The Spread Of The Red Death
It Is Time
I am the killer of man; the beast that none can stop. The humans of this world believe they have enclosed themselves in safety. But they have no idea what prison they have created.
I stand beyond the heavy walls of the one place that holds my remaining victims, those that my breath can still affect. It is an abbey: a place of God now overrun with the wealthy; more importantly, overrun with the weak. The iron gates, welded doors, and firmly packed ground lock me without its walls; but not for long.
Over days that I waited, the tension and annoyance within the walls excess normal standards. I feel it as it rises before me; it is like a fog that so desperately wishing to become a cloud, but hasn’t gained its rite of passage. I let it fall upon me and enrich me in its toxic ways. Its mere touch opened my pores, and the pleasure caused pulls the sickly smelling breath from my throat. It begins to take to me, wrapping itself around me and infusing with my bones and skin, forcing me to adapt. And through this way, I push and probe the walls of the barrier before me until I find what I wish: A crack within the foundation.
Reverting to my previous state – a wolf in sheep’s clothing, you would say – I stand in a room that to any would suit me well; one that is as black as the night, and pulses with such dread that would cause all to avoid it as though…well as though it is myself. I rest against the window, and let the blood red color streaming from this glass wash over me.
An ebony clock to my left chimes five times. Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! And as it does, it dims the interior noises and forces its way into the hearts and minds of the survivors. Such fear that rolls off them comes to me as though I am Father. Once its echo no longer sounds, the noise grows again, as though trying to overcome the eerie feel the clock, as well as my newfound presence, has created.
A voice within my mind whispers to me that it is not time to place my attack; and though I wish nothing more than to take from such people the lives they thought they’d saved, I knew to obey.
Be patient, my son; and all shall be given in time. The heavy-toned voice speaks, engulfing my ears alone.
“Aye.” I agree aloud, though none are around to receive the sound of my voice, but the one whose orders I refused to disobey. “Not until it’s time to play…”
With each chime of the clock, my spirit rises; and with each succession of the hour, a laugh escapes my lips, drowned out only by the call of the clock’s swinging pendulum. To pass the seemingly eternal time that passes between every hour, I watch the people that hurry past my temporarily domain, as I do the vivid rooms they enter and withdraw from. Some wear masks of such colors that none appear even remotely similar. It inspires me. I blend myself to their unusual pale color; and take the dimming blackness around me like a cloak. I mold the growing decay from without the window, and let it take to my face with such perfection I look as though I am my own victim. And finally, I move to the thinning rays of red filtering through the window as the sun dies over the horizon, and bath within them. They take a life of their own as they coat me with such scarlet.
The clock strikes its final hour as I complete my outfit.
Now, my son! As the voice booms within my mind, it engulfs me with light energy that sparks within my core and calls for blood.
“Showtime.” I whisper as I took my place for all to see: atop the towering steps perpendicular to the rooms of living colors. The music drops. The people stop to stare. And the world itself is still at this time; my time: the time to play. I take within the clean air of the abbey, and exhale the sickly smell of the outer world. Allowing seconds that would display such a horrid result, I travel down to the ballroom below; and slowly, I make my way across it.
As my head lifts to watch the rooms growing near; my eyes fall upon a man within the bluest room at the east of the wing; and it is revealed to be the one so determined to confine himself against me: Prince Prospero. His voice barks as he demands an explanation from the man beside him, who knows no more answers than the prince himself. The men around him threaten to intervene; but as they too meet my eyes as I approach, cannot move from with stances. I pass within a yard of the prince himself and whisper upon the air, with a breath so foul, “Come upon me if you have the courage, or die a coward within the ranks of your acquaintances, mortal.”
I pass through the bluest room into one such a beautiful lavender shade, that even the flower would not stand any a chance against it. With constant speed, I move through the adjacent door into the next room – one as green as the grass on the untouched horizon. Then to the subsequent, a room painted with the orange tint that would have only been taken from the sun’s rising rays. I circle within it colors and move through the lush green yet again to a room so pure that even I am blinded by its untainted color. I ease myself through to the next, a room a heavy violet so dark that it pleads out to become its counter-room. I turn to see that through such havoc, Prospero has followed suit, and with a weapon of his own: a thin bladed dagger.
As we reach the final room in our journey – my previous domain – I turn to face the man who thought he’d won; and with a final farewell, I exhale a breath that opened upon the atmosphere – a heavy dark cloud. The cloud submerses itself within his form, forcing itself through ways only poison could. His body turns against him; and with his own hand, takes his daggers and draws it within his abdomen. He gives a startled cry, and with a collapse of his dagger, his life ends. And as Prospero falls, his ebony clock forces forward its final motion before it’s time halted for eternity.
A trail of the dying enters my realm and advance as though I am nothing more than they. They wrap their hands around me and hold me erect as the bravest removes my sculpted face. And once the grayish disguise vanishes as do I, leaving nothing but sickness and death in my wake.
