HEAPOW: The Death of the Red Mask (2020 Oct 26)
In the outer country all was dark and isolated, without comfort of physical connection. Drawing nearer, blood-red curtains hid enormous spaces, shimmering with weird light. Within this deep, distanced seclusion, everywhere madness and horror, space upon empty space, trapped in confounding darkness. A corner turned, and all at once visible, the leering mask of the red demon. Hidden thereto a monstrous visage, completely black, from which no light shone, no warmth ever escaped. A yawning, singular void, bending all to an indomitable will. Nearer, hellish glowing streamers falling into blackness, swallowed up, never to be seen again. Shocking sounds heard in the blackness, viciously dissipating through all space and time. Hark! do you not hear this? A single bass note, profound, driving all who heard it to despair. A sound clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a pitch and emphasis all who heard it had perforce ceased their evolutions, disconcerted, until at last the waves crested and the entire revel thinned and grew pale. Still the demon mocked all with the artifice to see, a blasphemous mockery, that none could unmask. Only this shadowy, untenanted form remains. And Darkness held illimitable dominion over all.
E.A. Poe: The Masque of the Red Death
CXC: Perseus A: Chandra Catches Cannibal Galaxy in the Act
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