The year was 1518. The month was July, a time when the sun over Strasbourg usually brought life to the vineyards and warmth to the Rhine. But this year, the heat was different. It was a heavy, suffocating blanket that seemed to press the very breath out of the citizens' lungs. The air smelled of dry hay, stagnant river water, and an underlying scent of something metallic—like old blood drying on a blade.
In the heart of the city, where the timber-framed houses leaned toward each other like gossiping old men, Elias stood near the fountain of the central square. He was a man of few words and many secrets, a traveler whose boots had seen the dust of a dozen kingdoms. He had arrived in Strasbourg only two days prior, seeking a quiet place to disappear, but the atmosphere here felt anything but quiet. It felt like a string pulled too tight, waiting for the first nick of a knife to snap.
Then, it happened.
Frau Troffea, a woman known for her quiet demeanor and hardworking hands, walked into the center of the cobblestone street. There was no music. There was no festival. She didn't say a word. She simply began to move. At first, it looked like a stumble, a loss of balance under the scorching sun. But as Elias watched, his eyes narrowing, he realized it was rhythmic. Her feet tapped against the stones, her arms swayed with a grace that was chillingly unnatural, and her head lolled back, eyes staring blankly at the cloudless sky.
"Is she ill?" a baker muttered, wiping flour-stained hands on his apron.
"Sunstroke, surely," an old woman whispered, crossing herself.
But as minutes turned into hours, the whispers turned into a haunting silence. Frau Troffea did not stop. Her shoes, thin and made of leather, began to fray. Blood started to seep through the seams, staining the grey stones of Strasbourg with a rhythmic, crimson trail. She was dancing. Not with joy, but with a desperate, frantic energy, as if someone—or something—was pulling her invisible strings from the shadows.
Elias moved closer, his hand instinctively reaching for the small, silver crucifix hidden beneath his tunic. He had seen many things in his travels—plagues that turned skin black, wars that leveled cities—but he had never seen a person dance themselves to the brink of death with a smile frozen on their face. This was not a disease of the body. This was a disease of the soul.
By nightfall, the square was surrounded by torches. The local authorities, confused and frightened, tried to stop her. Two sturdy guards grabbed her by the arms, but Frau Troffea kicked and thrashed with a strength that defied her frail frame. She wasn't fighting the guards; she was fighting to keep moving. The moment they let go, she resumed her macabre waltz, her breath coming in ragged, whistling gasps.
Elias retreated to the shadows of a nearby tavern, his mind racing. He remembered an old scroll he had once seen in a monastery in the east—a story of the 'Dancing Plague,' a curse that struck when the sins of a city reached a boiling point. But Strasbourg was a city of churches and cathedrals. What sin could be so great?
As he sat there, sipping a bitter ale, he noticed something even more terrifying. In the corners of the square, others were watching Frau Troffea. Not with horror, but with a glazed, hypnotic intensity. Their feet were beginning to twitch. A young girl, barely ten years old, was mirroring Troffea's hand movements. A priest was tapping his wooden staff in time with the silent beat.
The rhythm was spreading. Like a ripple in a dark pond, the urge to move was infecting the very air. Elias felt a slight thrumming in his own chest, a vibration that seemed to match the tapping of Troffea's bloody heels. He bit his lip until he tasted iron, using the pain to anchor his mind.
"It's the air," he whispered to himself. "The curse is in the air."
By the next morning, Frau Troffea was not alone. Three more people had joined her in the square. A blacksmith, a weaver, and the very baker who had questioned her sanity the day before. They danced in a circle around the fountain, their movements synchronized in a terrifying, silent ballet. They did not eat. They did not drink. They only danced.
The authorities were desperate. Instead of banning the dance, the city council, advised by misguided physicians, decided that the victims needed to "dance it out." They cleared the square, hired musicians to play frantic fiddle music, and even built a wooden stage. They thought they could cure the madness with more madness.
Elias knew they were making a grave mistake. By providing music, they weren't curing the plague; they were inviting the devil to lead the orchestra.
As the sun rose on the third day, the sound of the fiddles echoed through the narrow streets, mixing with the screams of those who had finally collapsed, their hearts bursting from the exertion. And yet, even as they fell, their fingers continued to twitch, dancing even in death.
Elias packed his bags, but he knew he couldn't leave. He was a man with a dark past, and perhaps, he thought, his arrival here was no coincidence. He was the only one who saw the shadows moving behind the dancers—the flickering, elongated shapes that didn't belong to any living person.
The Midnight Waltz had begun, and Elias was the only one who knew that once the music started, the only way to stop it was to find the one who was playing the tune.
He looked at the Great Cathedral of Strasbourg, its spire reaching toward the heavens like a warning finger. Somewhere in this city, hidden in a cellar or buried in a tomb, the source of this curse was waiting. And if he didn't find it within the next week, the entire city would become a graveyard of dancing corpses.
He stepped out of the tavern, his eyes fixed on the bloody cobblestones. He had ninety-nine days to break the curse, or he would be the next one to join the waltz.