I stand beyond the heavy walls of the one place that holds my remaining victims, those that my breath can still affect. It is an abbey: a place of God now overrun with the wealthy; more importantly, overrun with the weak. The iron gates, welded doors, and firmly packed ground lock me without its walls; but not for long.
Over days that I waited, the tension and annoyance within the walls excess normal standards. I feel it as it rises before me; it is like a fog that so desperately wishing to become a cloud, but hasn’t gained its rite of passage. I let it fall upon me and enrich me in its toxic ways. Its mere touch opened my pores, and the pleasure caused pulls the sickly smelling breath from my throat. It begins to take to me, wrapping itself around me and infusing with my bones and skin, forcing me to adapt. And through this way, I push and probe the walls of the barrier before me until I find what I wish: A crack within the foundation.
Reverting to my previous state – a wolf in sheep’s clothing, you would say – I stand in a room that to any would suit me well; one that is as black as the night, and pulses with such dread that would cause all to avoid it as though…well as though it is myself. I rest against the window, and let the blood red color streaming from this glass wash over me.
An ebony clock to my left chimes five times. Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! And as it does, it dims the interior noises and forces its way into the hearts and minds of the survivors. Such fear that rolls off them comes to me as though I am Father. Once its echo no longer sounds, the noise grows again, as though trying to overcome the eerie feel the clock, as well as my newfound presence, has created.
A voice within my mind whispers to me that it is not time to place my attack; and though I wish nothing more than to take from such people the lives they thought they’d saved, I knew to obey.
Be patient, my son; and all shall be given in time. The heavy-toned voice speaks, engulfing my ears alone.
“Aye.” I agree aloud, though none are around to receive the sound of my voice, but the one whose orders I refused to disobey. “Not until it’s time to play…”
With each chime of the clock, my spirit rises; and with each succession of the hour, a laugh escapes my lips, drowned out only by the call of the clock’s swinging pendulum. To pass the seemingly eternal time that passes between every hour, I watch the people that hurry past my temporarily domain, as I do the vivid rooms they enter and withdraw from. Some wear masks of such colors that none appear even remotely similar. It inspires me. I blend myself to their unusual pale color; and take the dimming blackness around me like a cloak. I mold the growing decay from without the window, and let it take to my face with such perfection I look as though I am my own victim. And finally, I move to the thinning rays of red filtering through the window as the sun dies over the horizon, and bath within them. They take a life of their own as they coat me with such scarlet.
The clock strikes its final hour as I complete my outfit.
Now, my son! As the voice booms within my mind, it engulfs me with light energy that sparks within my core and calls for blood.
“Showtime.” I whisper as I took my place for all to see: atop the towering steps perpendicular to the rooms of living colors. The music drops. The people stop to stare. And the world itself is still at this time; my time: the time to play. I take within the clean air of the abbey, and exhale the sickly smell of the outer world. Allowing seconds that would display such a horrid result, I travel down to the ballroom below; and slowly, I make my way across it.
As my head lifts to watch the rooms growing near; my eyes fall upon a man within the bluest room at the east of the wing; and it is revealed to be the one so determined to confine himself against me: Prince Prospero. His voice barks as he demands an explanation from the man beside him, who knows no more answers than the prince himself. The men around him threaten to intervene; but as they too meet my eyes as I approach, cannot move from with stances. I pass within a yard of the prince himself and whisper upon the air, with a breath so foul, “Come upon me if you have the courage, or die a coward within the ranks of your acquaintances, mortal.”
I pass through the bluest room into one such a beautiful lavender shade, that even the flower would not stand any a chance against it. With constant speed, I move through the adjacent door into the next room – one as green as the grass on the untouched horizon. Then to the subsequent, a room painted with the orange tint that would have only been taken from the sun’s rising rays. I circle within it colors and move through the lush green yet again to a room so pure that even I am blinded by its untainted color. I ease myself through to the next, a room a heavy violet so dark that it pleads out to become its counter-room. I turn to see that through such havoc, Prospero has followed suit, and with a weapon of his own: a thin bladed dagger.
As we reach the final room in our journey – my previous domain – I turn to face the man who thought he’d won; and with a final farewell, I exhale a breath that opened upon the atmosphere – a heavy dark cloud. The cloud submerses itself within his form, forcing itself through ways only poison could. His body turns against him; and with his own hand, takes his daggers and draws it within his abdomen. He gives a startled cry, and with a collapse of his dagger, his life ends. And as Prospero falls, his ebony clock forces forward its final motion before it’s time halted for eternity.
A trail of the dying enters my realm and advance as though I am nothing more than they. They wrap their hands around me and hold me erect as the bravest removes my sculpted face. And once the grayish disguise vanishes as do I, leaving nothing but sickness and death in my wake.