Chapter 61: Chapter 59: The color of red

Shadows waltz through the darkness, caressing each other, as would lovers of a place and time now lost to the hearts of men, who must reside in this terrible age. Sickeningly, they twist and spin, stretching out and then returning back to form, as they parade around the emptiness.

Music fills the air, played by the finest hands to ever grace instruments. Colors, resplendent, flow steadily towards myself, as would water, running down a trickling spring basin.

The smell of death is in the air – A strong, dry odor of rot that is carried by the quivering heat. The air itself shakes all around the dancing spirits of the ball, as if it itself were in terrible fear of the monstrous entity that sits at the end of the hall, atop its gruesome throne, watching the spectacle unfold with its head resting on its fist.

And I sit, unseen, observing, distant – vacant.

I look down at my hands. They are translucent.

I am but one of the ten-thousand ghosts that resides in the terrible hall of the demon-king, one of the ten-thousand spirits that was torn out from my slumber to join in on the waltz.

But I don’t know how to dance.

– Someone nudges me from the side and I look as someone extends a hand out towards me.

Nervously, I let myself be taken in body and in soul.