I died unloved, unclaimed, still wearing the dress that mocked me every dawn— ivory lace now shroud, heavy with the salt of unshed vows. No ring ever cut my finger; no hand ever held mine in promise. Only silence married me in the end. They line the path, my ancestors translucent, judgmental, their eyes like cracked mirrors reflecting every year I waited, every night I swallowed hope. They don’t speak. They don’t forgive. They simply watch as I walk, barefoot on water that should drown me, but death has already taken that power. Ahead, the portal yawns, an ancient stone arch ripped open to roaring blue-black fury. A tsunami born of all the love I never tasted crashes eternal inside it, wave after monstrous wave, hungry to claim what life denied. I don’t run. I don’t beg the ancestors for mercy. My heart, that traitor, still beats phantom rhythms of a wedding march no orchestra ever played. Each step forward tears another thread from the gown— petals of me unravelling into the flood. The bells toll behind me, frantic, furious not for mourning, but for rage: at the years stolen, at the touch never felt, at the life that left me this bride of nothing. Closer now. The spray stings like accusations. The roar is my own scream finally freed. I lift my chin to the wall of water and step into its throat. Let it swallow me whole. Let it drown the unlived wedding in salt and thunder. I will not die quietly again. This time, I choose the end that rushes to meet me— furious, vast, and finally mine.