The dress was once ivory—simple, flowing, stitched by her grandmother's hands.
It hung on Ava's body like a mory that refused to die.
Now, the hem was soaked in mud and blood.
Ripped at the thigh. Torn across the back.
She never got to wear it down an aisle.
Only through alleyways and over barricades.
Running.
We were holed up in an abandoned florist's shop, the kind where dreams used to bloom.
Petals long wilted, stems dry as bone.
But that wedding dress, even shredded, still looked like a defiance against the apocalypse.
"I should've burned it," she said, cradling her bruised arm. "It's cursed."
"No," I said quietly, stitching a gash along her shoulder. "It's a reminder."
"Of what?"
"That you survived."
We'd found the dress hanging in her family attic weeks ago, stuffed in a box that slled of mothballs and ghosts.
She had pulled it out with reverence.
"I was going to wear this when I married Ethan."
Ethan was dead.
Turned in the first outbreak.
She had to end him herself.
That night, she cried in the dress.
And the next day, she killed three infected in it.
But today… today, sothing had changed.
We were cornered in the florist's back room, the display fridge wedged against the door.
Ten of them, maybe more, clawed on the other side.
Flesh-eaters.
Hunters of movent, breath, and fear.
"I think it's ti," she whispered.
"For what?"
"For the dress to go."
She pulled at the fabric until it ripped at the waist.
The sound echoed louder than gunfire in that tiny room.
Strip by strip, she tore it away.
Veil first. Then sleeves. Then skirt.
Each rip seed to release sothing inside her—grief, maybe. Or rage.
When she was done, she stood in torn jeans and a blood-specked tank top, breathing hard.
"I'm not a bride anymore," she muttered. "I'm a survivor."
Suddenly, the door gave way.
Fingers reached through.
Ava didn't flinch.
She grabbed the bouquet of tal rods we'd scavenged and charged like a storm.
She didn't fight like a girl in mourning.
She fought like fury itself.
I followed, machete in hand, screaming her na like a vow.
When the last corpse fell, and the florist's walls were painted in rot, she stood amid the ruin—barefoot, sweating, triumphant.
The last shred of her dress clung to her hip, soaked and torn.
I walked to her.
"You were beautiful in that dress," I said.
She looked at , blood on her cheek, fire in her eyes.
"I'm more beautiful now."
That night, we didn't sleep.
We lay among petals and ash.
And when I kissed her—gently, as if touching fla—I understood:
Love in the apocalypse wasn't about roses or rings.
It was about surviving ruin, and still finding sothing soft to hold.
Even if it wore torn cloth and carried scars.
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