[ IP ] Beautiful escape [ ex-post from /r/MorbidlyBeautiful/ ]

Most brides on their wedding day were terrors to be around but somehow she felt serene. The day was lovely. Her simple, borrowed dress had needed no alterations. Her beloved would be waiting for her, to be hers forever. And in a short few months she would give birth to their first child. 
 
 Everything was going according to plan. 
 
 He left that awful cow months ago, promised to marry her as soon as he was able to make the arrangements. Of course this wedding would be small, just the two of them and her mother and closest friend. But just because they were getting married at City Hall did not mean that she could n't look her best. 
 
 No, it was all perfect and she was looking forward to her happy ending. She deserved it. 
 
 Her daydreams were so rudely interrupted by a single, solitary bang from down the hall. Shortly after the bang came the unmistakeable sound of breaking glass, the crunching of gravel and debris beneath shoes. Her flesh crept with bumps and she groped blindly for the candlestick that… 
 
 Had once resided on the table next to the couch. The table was gone. How could that be possible? 
 
 She reached for the couch and found it gone as well. Her chest heaved with the rising anxiety. What was happening? How could any of this be possible? 
 
 The door, stripped of its glorious paint and deco, swung open on its rusty hinges. Three shadows stood in front of her and she screamed. 
 
 `` Please, leave me alone! Leave me be!'' 
 
 The shadows retreated several steps at first but one ventured forward, despite her sobbing. 
 
 `` Please, just go! Get out!'' 
 
 It hesitated before reaching forward, very slowly and offering a hand. Timidly she reached out, brushed her fingertips against the shadow and was immediately overwhelmed by powerful, headache inducing visions. 
 
 
 She was outside now. But outside looked much, much different. While her home had once been on the outskirts of the city it was now surrounded by other houses. All were old and in a terrible, ramshackle condition but she could still recognize her own. 
 
 `` This is stupid,'' she was speaking. But she was n't. Someone was moving their lips for her. `` Ghosts are n't real.'' 
 
 `` Mary Ann is real.'' 
 
 *Me, that's me. My name. But I am no ghost. * She thought desperately. 
 
 `` I believe it when I see it.'' 
 
 `` People become ghosts cause of tragedies and stuff, right? They say she killed herself.'' 
 
 `` Yeah, on her wedding day. The groom never showed up.'' 
 
 With a stab she was back in her body, back in that room with the couch and the table and candle stick. She hurried to the window, flung open the curtain and was met with darkness. There was nothing out there, though the sun shined in here, there was nothing outside her window. 
 
 She spun back to the couch, fumbling desperately for the last love letter from her betrothed, desperate for some comfort. 
 
 `` Mary Ann?'' 
 
 *No, no, no, no, no. * 
 
 `` Mary Ann, he's not coming…'' 
 
 No. No, he had to come, he would come, he left his wife for her. They were going to live in a cottage by the sea in Naples and have children, beautiful children and everything was supposed to be perfect. 
 
 The slow, swaying creak was what brought her back from her daydream. The noose hung from the ceiling, only feet away. It swayed slowly, its passenger a beautiful young woman all in white, waiting for her wedding that would never come. 
 
 No. That did n't happen. That could n't have happened. Why would she do that? She would n't kill herself. He was coming. He *had* to come. 
 
 She sat slowly back down on the couch, turned her chin to the window and waited. He was coming and she would wait forever if she had to.
