Disclaimer: I am not Poe. If I was I would be six feet under and wouldn't even know how to use this laptop. Enough said.
KFK: This is one of my favorite works from Poe. Gotta love the red death character. He is just too interesting.
Dancing, laughing and just pretending that the world wasn't falling apart beyond these walls. And who could say that it was? We had been in the prince's castle for a while now, so who knew if the Red Death was even still tormenting the souls beyond this place. But of course none of us was going to go out and risk death to find out. We are nobility; we are above such things. Let the common people deal with death and let us forever stay just as we are.
In this palace of luxury it is hard to believe that anything like a plague is tearing our country apart. But noble women don't worry about that. We worry about the dress we should wear to the next dinner party or whom we should dance with next. If we ladies have the choice of such things that is. But here in the prince's faerie world, we are safe from death. Let the black shadow look upon us and despair that he may never touch our forever beauty.
The prince is throwing a grand ball tonight; and a masquerade at that. Chose your avatar, but do not wear red, whatever you do. To do that is to sign your banishment from the prince's good graces, and no one is foolish enough to do that. To go as a great queen, that is what I shall be. Let the others glow green from jealousy at my splendor. Now to find the necessary garments…
It is now well into the dance and the clock in the black room is now ringing the arrival of the twelfth hour. And lo and behold, a man has appeared, and has done the unthinkable. Not only does he bear the color red, he has come as the Plague itself. The prince has given chase, and the rest of us follow suit, clamoring after this foolish cur that would dare anger our beloved sovereign.
We chase him through six of the seven great chambers until we get to the final black room. There, several of us stop and feel the aura of the place send shivers up our spines. And we see our fair prince fall down as if a puppeteer had just cut his strings loose from the controller. And now the red figure is looking at us. And deep in my heart, maybe even my soul, I know what is happening.
The very shadow I had dared come has answered my call. Now the masks must come off and we too shall fall, just as those poor outside had fallen. This is the end; this is Death to the Masquerade.
I was feeling kind of moody before starting this so I decided to go with some good old Edgar Allan Poe. Fairly short, but I'm watching my computer's battery die a slow death so I wanted to make sure I got this done before the 'shadow' came to claim its life too.