Gray had finally come to in some sort of bar, a bar that isn't at all familiar to him. When his vision finally becomes clear he sees corpses in various forms of decay crowded around two tables and a piano, all of them drinking and having a good time. Gray then realizes that he is slumped on the ground in the center of all the chaos and instantly a few corpses, the bride included, crowd around him while others seem to look their way, all the deceased with pints of liquor in the hands.
"A new arrival," one of them, the voice was female, cries out.
"He must've fainted," the bride helped him sit up as she looked into his eyes, "are you alright?"
"What..." Gray let his eyes roam around to take in the scenery before him, "what happened?"
"By God man! It looks like we have ourselves a breather!" A voice from somewhere called out.
"Ooohhh, does he have a dead relative?" A female voice from somewhere in the room as ks curiously. To be honest, his adoptive father was dead but Gray doubted he would be here.
A young male child approached Gray and begins to poke him with a stick, "he's not rotting!"
Somewhere behind him, a corpse stands up on a table, holding a glass of booze in her hand, "a toast then!" She smiled, "to the newlyweds!"
Everyone around raised their glasses in the air to toast and then happily begin drinking again. What is this place? Gray allowed his eyes to actually focus on the woman in front of him, his supposed bride, "newlyweds?"
The bride pulled her groom up to his feet, "mm. In the woods you said your vows so perfectly," she held out her hand and she shows him the ring as she moves her fingers back and forth.
"I did?" Now it was all beginning to make sense to him, "I did," he grabs hold of the bar and instantly begins hitting his head against the counter, "wake up! Wake up! Wake up!"
"Coming through, coming through," a lively young corpse with a bright smile makes her way through the crowd and back behind the bar. Gray lifts his head as his eyes are rolling from his head being hit one too many times against the hard surface, "hello there. My name is Mira and I'm head waitress. I shall be creating your wedding feast."
The bride places a hand on Gray's back and stares at him. He pulls his focus towards her just to be pushed back from her a little bit by a man with pink hair. Really? A man with pink hair? "A wedding feast huh? I'm salivating!"
Gray was now completely confused. What exactly is going on? Where exactly is he? Who exactly is he married to? Nothing seemed to make any sense to him at the moment but all he wanted were some god damn answers. He cautiously began to back away until he ran right into a red headed corpse with a sword at her side. Without thinking, he grabbed the sword and points it at everyone in front of him with shaking hands, "keep away!" The rightful owner of the sword then steps before him with her arms crossed as she snatches her sword away from him and places it back at her side, "I had... well, I had a sword!" He grabs the closest thing to him which just so happens to be a lone fork on the counter, "I've got... I've got.. I've got a fork! And I'm not afraid to use it! I want some questions now!"
"Answers," the brunette girl on the table, who made the toast earlier, behind him whispered in his ear, "I think you mean answers."
He glanced at her and nodded with a smile, but quickly made it disappear when he remembered the current situation at hand, "thank you, yes answers. I need answers. What's going on here? Where am I? Who are you?" He turns to face his supposed bride with worried eyes.
"Well," she twiddled her fingers together as she looked down at the ground, "that's kind of a long story."
"What a story it is!" A voice over by the piano hummed out. Everyone pulled their focus to a man dressed in a now tattered white suit, a white hat and a pair of sunglasses. The woman behind the bar let out a sigh but the man in the white continued to speak, "a tragic tale of romance, passion..." he drew closer to Gray, "and a murder most foul."
"This is going to be good," a young girl at his side clasped her hands together by her face and smiled. Gray instantly dropped the fork and lifted a leg in fear of the young corpse.
The man in the white suit walked back over towards the piano and the small stage, "hit it boys." He points over to a few men holding instruments. Music instantly begins to fill the room as the man takes his place behind the microphone and begins to sing, "give me a listen, you corpses of cheer. At least those of you who still can hear. I'll tell you a story that would make a corpse here cry. And it's of our own jubiliciously, lovely Corpse Bride!"
The others soon begin to clap and join the man singing the chorus of his song, "die, die, we all pass away. Don't wear a frown, 'cause it's really okay. You might try and hide, and you might try and pray, but we all end up the remains of the day. Yeah, yeah, yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah!"
The crowd around Gray stops singing and they all pull their focus back to the man on stage who now has the bride standing next to him and his arm around her, "well, our girl was a beauty known for miles around. Then a mysterious stranger came into town. He was pretty good looking, but down on his cash, and our poor little baby, she fell hard and fast. But her daddy said 'no', and she just couldn't cope, so our lovers came up with a plan to elope." The lively gang of corpses joined in once again with the chorus, "yeah, yeah, yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah!" Their clapping continues as the bar becomes a very wild party filled with various sounds from different instruments. Gray simply looks around, snapping his fingers occasionally and backing away slowly any time a corpse so much as came near him. Where was he? Suddenly, the singing started once again, "yeah, so they conjured up a plan to meet late at night. They told not a soul, kept the whole thing tight. Now her mother's wedding dress fit like a glove. You don't need much when you're really in love, except for a few things, or so I'm told; like the family jewels and a satchel of gold. Then next to the graveyard by the old Oak tree, on a dark foggy night at a quarter to three, she was ready to go, but where was he?"
Suddenly, everything went quiet for a moment before the red headed corpse with the sword approached him from behind, "and then?" Gray, caught off guard jumped about a mile high into the air and shuttered.
"She waited," the man in the torn white suit whispered, pushing the crowd closer to him, and Gray right into the bar.
Suddenly, the waitress from earlier, Mira right? Yeah, Mira, she approached Gray and now she and the red head whispered to him, "and then?"
"There in the shadows, was it her man?"
Another corpse joined the crowd around Gray, it was the pink haired man from earlier, "and then?"
"Her little heart beat soooooooo loud!"
Another corpse had now crowded around Gray, making him shrink down even more into his shirt, if that was even possible. This time the corpse was a blue haired man with some weird red mark around his right eye, blood maybe? "and then?"
"And then, baby, everything went black..." his voice trailed off and suddenly all of the lights in the bar began flickering on and off until they finally flickered out. It was dark for a matter of seconds before the lights flashed on, and the man singing was laying along the top of the piano and the whole crowd of corpses was gathered around the still living young man who was brought to this by a grave misunderstanding, "now when she opened her eyes, she was dead as dust. Her jewels were missing, and her heart was bust. So she made a vow laying under that tree, that she'd wait for her true love to come set her free," he jumped down off the top of the piano and walked towards Gray, placing his hands on the young man's shoulders. Gray shivered, "always waitin' for someone to ask for her hand, when out of the blue comes this groovy young man," the white suited man begins pushing Gray towards his bride, who was holding out one of her hands, as if she wanted him to take it, "who vows forever to be by her side," he then pushes Gray right into the bride's hands and the two begin to spin around and dance. Gray gasped out of fear, not really knowing what else there was for him to really do, "and that's the story of our Corpse Bride!" The man in white, who was now standing up on the stage, tips his hat and the stage light goes out, making it completely dark. When Gray and his bride suddenly come to a stop and he falls back into the crowd of people. Seeing this as a golden opportunity to get away, he stands and begins to mimic everyone's cheering behavior while slowly inching towards the steps that led up to a door. When he figured he was out of everyone's line of sight, he scurried away, only to be seen and followed by his lovely wife.
Author's note: Well, there ya go. I really hope that everyone enjoyed this chapter and I hope it did this part of the movie justice. This is just the start to Gray's adventures in the underworld and by the looks of things it seems to be very alive down there... so what'd you guys think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know in the reviews.