It's a grand ball, the sort of event you remember from your childhood. The air is full of voices and the sound of music measuring out a stately, but complex waltz. Subtle perfumes scent the air, hints of summer gardens and spring blooms. The floor is crowded and the warm candlelight glints off numerous gilt mirrors and crystal chandeliers, illuminating the riot of colours that shift and mix as dancers mark out the steps of the dance.

You are amidst the ball itself, but you are not dancing. Instead, others move around you in patterns that vary from simple circles to intricate patterns interacting with other dancers. As you follow their progress, you sense that you are perhaps not the only circle in the dance; although you cannot see very deeply into the crowd, there are brief hints of other centers within the dance.

The dancers move gracefully around you singly and in pairs and in circles. Some join briefly as they pass by one another, each spinning around the other, or circling before moving to their next partner; others move smoothly between the couples, their solitary steps complementing the more intricate maneuvering of the pairs and groups of dancers. As the music curls and flows around them, each dancer moves precisely - there are no clumsy steps, no sudden stumbles.

Your attention begins to focus on details, to draw in from the overall sense of the room. The blur of colour begins to take shape into bright gowns and lavish formal attire. A thousand shades shimmer and swirl, spin and weave in and out. The dancers are all masked: feathers or scale-like sequins; twisted grimaces and fixed smiles; cragged skin, smooth porcelain or cunningly fashioned fabric depicting fantastic beasts.

Each mask is more flamboyant and expertly made than the last. Yet, they are also twisted in a fashion that you cannot precisely grasp - there is nothing apparent to the casual eye, yet your hackles rise and something within tells you there is something terribly wrong with each warped visage. Knowing yet mad smiles, or avaricious glances, or sheer hostility, each watcher brings a sense of increasing discomposure.

As the façades come into true focus, the feelings of warmth and the cheerful bustle suddenly bleeds away. The light becomes hard and brittle; a cold breeze runs across your spine, bringing with it a carrion reek; the music takes on a frantic note, discordant and syncopated, increasingly distant from the right beat and notes. You feel a frisson of madness as the dancers stare and leer at you as they continue to wave past, trapping you within the weft and warp of their steps. Somehow the patterns they step through take on a building menace, a feeling of impending dread, and you frantically look in all directions to see whence the danger comes.

The music's feverish tone builds to a sudden silence, defeaning after the clamour. The dancers halt, frozen in place as if they had never moved - each marks a point in a pattern that your mind refuses to comprehend. Cold, hard light pours through the gaps between each dancer, blinding and burning as you are scalded from all sides.