Chapter 7: danger
On the second day, the contagion spread beyond the square. Along the riverbank, washerwomen were seized, their basins overturned as they whirled in mad circles, water and linen strewn like offerings to unseen gods. Farmers in the fields abandoned their ploughs, stamping the furrows flat with steps both frenzied and precise, as though the soil itself demanded a sacrifice of motion.
The sound carried, mile upon mile — a low thunder of countless heels. Travelers halted upon distant roads, gazing in awe and dread at the sight of a whole town moving as one body, writhing in fevered dance.
In a nearby hamlet, a shepherd leading his flock paused to listen, and even there the rhythm caught him. His staff clattered to the earth as his legs betrayed him, his arms flung wide in a parody of joy. The sheep scattered, bleating in terror, but he danced alone in the dust, lips drawn back in a smile not his own.
By eventide, the council, frantic and divided, sent riders unto every quarter — to Strasbourg, to Basel, to the bishopric itself. “Send aid, for the plague consumeth us,” their message read. “Send priests, send healers, send chains if thou must, for our people perish upon their feet.”
But chains availed little. Those bound were wracked with convulsions, their bodies contorting in grotesque mimicry of the steps they could no longer take. Some bit through their tongues, others tore at their flesh, yet still they sought to rise, to move, to dance.
Rumor spread swifter than the riders: that demons walked among the afflicted, faceless partners whirling in the torchlight, their shadows stretching long across the stones. Some swore they heard music not of pipe nor drum but of voices — a choir of the dead, singing from beneath the earth, urging the living to join their measure.
By the third night, the town was no longer a place of dwelling but a stage. The inns lay empty, the marketplace barren, yet the square overflowed with bodies moving as one. No man dared count their number, for each hour new souls entered the throng, unwilling or unwilling, until the boundaries of flesh and spirit blurred.
And above them all, the stars burned cold, indifferent witnesses to the madness below. The plague had become a tide, and it rose without ceasing.
What began with one man upon a bed had become a tempest that knew no walls, no mercy, no end. And still they danced — through agony, through exhaustion, through death itself — as though the world had been transformed into a single, endless floor upon which humanity must spend its final breath in step and measure.
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and then Add to home screen.