting for justice as he once did. Sure, it wasn't in the way he had intended him to but the young man couldn't help but think it was better.

The fire escape moaned under the weight of another.

She had arrived.

"You're late."

Her voice danced over to him in a dark melody. "Fashionably so. Did I leave you with your thoughts for too long? It isn't such a bad thing, you know? Thinking."

He gritted his teeth. "I'm familiar with the practice."

"Doesn't seem like it."

He refused to turn and face her. After a moment he asked, "Why did you come here? What do you want from me?"

His heart was racing, knocking away at the cobwebs formed around it. It was not from fear that his pulse had quickened. The emotion was enough to partially clear the loathsome wreckage in his chest.

"Temper, temper Beast. Don't you know it is only polite to engage in small talk before diving into the heavy material? Your manners are so piggish."

He could hear her smirk. The small jabs in her words were meant to rile him up and yet he couldn't stop himself from falling into her traps. Years of not seeing her and his rage had remained.

"If you are so disgusted by me then leave!" His hands crashed down into the banister, forming a crack. If he wasn't careful he would tear the whole thing down but this failed to make him flinch. He had broken stronger, larger things.

She chuckled. "You are right. I do find you repulsive."

The young man lifted the flower to his nose. What was that calming trick his mother had taught him all those years ago? Smell the flowers and blow the bubbles?

"I've come here to tell you that what you are doing is wrong." His visitor's voice had taken the authority it did the night he met her. It was as thick as a storm cloud and sharp as a flash of lighting.

"What?"

"Your charade! Playing superhero! Whatever you'd like to call it in your sick head! It's dangerous and twisted and it needs to stop now."

He was shaking. His fingers could hardly grasp the rose in his hand. "You want to take this away from me?"

"You will stop. You know it's wrong."

"Wrong? You wish to tell me about what is wrong? This is all I have thanks to you!" His voice betrayed him. It was small and level. Nowhere near a reflection of what he was truly feeling.

"Find a different way or don't do anything at all. You aren't a hero. You aren't doing anyone a favor!" She came closer, speaking into his ear. He could smell her rich perfume, a golden lock brushed his shoulder. "You think you are doing this for the good of the people? No. You are doing this for yourself! You are still selfish! Maybe even more than when I turned you."

Her pale hand decorated with rings reached over him and plucked the rose out of his grasp. Quicker than he could react, she ripped it's stem and let it fall to the ground. His heart ripped along with his precious flower, his trophy, the only thing he had to show for what he'd done.

"You are still a beast."

He whipped around, finally finding it in himself to face her. He reached out to swipe at her but her image faded away from him like smoke. She floated into the starless sky, past the skyscrapers, and past the yellow taxis.

He tried to deny it with every fiber in his being.

Killing him was the right thing to do.

I did not kill him.

I am not a beast.

But that was exactly what New York City called him; The Beast.