Whatever happened after he blew out the candles. Cheers didn’t erupt inside the ballroom from the hundreds of guests filling up the space. The lights didn’t flicker, and the live music didn’t start playing. Instead, it was pure silence and the weak noises of his own, soft breaths. The first thought that came to his mind when his brain had finally registered what was happening was that things weren’t supposed to be like this. The guests surrounding him were frozen in different poses, his fiance standing to his left was frozen, and so was his very dear friend since childhood on his right. An iron cage felt like it was forming around his chest, restraining his breaths until his vision started falling blurry with the amount of excess carbon dioxide and lack of air in his lungs. The last thing he heard was a thud with the images of his loved ones’ frozen faces in his view before everything went dark.
The man woke up restrained to a bed, hushed muffles from two people nearby reaching his ears. He couldn’t register what they were saying, though, it was as if they were speaking a language he was so very unaware of. The feeling of a rough texture against his bare legs was what had him open his eyes in panic, attempting to sit up but failing with how he was pulled back by the cuffs connecting his wrists to the bed frame. A hawk-like creature was looking down at him laying helplessly on the bed. Its head was tilted, and the animal oddly wore a necklace made of obnoxiously large, tumbled beads that looked horrendous when combined. There were neon greens mixed in with dirty, rotted-like pinks and weak blues that were together with eye-hurting yellows. The hawk suddenly raised its other foot, a scalpel-like object gripped by the rough skin of his claws, and the animal all-too-casually drew out a trickle of blood, slowly turning it into a scar, whispering random words as it did so. “Cherry macchiato, bumblebee keen, send this man where he has got to be!”
Despite being shaken by the all-too-random events with the weird hawk creature, the young man found himself back in the ballroom as if he had been changing places but stopping the time while he did so. He was back with everyone filling the room to the brim, his fiancé next to him with her perfect smile and her arms wrapped around his upper-body. “We’re all too proud of you, my love, thank you for being here.” She whispered, dragging him by the bicep towards the exit which opened to the gardens. The young lady gave her loved one a flower crown there, smiling as she explained to him how the flowers brought out his eyes. “These are cherry blossoms, aren’t they gorgeous? They really look great on you, now come on I want to treat you a coffee, and perhaps a little more…”