Masquerade

The music was excellent; the masks impeccable. The food was perfect; the people lovable. Indeed, in festivities with such immaculate preparations and features, all was superb! The guests, wearing their beautiful finery and fantastic masks, danced elegantly upon the floor, and the ladies and the gentlemen did certainly enjoy the fine foods and wines presented to them; for the splendid chefs of the castle could verily make food and wine that God himself would envy!                                        

One patrician especially distinguished himself from the crowd, for he was engaged in a waltz with a shapely woman clad in the finest of clothes, and was himself attired in the most audacious and colourful of garbs. He flawlessly led the dance, and surely all the ladies in the room must have been studying his every visible feature predatorily.                                                                                

But alas! for all things must inevitably end, and in the case of our peerless dancer and nobleman, this end proved tragic; for as he led the waltz, his mask suddenly fell to the floor, and the noble folk gasped at the grotesque paroxysm. For indeed across his face ran a hideous scar, and his visage was wrinkled and old.                                                                                                    

For a moment, the ladies that had been swooning did turn their heads away in disgust, although returning rather quickly to their positions to observe him evilly. Indeed, the patrician could feel the air of evil and hate around him, and could see the ominous glow from behind the masks of all the people surrounding him.                                                                                                    

In unison they approached him silently, but he knew it was not a respectful silence; for they hated him and all that he was. The crowd of finely dressed ladies and gentlemen descended upon him, and they ripped him to shreds, blood and gore sailing off into the air in a spectacularly awesome show! And when there was nothing left of the man but a clean-picked skeleton, the folk did resume their dancing; and what a fine masquerade it was!