7. Marriage is a nightmare

It wasn't concrete I had hit once I banged straight towards the ground, it was dirt. I had ended up all the way back at Lake Gwelup. Was I dreaming? I couldn't have; this whole journey felt like weeks. And, believe it or not, which I had then figured out, it had been weeks. There was just magic that brought me all the way back to Australia. But then I reverted back to the thought of myself dreaming about that Corpse Bride chasing me throughout the world. Now I was really confused.

So, if she were around or not, I ran my way down the path, which was where this had all begun. I turned back to see if there were nobody coming my way or following me. When I realised there was no one there and when I turned back, I was unexpectedly inside a building. In front of me there was an acrylic lectern with a wood top. There were all sorts of equipment in this building: an organ, altar, pulpit, font and pew.

'How did I get here?' I wondered.

The organ started playing a tune; the wedding song perhaps. Terrified, I turned around and saw the acute figure down the rows of chairs, with possibly dead people sitting on them, of the Corpse Bride. Not only was she in her wedding gown, but she was also holding some flowers. Gaining courage, anger was being fulfilled into my life.

'STOP!' I screamed, pausing the music from playing and the dead from murmuring to each other. 'Why the hell are you making me marry her?! She's a dead woman and I'm a live man!'

'Ignore him!' the Corpse Bride told everyone in the church. 'Continue on with what we planned!'

And so the organ tune resumed and the Corpse Bride continued marching down the hall. A few skeletons - not from my point of view: Bonejaggles and his chorus - wrapped a cloth around my mouth to stop me from shouting again. All that came out of me was a muffled scream. They also tied up my hands so I wouldn't be able to unwrap my mouth.

When the Corpse Bride arrived near the lectern - and again this isn't from my point of view - an ancient and rickety skeleton named Elder Gutknecht stood before the lectern. Then he began: 'Dearly beloved and departed we are gathered here today to join this man and this corpse in marriage. Living first.'

Bonejaggles removed the cloth from my mouth. There I had said, 'No!'

'Oh, yeah,' said Elder Gutknecht. 'I have to say: do you, Emily, take this unnamed character to be your husband as long as you shall remain dead and he shall live?'

'I do,' replied the Corpse Bride, who was named Emily, quietly.

'And do you, unnamed character, take Emily to be your wife as long as you shall live and she shall remain dead?'

'I don't,' I replied, angrily.

'What?' said Elder Gutknecht, confused? 'So, she does and he doesn't. I'm so confused now.'

I wasn't really paying attention to him, I was just arguing with Emily. It started off like this:

Emily frowned at my reply, and then she retorted, 'I do.'

'I don't,' I confessed.

'I do!'

'I don't!'

While we were arguing with each other, Elder Gutknecht began to get even more confused when he murmured, 'No! No! Stop! You're confusing me more!' Until at last he yelled, 'Alright, that's it! None of you are getting married! Let's go everybody!'

'Yeah!' said Bonejaggles. 'Party's over!' He untied my hands.

'What a load of rubbish!' remarked a dead cook named Plum.

And so all the dead people headed straight outside of the church. Some went past the main entrance and some went through a cupboard, which is presumably the Land of the Dead. All who were left behind were me and Emily. Emily slapped me in the face really hard with her fleshed arm.

'Ow!' I cried in pain. 'What was that for?'

'Because you don't want to be my husband! she yelled.

'Well, duh, cause your dead,' I explained.

'Yeah but what's the difference?'

'There's a huge difference, missy.'

'You should've thought about that before you asked me to marry you.'

'No, but that was a mistake. Why would I want to marry you? Come on,' I laughed.

Emily sniffed, and then wandered off into the shadows where it could be too hard to see her any longer. Once she left, I was relieved and I jumped with joy.

'Yippee!' I cried with joy. 'I've finally got rid of that Corpse Bride! Thank you,' I preyed to the heavens and wandered off.

X.x.X

Sixty years later...

X.x.X

I had a great life until suddenly; I felt my heart pump so fast that it hurt. The next minute I knew was that I dropped dead on the ground. Part of me was in heaven but the other part was in, you know if you've watched Tim Burton's film, the underworld.

I was in some kind of bar. All the dead people around me celebrated for the new arrival (the new arrival was mainly I). The next thing I noticed was a familiar figure who didn't look so familiar after all these years. After sixty years, I realised it was Emily the Corpse Bride.

'Darling, your dead!' she cried with joy. 'You look so old now.'

'Yes, I do,' I said even though I was still feared her. 'But where am I?'

'Balls and Sockets,' she answered. 'And now, let's finish off our wedding. Hey! We don't need to, because now that you're dead we are married.'

I screamed with rage, and ran out of the bar to hurry around everywhere else in the land; and just like that for the rest of my death.