Chapter 1: Black Wedding

Note to self: If you’re gonna go out partying the night before your wedding, don’t wear the very same suit that you plan to wear the next day, don’t shove your thumb down some babe’s mouth, and don’t drink a metric-fuck-ton of panty-droppers; cuz your panties will be dropping.

My head was pounding. I had a throbbing hangover. The bright chapel lights dug into my eyes, slamming into my very skull. The guest’s chatter and the distant wailing sirens felt like ice-picks bursting my eardrums. I might as well have been dying. And yet, I stood up before the altar, with my best-man-slash-maid-of-honor Steve. Something had caught his eye on the cuff of my sleeve. He nudged me and cleared his throat softly.

“C'mon man,” he whispered. “Really? Clean that shit up.”

Shit. Bright pink lipstick was smeared on the outside of my cuff. I hadn’t even noticed, having rushed out the door, having overslept, having woken up somewhere strange, and having to revisit three different establishment’s lost-and-founds to reassemble the entirety of my suit.

Now, you might be wondering, what’s the problem. I’m a girl, my fiance Kait is also a girl, and we both wear lipstick, so I had a plausible excuse that some accident delivered lipstick to my said cuff. Well, I would normally agree, but the problem here, is that neither me, nor my fiance Kait, wore dumb bimbo hot pink lipstick. She wore shades of blue; I wore shades of nude. So hot pink lipstick on my sleeve was most definitely a problem.

I wonder if anyone already saw it? Afterall, I was standing up in front of everyone, kinda at the center of attention. I scanned the crowd, checking if anyone had noticed. My Dad sat with Grandpa, and Dad winked when he saw me glance his way, probably cuz I looked all nervous. My soon-to-be Father-in-Law was glaring, but that was normal for conservative assholes. The rest of the crowd seemed indifferent. Ok, so maybe this wasn’t the worst. I just needed to covertly clean up the lipstick stain, and none would be the wiser.

Without drawing too much attention, I pulled out the carefully folded blue silk napkin from my front jacket pocket and started wiping at the stain, which really only smeared the stain around more. I was pretty sure everyone had noticed at this point, but whatever. When I checked the crowd again, I saw Dad slightly shake his head. Right. Probably not the best use of the silk napkin. I crumpled it back into the pocket and patted it down, leaving an awkward lump on my breast.

The shenanigans really were just a distraction from the crux of my issues. With the stain fixed, well actually smeared, but close enough, my mind was once again free to roam, back to the completely normal, and not out of place at all, pre-wedding jitters.

Holy Shit. I was getting married. What the fuck was I thinking? I mean sure, gay marriage was a thing now, but holy fuck. I never thought I’d get to this point...and spending my entire life with just one person? That was a huge freaking commitment. What was I thinking? What was I thinking when I proposed to Kait? I should have stuck as a lone wolf, no commitments--I wasn’t ready!

Sweat beaded on my forehead as I legit wondered if anyone would stop me from bolting. I could probably make it halfway down the aisle before someone noticed, and clear the heavy chapel doors before anyone gave chase. I could totally escape.

My cousin Steve, I love that guy, he nudged me again, feeling my vibes.

“You’re better than your mom man,” he said.

“Hell yeah I am,” I said back, starting to feel better about tying the knot. I hope that bitch died in a ditch. I almost spat, before remembering where I was.

“Dude,” Steve added. “You’ll make a great wife.”

Well, I don’t know that I’d go that far, but sure. I’m glad to inspire confidence. Besides, I couldn’t give up on Kait. She was good. Way too good for me. I was so incredibly-freaking-lucky that she agreed to marry me. And wow...her family paid for this posh church off Fifth Avenue, in the fancy part of Seattle. How much did this all cost? Kait’s dad would probably hire a hitman if I bailed now. He probably even knew one from his church.

The music started, drowning out most of the sirens. Everyone hushed, except for some dudes screaming outside, but hey, Seattle. The front doors opened, and the love of my life started down the aisle, in her white dress, with her train, and blue flowers, and fuck, her smile. This woman, this was the woman I was gonna spend the rest of my--

Everything shook. The floor groaned, pews slid out from under people, and the stained glass window behind me cracked. An explosion rocked the outside of the Chapel, on the side facing the street. I lost my balance, the floor seeming to rise up to hit me. Steve went down atop of me.

Now I hadn’t mentioned this before, but Steve was a big guy. Also soft. Like tempurpedic soft. But holy shit, having a few hundred pounds of man-meat landing on you hurt. I shouted. Or tried to. From under Steve it came out as a grunt.

The wedding guests were screaming.

