The Mortal Masquerade: A Microfiction. Content Warning.
Opulence, by its very definition, is cruel.
I have watched for hours and hours while these aristocrats have reveled in their frivolous masquerade. All in this place was gathered for them at enormous expense, a novel concept by their reckoning. The orchestra was airy, the dances were joyous, and hundreds of goblets passed many hands, the wine the color of blood. Here in their den of iniquity, they drowned themselves in riches and dulled their senses with pride and arrogance. They have all but forgotten the terrors they abandoned to the world outside their sealed fortress walls. This is why they could never divine my purpose.
