The Red Death plague ravages the land, killing infected victims within half an hour of the first symptoms appearing.

Prince Prospero summons a thousand knights and dames from his court to ride out the plague alongside him.

The iron gates of Prospero's castellated abbey are welded shut, sealing everyone inside away from the Red Death.

After months of seclusion, Prospero hosts a lavish masquerade ball of unusual magnificence for his guests.

The ball unfolds across seven distinctly colored rooms arranged in sequence from east to west.

The seventh room is decorated entirely in black, lit by blood-red windows, and houses a gigantic ebony clock.

Prospero clothes every guest in grotesque, dream-like costumes entirely of his own bizarre design.

Each time the ebony clock strikes the hour, the music falls silent and the entire party freezes in uneasy dread.

A masked figure appears at midnight, suddenly noticed by the entire crowd as though materializing from nowhere.

The figure wears a funeral shroud and a mask so realistic it resembles the face of a blood-stained, stiffened corpse.

Enraged by the apparent intrusion, Prospero orders the figure to be seized immediately and unmasked.

Every single guest shrinks back and refuses to touch the figure as it moves freely through the rooms.

Prospero draws his dagger and pursues the masked figure alone through the sequence of colored rooms.

The figure turns to face Prospero at the threshold of the black seventh room, and Prospero collapses dead.

The revelers find nothing beneath the figure's costume and one by one fall dead until the last life is extinguished.

A devastating plague called the Red Death ravages a kingdom, prompting Prince Prospero to seal himself and a thousand courtiers inside a fortified abbey. After months of isolation, Prospero stages an extravagant masquerade ball across seven strangely decorated rooms, each lit by a colored stained-glass window. A gigantic ebony clock in the final black-and-red room unsettles the guests every time it strikes the hour. At the stroke of midnight a mysterious masked figure appears among the crowd, wearing a funeral shroud and a mask resembling a blood-stained corpse. Prospero furiously pursues the figure alone through the sequence of rooms with a drawn dagger, only to fall dead at the threshold of the seventh room when the figure turns to face him. The revelers rush the figure, find nothing beneath its robes, and one by one collapse dead until the Red Death holds dominion over all.

The headline events of a plague's deadly masquerade.

The Red Death causes sharp pains, sudden dizziness, and profuse bleeding at the pores before swiftly killing its victims.

Anyone bearing the Red Death's visible facial marks is immediately excluded from the sympathy and aid of all countrymen.

Roughly half of Prospero's kingdom has been depopulated by the Red Death before he withdraws to the abbey.

Prospero selects a castellated abbey — built with the fortifications of a castle — as the ideal refuge for his court.

The abbey is stocked with ample food, drink, and entertainment to sustain the court through a long confinement.

The ball's first six rooms run in color from blue to purple, then green, orange, white, and finally violet.

Fire-lit tripods placed in hallways shine through tall Gothic stained-glass windows to flood each room with matching colored light.

Sharp turns between each room's connecting hallway ensure that only one room at a time can be seen or entered.

The ebony clock's chime is so powerful and peculiar it forces the musicians to stop playing entirely at each hour.

When the clock's strange chime fades, the guests exchange nervous laughter with one another before resuming their dancing.

Musicians play continuously in the first six rooms as guests dance freely among the elaborately costumed crowd.

Despite the ongoing festivities, almost no guests dare to enter the seventh black-and-red room during the entire night.

After Prospero is struck down, the masked figure retreats into the deep shadow cast by the ebony clock.

A group of revelers hurls themselves at the masked figure and discovers there is nothing solid whatsoever beneath its robes.

The tripod flames across the abbey go out one by one as the final reveler collapses and all life in the rooms is extinguished.

Before Prospero retreats, half his kingdom has already been wiped out by a plague whose physical symptoms are as horrifying as the social exile they cause. He selects a castellated abbey as his refuge, stocks it with provisions, and seals it shut to create what he believes is an impenetrable sanctuary. The masquerade he designs features six colored rooms whose light is conjured by tripods shining through stained glass, with sharp hallway turns ensuring each room feels entirely separate. An ebony clock's peculiar chime repeatedly disrupts the revelry, forcing musicians to stop and reducing even the most carefree guests to nervous laughter. Though the party is festive, almost no guest dares enter the forbidding black-and-red seventh room where the clock waits. After Prospero's death the revelers attack the figure, find nothing inside its costume, and die one by one as the last flames in the abbey go dark.

The hidden details that built Prince Prospero's doomed fortress.

The Red Death's bloody facial marks strip victims of their social identity and cast them out from all human sympathy.

Prospero abandons his kingdom's dying subjects entirely and retreats to safety with only his wealthy courtiers.

The court's terror of the plague outside is converted into reckless costumed revelry once the masquerade gets underway.

The narrator hints that some considered Prospero mad, suggesting his entire invented world may be a fever delusion.

The rooms shift in décor from brilliant blue to absolute black, evoking the human journey from birth toward death.

Prospero's guests are described as a multitude of dreams drifting through the rooms, hinting they may not be real people.

Each hourly chime from the ebony clock grips even the most carefree revelers with an involuntary and inexplicable dread.

The masked figure is noticed by all guests simultaneously at midnight, having entered the sealed abbey by no visible means.

The guests recognize that the figure's blood-dabbled mask signals not costume artistry but apparent Red Death infection.

Every single guest defies Prospero's direct command, refusing to touch or apprehend the masked intruder.

Prospero's thousand guests watch passively as Prospero charges after the figure alone, abandoning the safety of the crowd.

Prospero becomes the masquerade's first fatality, falling dead before the figure without having been physically struck.

The revelers seize the figure and discover there is absolutely no physical form beneath the mask and funeral shroud.

The complete absence of any body beneath the costume reveals that the Red Death itself had mingled among the guests.

With every reveler dead and the tripod flames spent, Darkness, Decay, and the Red Death hold unlimited dominion over all.

The plague's cruelest power is social as well as physical — its visible marks transform victims into outcasts before death even arrives. Prospero's retreat reveals his obliviousness to his subjects' suffering, and the masquerade he designs to convert fear into revelry is laced with symbols of death he believes he has mastered. The narrator hints that Prospero may be mad and that the guests may be nothing more than dreamed figures in a feverish mind. When the masked figure appears at midnight by no visible means of entry, the guests realize its blood-dabbled mask signals genuine infection rather than costume, yet they still refuse Prospero's command to act. Prospero charges alone while his thousand guests watch passively, and falls dead at the final threshold without being physically struck. The emptiness discovered beneath the figure's costume delivers the story's central revelation: death itself had been among them all along.