"Red Death Masquerade"

"Never was there a night like this," I mused,

Bitterness in every gust, every shadow diffused.

Adrian Kane, emboldened by defiance and pride,

Built a fortress of steel, the world's pain denied.

A contagion spread its arms, with its signature crimson touch,

Yet Kane’s sanctum whispered promises, clutch.

Invitations to the elite, a masquerade bold,

Inside, they believed, they were safe in the fold.

Masks of gold, feathers, and gleaming silk,

Amidst laughter walked a figure, white as milk.

Draped in scarlet, eyes obscured in liquid silver,

Coldness spread, the air turned to shivers.

"Who is this stranger, uninvited, unknown?"

Murmurs grew as the crimson mark on skin was sown.

Kane, frantic, demanding answers, a clue,

But the specter danced, its frost biting through.

Through corridors adorned, the figure advanced,

Its silhouette a warning, its eyes a trance.

“Your walls,” it whispered, “are but sand to me,

Against nature's rhythm, none can flee."

Guests faltered, faces paled, hearts gone still,

The figure's touch a harbinger of an unstoppable chill.

"I am not man, nor ghost, nor specter wild,

I am the curse, nature's forsaken child."

Doors blocked, rooms sealed, the air thick with doom,

Kane's penthouse transformed, a final tomb.

“Do you dance?” the figure asked, its voice a keen blade,

"But the reckoning comes, the final, inevitable parade."

Morning broke, unmasking the horrid spectacle,

Elites fallen, hubris detectable, judgment invincible.

The city whispered, the tale spun and unrolled,

Of hubris met by a crimson, unforgiving cold.

Now, a monument, a scar, cold and stark,

Stands, a silent requiem of that night so dark.

A symbol of a dance, of arrogance gone wrong,

And the chilling note, a song, forever long gone.