A Macabre Ballet, Til Death Do They Part

The stage is set outside, in the center of the audience who surrounded it from all sides. The day was shadowed by the grim nature of the dark gray clouds preventing the sun from shining through with its usual radiance. The audience that surrounded the small circular stage were all dressed in a grotesque macabre fashion. The women dressed in black, some had black veils to cover their faces while others wore a variety of eerie masks. The men dressed in black and many of them wore a variety of bizarre masks, while others had pale painted faces. Although, their eyes were shadowed with black paint as well as their lips.
The theater patrons sat and whispered amongst each other as they watched the performer walk on stage. The ballerina felt the harsh leers and heard their disapproval through their whispers. It was to be expected as she was unconventionally dressed for the macabre show. Unlike the crowd that sat before her, she wore all white. The white outfit glittered, and her tutu was exaggerated in size as it puffed out almost arms length all around, followed by a sheer wispy trail attached to an over sized bow on her lower back. Her face was painted with a white heart that covered her eyes and ended just below her lips. Her blonde hair was tightly pulled back in a bun that was covered on the top by an over sized white bow. Everything about her contradicted her audience, but she wanted to perform her ballet dance none the less. She ignored the judgmental leering from the audience, and got into her beginning stance, which queued the band to begin playing.
The band played a somber sounding song. It started of slow and deep and the ballerina adorned in white began her solo dance slowly alongside the music. Gracefully she glided across the stage, she didn't miss a step. She kept her head up high, keeping her focus away from the crowd. All that mattered was the perfection of her dance. If she looked at the crowd she feared her skill and grace would falter from their lack of admiration toward her.
Once she reached the edge she twisted around and leaped to the center where she elegantly twirled. In the middle of her twirl she felt a cold rush of air and a familiar dark presence surround her. When her twirl came to a stop she continued on gracefully, making sure her posture did not waver as she glided across the stage. She looked to the center and saw the ghostly appearance of a man she once knew. The image of this man startled her and out of fear she lost her composure falling to the floor. Some of the audience gasped in disapproval, but she tried to play it off as part of the dance. The music was still somber so she covered the heart on her face with her palms and slowly slid her hands down to her heart as she delicately rose back up to begin dancing again.
As she danced across the stage her focus was solely on the phantom that haunted her. She didn't know if the crowd could see him, but she did not want her performance to be ruined. Her heart raced with fear. Her mind reeled from agony. The agony she had to face seeing her late husband before her. The agony she had to endure from memories of the horrible sins she committed upon him. Slowly and steady with the beat of the music she waltzed back to the middle, getting closer to him. Desperately she wanted to avoid him, but her dance did not allow room for error as the stage was too small to alter any movements.
As the widowed dancer drew closer to her dead husband she ignored him, looking straight through his translucent form. The coldness of his presence covered her body in chills, and goosebumps riddled her bare skin. His ghostly form twisted around her without touching her body and she closed her eyes to try to avoid looking at him. He tempted her to cry out in fear as he haunted her space with his closeness. He refrained from touching, as he wanted her mind to fill with the anticipation of the horror he would inflict. His anger seethed from his dead soul and filled her mind. He defied her resistance towards him as he whispered in her ears a deathly lyric that harmonized with the music. “You severed my heart.”
A sharp pain stabbed at her heart. It was a feeling of great regret and sorrow. Her recent past was filled with total darkness that caused this dead soul to suffer greatly. She held back her tears as she continued her performance. She felt his presence grow even more angry as she continued to ignore him.
He forced his presence to be known by her, as this time he completely engulfed her body with his dark demonic presence as he entered her. Again, he sang to her in harmonic tune to the despondent music, “You severed my heart and made a void. There's still fragments of me in your soul.”
His power over her was unimaginable. Her dancing stopped abruptly and she bent over grabbing her chest gasping for air. As he left her body, she felt something change. Her heart was cold and empty. Her once effervescent demeanor was now dark and sinister. A grim and evil look appeared in her eyes as she slowly lifted herself back up. She faced the grotesque theater patrons with a frightening gaze. She felt the fear of the audience radiating before her. Their terror came from her sudden change of appearance.
Her ballet ensemble was no longer white. Her apparel had slowly transitioned from white to black. Her satin ballet slippers were the first to change, as the dark color slithered its way to the very top of her head engulfing her bow. Her blonde hair was now black and her pink skin became porcelain white. The white heart painted on her face now contrasted her pale skin with its dark hue.
Many of the audience seemed baffled by the sudden change, but the confusion became more astounding as the dark man that once haunted the white costumed ballerina now haunted the entire audience with his phantom appearance. Despite the horror filled experience, the audience became enamored. The judgmental leering and whisperings from before halted as they all gazed in awe, awaiting her next move in the performance.
Her dead husband grabbed her hand and without the slightest look of emotion on her face, she continued her dance, but this time it was no longer a solo performance. The pair masqueraded across the stage. His deep dark voice sang to her as they danced and drifted across the stadium. He repeated the same words as before. “You severed my heart and made a void. There's still fragments of me in your soul.” Her dipped her low to the ground, exposing the bare skin of her throat as her head dropped back. He caressed the black heart painted on her face and slid his hand down her throat to her chest, caressing the breast that shielded her dark cold heart. His phantom hand went through her breast and he squeezed her heart. The widowed woman gasped in pain, and in that moment he lifted her back up close to his face where they stared fiercely into each others eyes. They swirled around on stage, still dancing a somber dance with his hand clasping her beating heart as he sang to her more. “Whisper your eternal love to me. Confess your sins and repent.”
As they danced and swirled around on stage, they began to levitate above the stage. The theater patrons looked up in wonder at the whimsical ballet being performed. He twirled her away from him and in that moment the heart he held with a firm grasp ripped from her chest. The beating heart was black and pulsing in his hand. Under his power she still danced as if nothing had ever happened. She twirled and leaped through the air giving the ultimate performance while her chest bore a gaping hole where her heart should have been. The dark black substance of blood dripped from her chest and blood ran from her eyes like tears.
“You severed my heart and made a void.” He sang out to her. The music became more sinister and filled with anger. He continued in harmony, holding her black heart close to his lips.
“There's still fragments of me in your soul. Whisper your eternal love to me. Confess your sins and repent. We said until death. We said 'til we die.”
He gave the black heart in his hands a strong squeeze until it burst. His widowed wife instantly dropped to the ground.
“For our love, in sickness or in health, we said 'til we die.”
He dropped the heart to the ground next to her lifeless body. The music slowly came to an end as an apparition of her darkened soul rose from her dead physical form. Her ghostly figure gravitated towards her husband as together they sang in unison. “Until death. We said 'til we die.”
The apparitions disappeared together and the stage remained silent for a moment. One man from the audience stood and clapped, which was quickly followed by a standing ovation from the entire crowd.