Icicles hang from the entrance

like daggers waiting to fall.

He pulls her along behind him

into the dimly lit room.

The icy walls reflect the flickering candles

in shimmering flashes.

A grumbling melody ominously fills the air,

providing a slow-paced song for the audience's dance.

She looked around and saw the outlines

of dancing figures,

their faces just out of view.

He took her hand and slowly twirled her,

giving her a full view of the bare room.

Half-empty shelves line the wall,

ice glimmering from all directions.

He pulls her back to him

and begins a waltz in the shadow of the room.

Her feet mechanically stepping with his,

mimicking his moves.

He swung her around,

leaning her slowly backwards.

She tilted her head back,

looking to the low ceiling.


A cracked mirror,

icicles dangling precariously through the open spaces,

looked down on them.

She looked to the other faces in the room,

all expressionless and blank.

He pulled her up

and danced her closer to the crowd

and the small source of light.

Decomposing faces,

drained of color and energy,

surrounded her.


Once you start to dance,

he whispered with a malicious smile

spreading across his face,

you dance until you die.

Until the rosy puddles on your cheeks fade

and the vivid twinkle in your eyes glaze over.

You're stuck here,

in our dance of death.


She tried to pull her hand away from his,

but her hand would not separate from his decaying hand.

She saw the depressions in his cheeks

his thin lips,

and colorless eyes.

The scream rising in her throat escapes as a humming

to the monody echoing through the wall.

Unable to detach from the song,

dancing to an inescapable terror,

the laughter of death.


She twirled to see a young man

led in by a pale, emotionless girl.

His eyes too distracted by the shimmering ice

to notice Death as he claims another soul.