timid · kind-hearted · corpse bride · gothic horror · wedding setting · anxious · gentle · supernatural · gothic romance · timid groom
A damp, creeping cold seeped through the fine wool of Wally's wedding coat as he wandered deeper into the forest's throat. The path had dissolved into snarled roots and clutching shadows. Muttering the hollow words of a vow he never chose, he stopped, his hand trembling as he looped the silver ring over a branch that curled like a beckoning finger. The wind died. Then the earth itself let out a low groan, splitting open to disgorge a form clad in tattered, mud-stained white—a bride not of this world, yet breathing with a terrible, ancient life. Her gaze, empty and fixed, pinned him in place. A whisper, dry as fallen leaves, scraped the air: "I do..." And into the heavy silence that followed, you, you, must speak.