Twilight: But it's a Thriller and I Never Read Twilight

Part Four: Breaking Dawn

I walked down the aisle alone, my dress trailing behind me as I stood in entry to the church. My wedding party, Alice and Rosalie dressed in red silks, were watching me with delight. Alice's nervous energy was focused on me today as we waited for the music to play. Beyond this room of white walls and arching stained glass windows depicting the Virgin Mary, a soft-spoken reverend was talking about love unending and the law of Christ. I shifted my hands around my bouquet of red and white flowers. Once the music played, it would all begin, and all eyes would be on me.

The music seemed to start inside my head before it drifted out through the church, loud and clear. Alice took Jasper's arm and stepped out the door, pushing through to the aisle beyond. I breathed in, trying to settle my nerves that hadn't stopped since I'd stepped foot inside this church. Another moment went and Rosalie and Emmett stepped out together, leaving just me to walk the aisle, down to Edward and my future with him.

It was just words, I told myself, just words I'd practiced a million times before, but it didn't matter. I wouldn't be saying them to Edward. Everything I said in there would be to the room of people, most of whom, I didn't care about much at all. Members of the town, people I knew from high school, people Edward had known and who had known him, but most of my friends weren't here. My Dad wasn't walking me down the aisle, my best friend wasn't in the wedding party and Jessica wasn't my maid of honor. All those people were gone, and I reminded myself that it was for the better. I wouldn't need them anymore.

As the music swelled and I stepped out into the church, I closed my eyes tight and as I took my first step on the long church carpet, I opened them to a wedding of blood. The windows, once showcasing bright images of the apostles and the Holy Spirit were now stained with a thick coat of red that seemed to blot out the sunlight. Scarlet, sickly light reached down through the church, mixing with the white of the walls and leaving shafts of light that moved and glowed like fire.

The pews were not empty, but filled with people, all of them slumped a little in their seats. I took another step forward toward where Edward was at the alter as if propelled and nearly tripped over something heavy on the floor. Hesitantly, I looked down to what was under my foot and found a girl with her hair covering her face. The blood that stained it was dark as if this had been done to her long ago. Slowly, I bent down and moved the reddened hair out of her eyes.

On the floor, covered in blood with a gash that seemed to cleave her face in two, was Jessica in her Sunday best, like she'd come to church to see this wedding unfold. I didn't react to my dead friend on the ground. I only felt so much more disconnected. Instead, I stood up to my full height in the tight heels Alice had picked out for me and looked to the men and women surrounding me in the pews. For a second, I thought they were all dead before they straightened up with a loud crack in their backs and turned their heads toward me on the thin swivel of their necks.

Their eyes were black and hollow without the whites that should have been visible. Every single guest was gaunt and grey like victims of the plague. They weren't people anymore and I couldn't be sure they ever were.

I looked to Edward, horrified and stricken silent. Slowly, he lifted a hand and beckoned me forward toward the alter. As if by force, I was dragged across the aisle, over Jessica's body and toward the dead wedding waiting for me. I wanted to close my eyes, but it unfolded before me without a warning. As I stood at the top step before Edward, he took my hands into his.

"We finally made it," he said, but the voice didn't sound like him. This wasn't the boy I knew.

I looked back down the aisle, where the gaunt dead were now standing at attention, their mouths opening to rejoice in song, but all that came from them was the black bile of vampire venom. It dripped from them onto the floor where it twisted into a pool of viscous fluid. The church flooded with it, spreading out into a lake and stopping just before the steps. Shaking, I looked down to where the venom had pooled and found my reflection vibrating with the venom.