Me: Rewrite the story of Beauty and the Beast into a horror story with a bad ending
Once upon a time, in a forgotten village, a selfish merchant stumbled upon a crumbling castle deep in the woods. Starving and desperate, he stole a single, blood-red rose from a garden overgrown with twisted thorns, unaware of the curse that bound the place. The monstrous Beast, a shadowy creature with eyes that glowed like coals, appeared and demanded a life for the theft. Out of fear, the merchant offered his beautiful daughter, Belle, who reluctantly agreed to take his place.
Belle arrived at the decaying castle, where the Beast kept her captive in a maze of dark corridors and whispering walls. Night after night, she was haunted by strange, nightmarish figures—disembodied voices urging her to flee, clawed hands reaching out from the shadows. Desperate to escape, Belle searched for the source of the castle's evil and discovered a hidden chamber, lined with mirrors, each reflecting not her face, but the tortured souls of those who had come before her. The Beast, once a handsome prince, had turned into a demon after a pact with a dark spirit. Every night, it consumed a piece of its captive’s humanity, feeding off their fear and despair to maintain its power.
On the final night, Belle, weakened and hollow-eyed, confronted the Beast with a shard of broken mirror, hoping to shatter the curse. But the Beast laughed, its true form—a grotesque mass of shadows and writhing tendrils—revealed in the dim light. "I never wanted to be free," it hissed, towering over her. "I want to devour." With a single, swift motion, it consumed her entirely, her screams echoing through the empty halls.
When dawn broke, the castle stood silent once more, a solitary rose blooming anew in the cursed garden. The villagers, noticing the merchant's absence, avoided the woods forever after. No one dared speak of the castle or the poor girl who vanished, for if they did, they swore they could hear her soft cries, trapped forever in the mirrors’ cold glass.