A/N- I can't believe I actually finished this first chapter. I didn't realize writing it would be such a struggle for me, but I just had so many ideas and I couldn't think of how to put them all down. Please read it and review.

Belle ran through the woods. The trees seemed to form an endless labyrinth that tore at her dress, trying to hinder her and force her to go back. But her terror at what she had done and what lay behind her was greater than the panic that she felt.

She forced herself to stop for a moment and catch her breath. She slumped to the ground with her back against a tree and finally dared to look at the glowing object she clutched to her breast. The rose.

Belle had become obsessed with it ever since she had been driven out of the castle. When she closed her eyes, even for a moment, it hung in front of her eyelids like retinal burn. After all, that rose had been the entire reason the beast had driven her out of the castle. But her curiosity had been too great. Even months later, when his horrible fangs and leering eyes had all but been forgotten, her memory of the rose still lingered. Although, she admitted to herself, she had really wanted closure. More than anything, she had just wanted to know what had happened to that enchanted place.

The night before her wedding to Gaston was her last chance. She hadn't even been sure what she was expecting to find there. Maybe it would be like she never even left. She hadn't expected to find things so very, very different.

Belle raised the rose to her eye level gently. It was silly, really, to take it when it no longer had any petals. It was just a stem now, but the memory of what it had once been was enough.

It had been so easy to go back there, yet at the same time, it had been painful. It had been eerily quiet when she entered the castle, reminiscent of her first visit. She had called out to Cogsworth and Lumiere, but no one responded. She had shaken the candlestick and clock that lay on the side table in the entrance hall, but they were just that; a candlestick and a clock. It had been the same everywhere. Every cup in the kitchen remained quiet, the wardrobe in her old bedroom didn't flap its drawers when she entered, and no footstool ran to greet her. She had found herself wandering aimlessly until her feet brought her to the West Wing.

The West Wing seemed much the same as the last time she had been there. Eerily quiet, she had made her way through the wreckage, drawn toward the area that she knew held the rose. She didn't even realize that it was the rose when she finally found it. The eerie pink glow that had once filled the air around it was gone, and all of the petals of the rose had fallen off one by one and now lay, cast off like an old pair of shoes, at the foot of an empty stem.

Ever so tenderly, expecting the same repercussions as the last time she had attempted it, she removed the glass case and took the rose stem. But nothing had happened. Everything continued to stay eerily stagnant. Then she had felt herself pulled like a marionette with invisible thin strings, toward the twin glass doors to the balcony. One was just slightly ajar, as if someone had walked out to the balcony without properly closing the door but had never come back in. She had opened it and stepped lightly out onto the balcony. There on the balcony lay a dark mass, furry and large. Belle had raised her hand to her lips in horror and slowly backed away, then ran like a coward out of the West Wing, through the halls, down the rooms, and out the door, away from that cursed place, still clutching the rose.

The Beast was dead.