Mask of the Red Death

Chapter 1: A Shadow in the Dark

A solitary figure moved, alone in the dark. Hands shaking, they walked slowly in the blackened hallways of a huge mansion, a building of intense luxury and splendour, cloaked in shadow.

Around them were scenes of carnage, tableaus of flesh and blood, and unseeing eyes. But the wanderer passed them by, unnoticed and unnoticing. The bodies stared back, unblinking. The lights flickered.

Here, a fire illuminated a magnificent library. Or what was left of it, and what remained of its occupants. There, a single candle showed fragments of shattered glass. Scraps of burnt and tattered paper fluttered and cascaded into piles of ash.

"No light; but rather darkness visible, served only to discover sights of woe..."

The reaper had come, and had harvested the fallen. A strange crop, framing a dream, a surreal nightmare, where the wanderer was the sole survivor. The last one standing.

Outside it was approaching dawn. A cold, dark, grey morning was coming. The wind and rain lashed at the building with a peculiar ferocity.

The figure sat by the door, hunched over, legs huddled. They'd be coming soon. The events of the night ran through the mind.

In the distance, sirens wailed.

Chapter 2: Greenwood

Greenwood was a small English town a short drive away from Cambridge. It was an odd combination of the completely flat surroundings which dominate this portion of the south-east, and the picture postcard chocolate box image of England, red telephone boxes, thatched roofs and old-fashioned bicycles.

Much of the town's population were commuters, wealthy financiers or city types. Others had been living here for generations, before the well to-do with money arrived. The two coexisted uneasily.

Greenwood was dominated by the High School, a private institution which include a large sixth form. The place dated back to the early 1900s, an elite place of learning available to children with parents rich enough to pay sky-high tuition fees, or clever and fortunate enough to get a scholarship.

Due to a bylaw, a small number of local children were given free entry to the school, their fees subsidised by the government. This was because it was the only school in the area. This fact caused some resentment among other students and their parents. The term 'Local', used to describe those who hadn't had to sit an exam or buy their way in, was often used interchangeably with, or as a euphemism for, 'chav', 'common', or 'scum'.

Some people tried to take advantage of the bylaw, and property values within the area jumped as the rich bought themselves a free school place. The number of Locals dwindled. But there were always those who couldn't or wouldn't move, and the stock of housing was finite. Planning permission for more housing was repeatedly refused, chiefly because many residents felt it would be ghastly and spoil the view of their orchards, tennis courts and swimming pools.

Greenwood High School was a deeply divided place, strictly split into cliques and groups. This was so widely understood it was rarely necessary to discuss it. The in-crowd – mostly children of the rich and famous – simply called themselves 'we'. Everyone else was 'them'.

The small number of scholarship students saw the in-crowd as entitled and self-obsessed brats whose parents had handed them everything in life on a silver platter. But they also had disdain for the Locals, who had, as they saw it, got in by dumb luck, or accident of birth.

The locals themselves tended to stick together in small groups, or were loners, picked on or ridiculed when they weren't hiding themselves away somewhere. They didn't think of themselves as lucky - quite the reverse.