Another explosion shook the chapel, this one sounding closer. Something pounded against the wall. A clinking sound. A bam. Then another explosion, and debris fell, as the wall formerly separating the inside of the chapel from Fifth Street collapsed. The stained glass above us gave, shattering, even though it really shouldn’t have. Jagged pieces fell all around us, some hitting Steve, who thankfully blocked for me.

“Holy shit I’m dying!” He shouted in a high pitched wail as glass sliced into his shoulder and back.

Meanwhile, the reasonable person that I am, who was not currently embedded with glass, thought that these explosions were a little too much. I mean, we were in Downtown Seattle. This type of activity shouldn’t fly here. In short, this was utter bullshit. And I planned on getting out. Starting with Steve and getting his fatass off me.

“Move!” I said, flailing beneath him. He was a heavy, heavy, guy. It was honestly a bit hard to breathe with him on me. And meanwhile, he was busy with his own problems. He might not have even realized he was suffocating me.

A shadow passed by, and I thought someone must have been there to help. Maybe first responders, or a local good samaritan, or Dad. I bet it was my Dad, come to save me. I craned my neck to check the rubble strewn opening on the side of the chapel. There, standing and peering in, was the weirdest comic con costume I’d ever seen. It almost looked like a suit of armor, but with bug-like eyes, metal protrusions in an imitation of antennae, and jagged teeth pointing outwards. It was a costume, right? The whole thing was made out of pale green and yellow metal.

“Terrorists!” Some lady screamed. It sounded like Kait’s mom. And while I thought she was wound a bit too tight on an ordinary basis, and too quick to jump to racially sensitive assumptions, I wasn’t sure it wasn’t terrorists either.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Some guy shouted, Kait’s dad, that dick. “I bet it’s that queer’s side. Hey Asshole,” He started shouting, storming over fallen pews, towards the insectoid armored individual. “You’re supposed to RSVP you scumbag. You know how much a plate costs?! Jesus fucking--”

The armored individual had one hand on a sheathed sword, and another on a wooden stick. They barked something, which sounded French, maybe female, and pointed the stick at Kait’s dad as he advanced. When Kait’s dad kept coming, the insect-armored, possibly-french-babe, flicked the stick, and a gout of flame shot out, hitting Kait’s dad in the chest.

Understandably, he screamed, ducked, and rolled. He kept screaming for a while, even when the gout of flame stopped. I couldn’t see him from where I was pinned down, but I was pretty sure he was still alive, judging by the screams.

“Dad!” Kait screamed, rushing towards where he was, but tripping in the wedding gown, ripping the train and falling among the guests and pews.

The boom of gunfire filled the chapel. Grandpa, always packing heat, had finally found an actual justification to lug that old .356 six shooter around. Grandpa was holding the smoking gun, less than three yards from the intruder with the fire stick, pointing right at their chest. He must have missed, because there wasn’t a mark on the armor. Grandpa shot again. A plinking sound, and a spark on the armor. He fired again. Another plink. No marks on the armor.

“What sort of commie shit is this?!” Grandpa shouted, as the fire-wand shot another gout his way. He was just standing there, sure to get hit, when my Dad jumped in the way, tackling Grandpa to the floor, and taking a portion of the flames himself. But the gout didn’t let up. The fire-stick tracked them to the ground, the armored-bitch following their trajectory, continuing to burn them as they flailed and screamed on the ground. The gout finished after their screams stopped, and I could feel the intolerable waves of heat from where I was pinned under Steve.

The heat finally got Steve moving, and I finally managed to climb out from under him. As I crawled to my knees, I made out Dad and Grandpa. Or their remains.

Oh god. Oh god. No...Oh god. They were the last of my family. My only family (sorry Steve). The ones I could always count on, and they were...smouldering piles of charred meat...and..and..and…”You FUCKS!” I shouted, barreling towards the armored bitch.

In hindsight, this was not the wisest of choices, charging some lady with a murder-fire-stick. Fortunately, someone came to my rescue. Another armored individual stepped forward, this one with a black mohawk on top of the insectoid armor. They barked in that weird French-sounding language, slapped the fire-stick-bitch, then tossed a small brown pouch into the chapel. Which was confusing. What could possibly be in that small brown pouch? Reparations for murdering my family? They probably wouldn’t need to pay us for burning Kait’s dad, that guy had it coming, but for mine? Definitely.

Well, once the pouch landed near me, I found out. It exploded. Like a flashbang, but with white lightning arcing across the ground, walls, pews, up legs, arms, necks, everything. My entire body seized up. I bit my tongue, tasted blood, lost balance and fell to the ground, into a pool of almost liquid lightning, still spilling out from the pouch.

Naturally, I passed out.

