She stumbled through the courtyard desperately trying to get a glimpse of someone - anyone- but all she could make out were the faint outlines of plants and dropped coats. Unnamed insects seemed to swarm just outside her field of vision yet she heard no complaints from the uppity guests and the music flowed just as freely as it had from the very start.
After a few near-falls and mumbled apologies to the numerous statues that dotted the courtyard, she eventually found the door to the main house. It took a fair bit of force to open the door and once she'd practically wrenched it from its hinges she was bombarded with a dense swarm of insects, her ears filled with their monotonous droning and her eyes stung by countless chintanous bodies.
Once they'd finished fleeing she found herself at the threshold of the ballroom. The musicians cowered on their stage, frantically playing whichever songs sounded closest to the insects own cacophony while countless guests slowly writhed beneath the same heaving swarms that had passed her by.
A quick glance told her that there would be no survivors by dawn, save for maybe a couple of violinists. It seemed a safer bet to take her chances heading back home than wait for a cluster to be done with their current meal and decide she'd be a suitable second course.
As the fog faded with the approaching sun she saw the bloodbath she'd delicately blundered past in her haste to make it to the gathering. All the statues were mostly cocooned guests and the dropped coats were very much still on their owners shrivelled bodies.
The slow walk back to her carriage was a quiet parade of death that terminated in the crumpled corpses of her footmen. They hadn't even spared the horses yet she had been left untouched, undesired even by swarms so bloodthirsty they'd licked the ground beneath the empty horse-skins dry.
She could still hear them droning in the distance, leaving silence wherever they went.
And there she was - silent herself and without purpose.
So she followed the shadows of the swarms, hoping and dreading to find others like her.
After a few near-falls and mumbled apologies to the numerous statues that dotted the courtyard, she eventually found the door to the main house. It took a fair bit of force to open the door and once she'd practically wrenched it from its hinges she was bombarded with a dense swarm of insects, her ears filled with their monotonous droning and her eyes stung by countless chintanous bodies.
Once they'd finished fleeing she found herself at the threshold of the ballroom. The musicians cowered on their stage, frantically playing whichever songs sounded closest to the insects own cacophony while countless guests slowly writhed beneath the same heaving swarms that had passed her by.
A quick glance told her that there would be no survivors by dawn, save for maybe a couple of violinists. It seemed a safer bet to take her chances heading back home than wait for a cluster to be done with their current meal and decide she'd be a suitable second course.
As the fog faded with the approaching sun she saw the bloodbath she'd delicately blundered past in her haste to make it to the gathering. All the statues were mostly cocooned guests and the dropped coats were very much still on their owners shrivelled bodies.
The slow walk back to her carriage was a quiet parade of death that terminated in the crumpled corpses of her footmen. They hadn't even spared the horses yet she had been left untouched, undesired even by swarms so bloodthirsty they'd licked the ground beneath the empty horse-skins dry.
She could still hear them droning in the distance, leaving silence wherever they went.
And there she was - silent herself and without purpose.
So she followed the shadows of the swarms, hoping and dreading to find others like her.
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