The Wedding

It is a dark and stormy night.

Okay, it wasn't stormy, but it was certainly dark. Pitch dark.
Our story begins in a deep mysterious forest...

Rissa and Chua are wandering around in the woods, hopelessly lost. It is so dark they can't even see each other. Rissa feels cold and damp, and she can't stop shivering.
Chua is leading the way, but he doesn't seem to know where he is heading.

"Rissa, hurry up! It's getting darker by the minute!" Chua urges Rissa.
"Chua...Where are we? Are we lost? I'm scared..." Rissa whines.
"Well, hurry up then," Chua walks ahead.

There's a movement in the bushes behind her, and Rissa lets out a small scream. Her heart is pounding in her chest, and she can hear it in her ears, louder than any drum. She whirls around.
"What was that sound? What was that??", she backs away, trembling.
A long, eery howl is heard in the distance. But strangely, it seems to be coming closer, whatever it is.

"Chua...I'm scared..." Rissa looks around for Chua.
He has disappeared; no where to be seen.

"Chua? Chua? Where are you? This isn't funny...Please...This isn't funny at all..." she begins to sob, overwhelming fear engulfing her, trapping her. And she felt helpless. So alone.

She hears more movements...and more howls. Animal-like and sinister. And they were coming her way.
The hair on the back of her neck stands. Her trembling grows even more violent. What were they?
Instinct told her to run and hide. She searched around frantically for a hiding place, somewhere where she can stay out of sight.

A fallen tree trunk!

The howls grew louder and louder. She looked at the tree trunk.
It'll have to do. I don't have a choice!

She dove behind the trunk just as creatures flew in and pranced around into the open clearing, yelling and howling in jest and excitement.
Rissa clamps her mouth with her hand so as not to make a sound.

The ghosts and devils prance around as if in celebration. One of them moves to the middle and, in a booming voice, speaks.
"Greetings my fellow fiends! Tonight is a night to remember! Tonight is the day our King Count Dracula has chosen his Queen -- Pontianak!" he is almost drowned by the cheers and shrill calls of the others. "Tonight -- we celebrate!!" the cheers grow to deafening levels.

Count Dracula emerges and leads his bride to the center of the evil ring. They both have matching red eyes and thick blood trailing from their red, red lips. It seems he wants to do something...he wants to perform a song for his bride!
And he does.
A Hindi song.
The rest dance and float around and do the Macarena in time to the beat of the music. They hold hands and form smaller circles within the big circle, laughing maniacally.
Count Dracula only has eyes for his dear Pontianak and her eyes are locked on his, never blinking.
Hantu Galah steps in and leads Pontianak away from Count Dracula. Count Dracula's eyes blaze a brighter red, flaming. He moves closer to Hantu Galah and Hantu Galah retreats to a corner, still eyeing Pontianak.

When the song ends, the ceremony finally begins.
Rich organ music fills the still night air and the moon light shines directly on the King and Queen, making their pale bloodless faces look even paler.

Turns out Hantu Galah is the minister -- of sorts.
He pronounces them husband and wife, while Count Dracula stares at him threateningly, and the crowd of ghosts erupt in applause.
Finally, the feast can begin! Bring out the goblets of rich BLOOD!!!

"SSSTOP!!!" a hissing voice cuts through the cheers.
Bunian sniffs the air, his nose sticking out, searching.
"I sssmell sssssomething elssse that isss better than anything ssserved here tonight..."
The crowd grows restless. Curious. Hungry.

"A human!"
"A human amongst us!"
"Fresh human meat..."

Rissa is suddenly aware that the air has grown tense with the hunger of hundreds of starving ghosts thirsting for blood. Her blood. And her flesh.
She backs away and steps on a twig. And in that tense silence, it was as loud as if she had yelled at the top of her lungs, giving her position away.

Every single one of their dark, beady and some empty hole, eyes stared straight at her.

"M-mm-me? I'm not a human. I-I-I'm a ghost too," she stammered and gave a, hopefully, convincingly scary smile.
She gulped visibly.

Pathetic.

They slowly closed in on her. She could feel their sharp nails reaching for her, their damp freezing cold fingers on her arms, shoulders and legs. She screamed.

She yelled for help, but she knew that help was impossible.
Then, she caught a moving figure outside of the circle of demons surrounding her.
She blinked. Could it be?

Chua.

"Chua!! CHUA!! Help me!!"
Suddenly energized, Rissa tore away from the evil beings and grabbed Chua's arm.

"Let's get out of here! Run!! Come o-"

She was roughly pulled back. She turned to look at Chua, his face strangely pale. He looked almost....Oh.

"Rissa," Chua's hold on her tightened, "I am one of them." Rissa whimpers, lower lip trembling, eyes wide open in shock. She shook her head, refusing to believe what he was saying.

"Now I want you to join us too," and with one swift motion, Chua flung Rissa right into the middle of the clambering crowd of demons and ghosts, hissing and snarling and cackling with glee.

Her screams pierced the night air, sharp like a knife.

Then, there is nothing but silence.


p.s: This is actually the story-version of the sketch that we performed yesterday night during FESSAT (Festival Sanjungan Satria - college activity, don't ask). Our sketch won 1st place by the way, and I played Rissa. :)