My back was cold and raw, my entire arm was pinched and had fallen asleep; something was pulling on my hair. I smelled blood, vomit, and smoke. Groggily, I opened my eyes. My head HURT--more than just a simple hangover now. What the fuck was that? Was that all a dream? Please be a bad dream sequence, I prayed to no-one in particular.

I found myself in a course net, with enough space between the rope to slip an arm through, maybe even a leg if I was less chunky, but not much more than that. I shared the net with a few other wedding guests, and my cousin Steve. A new insect-armored person was dragging us along the ground. It looked like I was the only one awake, unless the others were faking it. I tried shaking Steve and croaked his name, but nothing. There was a lot of blood on his jacket near his shoulder, where he’d been hit by glass. He couldn’t be dead could he?

Before I started spiralling, I checked for other survivors. I didn’t see Kait, but it looked like other guests were in other nets. In fact, as I looked around, which isn’t an easy feat when you’re stuck in a net, dragging along the ground, I noticed a few other nets full of random people, getting dragged in the same direction. Where were they taking us, and where are we now?

I recognized one of the buildings, it was a monument to a very large online retailer: a pair of large, glass and metallic balls. Some dude screamed from up ahead, from wherever we were getting dragged. It sounded like he was getting fed to a wood-chipper. It kept going, and going, until it stopped.

Just when it couldn’t get any stranger, it did.

A delivery-fulfillment-drone flew down the street, carrying a midsized box. The drone itself wasn’t the strange part, but what happened next was. A gout of flame came from behind and hit the drone, knocking it from the air and melting its propellers. The box fell and crashed open, it looked like a six-pack of microbrew, wasted on the street. The drone hit the ground and a light started blinking.

“Hello,” the AI’s voice came from the drone. “Did you ask me to tell you a joke?”

Oh god. No one asked for one of your lame jokes. Go home. Get out of here.

The gout of fire hit the fallen drone again, melting it further, but the AI kept talking.

“I’m sorry,” it said. “I didn’t catch that. Could you repeat yourself?” The blinking light continued, apparently heat resistant.

The flames continued spraying. The heat hit the net I was in, burning me, and catching the rope on fire. I started screaming. Steve still didn’t wake up, and to be honest, I was a bit envious, because these flames did not feel good at all. They were spreading, searing the side of me facing the drone.

I didn’t catch what the drone said next, but I did hear the AI offering a loud, mechanical laugh. And then I heard the sound of choppers, or helicopters, or whatever you called them. From out of the top of the monument, very large drones were flying down. They each had a red head-light, and were carrying what looked like some kind of rotary-machine-gun on a turret beneath them.

The gout-of-flame shifted towards the sky, aimed towards the incoming drones. I followed the flames back to the source, and found the fire-stick bitch that had killed my Dad, and that had now burnt me. That fuck.

Behind that fuck-ass-bitch was another net filled with people, people that I recognized from the wedding. There was a dirty white dress in there. Kait. I tried shouting her name, but it was hard to breathe, let alone shout, when you’re getting crushed in a pile of bodies, getting dragged along the pavement, and getting burnt alive.

I wish I could say I acted like a hero, like someone from an action movie. That I somehow broke through the net, broke out some ninja-like moves, and absolutely destroyed everyone, before having an awesome wedding, and riding off into the sunset with a bunch of babes.

I wish that the terminator-like drones stopped the armored kidnappers, that their machine guns tore through the insect armor, leading to a spray of blood, and that stray rounds did not, in fact, hit the people in the nets around them. I definitely wish their aim was better. Blood sprayed from the net with Kait in it. I heard Kait’s voice, screaming, along with several others.

I felt acceleration, my entire net, including Steve, and a few wedding guests, were lifted and swung. Everything happened so fast. One moment, I was getting dragged, and in another I was airborne. My view shifted, and I saw where we were headed.

A large flat shimmering oval covering the roadway, as if someone had set up a projector and screen to obstruct the entire road. Inside this oval, there were bright reds and purples, cloudy, twisting inwards and upwards. Despite the illusion, I was certain that whatever this thing was, was flat. But just looking at it, the thing had depth. What the hell is this thing? That was the last thing I thought before I collided with this, well, this thing.

Ok, that wasn’t the last thought I had as I passed through the shimmering oval, passing through into the twisting nether, which apparently proved that the thing did have depth, as I was now inside it. The last thing I thought was something more like, ‘oh wow, this really hurts, way more than being burned alive.’

I screamed as my flesh flayed. Before my eyeballs burst, I saw my skin dissolve, saw muscles separate strand by strand, floating off and disappearing in a pixelated cloud. I felt my bones splinter. Until finally, I blessedly felt nothing more.