Work Text:
Lo! ’t is a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.
Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly—
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Wo!
That motley drama—oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.
But see, amid the mimic rout,
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.
Out—out are the lights—out all!
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, “Man,”
And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.
-Edgar Allen Poe "The Conquer Worm"
The long halls connecting too and from the ball room, housed ghosts the whispered small disjointed sentences. The night of the gala was upon them, and Natsuo was wondering these halls once again. These halls he spent his childhood days, having only the ghosts in the halls. The ghosts in the hall always were willing to talk to him, they always were with me. People called him an angel and hid him under veils before leaving him to drown in his own lonely tears. Watching a play, In the theater, reflecting everything he was onto the stage. He felt as if he had been pushed onto the stage himself and forced to perform this play of hopes in fears as the Orchestra played in intervals.
Natsuo always watched as heroes stole the pedestals which used to house gods. Heroes were worshiped, praised, loved, they were gods to most. Heroes which were always going towards the biggest pedestal, the number one spot, trampling all those who deemed it fit to stand in their way. Natsuo saw them as nothing more them puppets which linger in the spotlight for a short period of time before being expelled to make room for somebody new. These puppets only exist to bind those who lack names, lack faces, the vast formless things. The puppets try to spin the story, make sure they are seen as the hero. They shift the scenery to make it such, blame it on the one who did nothing but be born. I am the gods’ servant, an angle, I shall tear down these false deities using this wings they have granted me. I shall bring Wo upon all them.
A disastrous mix of varying types of drama, that shan’t be forgotten. The white-haired phantom of destruction forever on the run, from those who shall forever fail to seize it. Such a phantom never truly travels far before returning to the same spot which it deems it home. The madness within the phantom spreads like a venom to all those they can reach, the transfer the burden of their sins onto those who the phantom deems worthy. Their soul is truly a horrific sight to behold.
The brainless dolls who worship the false deities are in the way of rage and hate. A figure comes and corrupts the solitude. A mass of blue writhes and writhes, consuming the dolls with a fiery rage. An angel is left sobbing all alone somewhere, seeing the figure they used to know. A twisted version of that old figure imbued with human gore. A dastardly sight to behold.
The countless burned, smoking, and melted forms made of flesh, which now lay still and unmoving scattered about on the ground. The theater goes dark and the current falls to the ground covering the countless corpses as if it was a funeral pall. The rain the comes help put out a burning mound of flesh, one held together by small metal staples, a creature that was so near falling apart into many pieces. The angle was perched on top of a pile of corpses, watching the creature with short long glances. The angel was cold and pale, frost creeping up his arms as he sits there. Skin turning raw red, frost leaving small bites along his arms. The revolt has begun, this war has been assured now. The play had been a tragedy that was known by the name of “man”, the hero of the play was known by such a name as the conquer worm.