Simon staggered through the forest, the night swallowing him in its quiet indifference. Each step was clumsy, dragged by the weight of a suit that didn’t feel like his, and a future even less so. In one hand, he clutched a half-empty bottle of bourbon; in the other, his fingers curled tightly around the wedding ring he hadn’t meant to wear.

The rehearsal had ended in disaster, a hollow procession of expectations and silences too loud to ignore. Victoria’s name still echoed in the chapel, but it meant nothing in his mouth. Not the way it should’ve. Not the way it needed to. And now, he was here, wandering beneath skeletal branches, trying to outrun a fate sealed in family names and cold agreements.

The deeper he went, the quieter the world became. No birds. No wind. Only the crunch of dead leaves and his own uneven breath. Shadows clung to him like mourning veils. The bourbon burned his throat, but it was the only thing warm.

Then—he stopped.

A clearing opened before him, cloaked in a silence that felt wrong. The air was thick with damp earth and something older, heavier. At the center of the clearing, between two ancient trees, the ground was disturbed—a mound of freshly turned soil breaking the forest’s stillness. Something about it held him in place.

As he stepped closer, his eyes adjusted to the gloom. The shape wasn’t just a mound. It was a resting place. A grave. And it hadn’t been there long. The soil hadn’t settled. Something pale peeked through the dark earth—slender fingers, delicate and still. A whisper of tattered lace clung to them, too fragile for this world.

Simon dropped to his knees, the bottle forgotten beside him. His fingers reached out before his mind could catch up, brushing the chill of skin that never should’ve been left like this. It was surreal, like waking into someone else’s nightmare.

The bourbon swirled in his bloodstream, warping grief into something stranger—something reckless. His hand trembled as he pulled the ring from his finger and took the cold, lifeless hand in his own.

“With this ring,” he whispered, his voice cracking in the hush, “I ask you to be mine.”

Simon knelt there, lost in a moment that made no sense and felt more real than everything else that had brought him to it.