The room was cold, sterile.
But Reileen had transformed it into a chapel.
Candles flickered on every surface, casting long shadows on the peeling walls.
Around us sat guests—silent, expressionless, lifeless. Sleeved corpses she'd collected over months, dressed in their finest, their eyes vacant but eerily watchful.
She wore a white dress. Not like a bride. Like a queen.
Her eyes gleamed with feverish devotion.
"This is our night," she whispered, taking my hand.
She had arranged everything herself.
The vows.
The music—a distorted lullaby playing from an old datapad.
The guests—rows of silent witnesses, their heads bowed as if in prayer.
I felt like I was trapped in a nightmare.
But I didn't resist.
She pulled me to the altar.
"Do you take me?" she asked, voice trembling with anticipation.
"Reileen…" I started.
"No excuses. No lies. Just the truth."
I swallowed hard.
"I do."
She smiled, then pulled out a knife—thin, sharp, gleaming under the candlelight.
"Then prove it."
Before I could react, she sliced her palm open.
Blood welled up quickly.
She pressed it to my lips.
"Drink," she whispered.
I tasted metal and madness.
Her eyes darkened.
"Now, mine."
She cut my palm.
Blood mixed on the altar.
The guests shifted.
Then, suddenly, they sprang to life.
Silent but deadly.
She'd programmed them.
Autonomous and lethal.
They surrounded us.
"What is this?" I demanded.
Her smile widened.
"Our honeymoon," she said.
The first corpse lunged at me with a grotesque hiss.
I fought back, fists and feet swinging.
But Reileen was in the middle of the circle, laughing.
She opened her legs and beckoned me.
"Join me."
The others closed in.
I had a choice.
Fight or surrender.
I chose surrender.
I sank to my knees in the blood-soaked floor.
Reileen crawled to me.
"Together," she whispered.
She kissed me—soft but desperate.
The corpses closed in.
But this time, it wasn't to kill.
It was a dance.
A twisted orgy of flesh, blood, and madness.
Their cold hands on my skin.
Reileen's breath hot in my ear.
I realized then.
I wasn't the one in control.
I never was.