Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Day of the Weak ❯ THREE ( Chapter 3 )

THREE—

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here…”

Yawn. He blinked sleepily, his silver eyes winking in the half-light. Shifting slightly, he rolled his shoulder, hearing the satisfying pop his tensed muscle produced as it was stretched.

Under the dappled cover of the lanky trees and undergrowth, he was safe. His clothes were a silent cotton, painted an unassuming gray that had blended in perfectly under cover of night.

Stowed feet away from him, beneath a thicket of dead branches, lay four bodies. Each was dressed in a loose-fitting burlap camouflage. And none of them were breathing.

He didn't spare the corpses a glance, instead keeping a trained gaze on the scene that was being executed below him. The veranda was a rectangle held next to the house in an asymmetrical horizontal sprawl.

The actual marriage was taking place in the front of the veranda, at the tip of a section that stuck out of the rectangle with an elevated platform.

Presented the view from the swelled slope of a sparsely-grassed knoll, he could pick out even the most insignificant of details. He could tell that the priest who was currently blathering in a weary monotone was probably as old as his grandfather.

Though his back was facing him, he could see how the muscles and bones struggled under the weight of the heavy formal robes that hung from his shoulders.

Every other sentence was punctuated with an almost-invisible wheeze. His spine was stooped, curved. The groom held his gaze haughtily, gazing at the hunched man over his nose.

At his full height, he seemed to be the tallest man in the room. The smile on his face was stuck on like a well-worn mask, seeming out of sorts with the expression in his eyes.

Cool silver irises scanned over the scene plaintively, taking in the various expressions of rapture and boredom and envy illustrated in the faces and body language. His brow furrowed.

The blonde man on the left of the priest held a look of infinite smugness. His head was held high, a smirk-like quality to his `earnest' smile, and a challenging glint in bottle green depths. The girl on the right… Her dark gaze was transfixed on the priest as well, but in a different way. She looked like a rabbit or some other poor little creature, trapped by the wolf. Every word out of the geriatric man's mouth rang in her head and her eyes were wide as if she could scarcely believe what was happening.

And she was small. She looked too young for marriage, like a kid that'd been mucking about in their mother's closet and make up. Her husband appeared more than twice her age, though his flawless and wrinkle-free skin suggested he was in his twenties…

Something was wrong here. A marriage was supposed to look like two gorgeous people who were blissfully in love. A marriage was not supposed to look like that cat and the canary or the child predator with the child.

But…

That wasn't his job. He closed his eyes again, willing himself to focus on the tumble of words caught and melted together in the sleepy drawl pulled from the holy man's throat.

“…and sanction this love with the ties of holy matrimony…”

Jesus, how long was this guy going to talk? Even the groom looked bored. The bride, though…she was probably begging for him to keep going, to keep stalling…

Still, he kept his ears attuned to pick out the last words. The critical moment was rapidly approaching. He'd have to be ready to strike soon.

At that thought, he unconsciously flexed his legs, feeling the muscles harden against the soft earth.

Any minute now…

. . .

“Do you, Viktor Paextreild Fareileas, take this woman as your wedded wife to hold and to love, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, `till death do you part?”

A minuscule pause, so hidden and imperceptibly camouflaged that she wouldn't have detected it if her hearing wasn't so strained. As soon as it surfaced, the small point of hesitation, weakness, was buried almost immediately--covered with a layer of unyielding confidence.

A crisp nod followed a smooth “of course.”

Friday shuddered, the fear she felt in her soul now overpowering her. Asphyxiating her, like a dark shroud thrown over her head constricted all breathing.

She was shaking in those moronic high heels, her leg muscles jumping and twitching with the instinctual urge to bolt and run for her life. For the rest of her life, just like last time. Only this time she was not going to get caught.

The priest opened his dry mouth, turning his head slightly to the quaking youth before him. Preparing to deliver the words that were probably spoken each day all across the world, but held a different meaning for this particular wife-to-be. It was like the death sentence being delivered in court by the judge, and was spoken with just as much enthusiasm.

“Do you, Friday Ashe Tuesdale, take this man as your wedded husband, to hold and to love, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, `till death do you part?”

And then, as though she were suddenly knocked by an unnameable force, she remembered the guards patrolling the area, strictly there in case she ran away. She remembered the exits all sealed off, and she remembered the six-inch stilettos her feet were balanced precariously on.

Her eyes fluttered shut, a sign of utter defeat. The smallest sound of despair rang from her mouth, her last plea.

The most damning words of all time were issued like a silent goodbye to life.

“I do.”

“By the power vested in me, I now declare you husband and wife.”

A silent eternity passed, her heart filling in the quiet rapture with its drum beats.

Then screams, shrill and alarming, ensued from the crowd. Sounds of horrified panic erupted. Friday opened her eyes, wondering just what was going on.

A sharp whistle pierced the air. She covered her ears from the strident sound grating on her brain like a thousand knives and then, then it was over. Friday hesitantly looked up from her crouched position.

A deafening roar resounded in the veranda, like thunder only much, much closer and she desperately glanced around in the confusion and people, people were climbing over one another and tearing away as fast as their limbs would carry them. A deep pit had been torn into the expensive tile of the porch, drawing up the springy, moist earth underneath. Pieces of flaming debris floated from the purple sky, scraps of clothing and skin blown off in the explosion.

The smell of burnt flesh stung at her nostrils, and while she was still temporarily deaf from the explosion, charred remains of bodies crowded the hole torn into the marble. They steamed under the contact of the torrential shower from the sky and—some people were still alive, clutching at their torn and mangled limbs in anguish and sorrow and yelling up at the heavens as if to mourn for their missing parts.

She stood there as if rooted to the ground, watching the chaos and the guests clawed at one another and scrambled like rats, frantic and bewildered. Blood was everywhere; the crystal that was adorning the sides and pillars of the structure now littered the ground, sharp shards splitting, cutting everything open and bleeding. Red splattered the fronts of dresses, it leaked with as much fervor as the sky from the dead, pooling all around them and joining the stream of filthy water.

She wasn't even vaguely aware that the roof that had been destroyed had allowed the water to gather on her, soaking her almost emaciated figure. And she was now alone, the priest's body laying on the marble behind her with a bullet in his head, staining the pristine white of her dress with more red, more metallic liquid. Her husband was nowhere in sight.

In the pandemonium she had the perfect chance to escape. Except her mind was numb, her brain kept taking her back months, triggered by the sight of blood and bodies and destruction littered all around. And she, she was in the center of it like the figurehead in a fountain, with the water splayed around her, drowning her.

The heavy droplets of water—bad luck on a wedding—flew through air like clear petals, decorating the scene below.

She didn't notice the figure climb onto the elevated platform from behind her.

Steel pressure enclosed her thin waist. She felt pain; her organs were being crushed in a vice.

A quick blow to the back of her neck. Her eyes widened in their sockets when she was jerked back to hit something…warm. She clutched at the clamp around her, scratching at it with her blunt nails as she suddenly realized—

Blackness.

. . .