Today was not a day to be alone. That wasn’t because Samantha didn’t want to be alone, but because it was probably the busiest day of her life and everyone around her was fussing and helping and hurrying to do one thing or another. It was, of course, her wedding day. The sun had barely risen and yet she’d been awake for hours getting ready. The ceremony was still a couple hours away.

With all the hustle and the bustle, it was surprising when suddenly she was alone. The hair dresser needed the bathroom, her sister who was working on her makeup got a phone call. The others ran to stitch a small tear in her veil. Samantha hadn’t realized how much she’d been wanting some alone time. It was nice to just sit back and relax for a few minutes.

Unfortunately, the door behind her opened, heralding at least one person returning. Samantha turned in her chair to ask them to give her just another minute but the moment she saw who it was, she froze. This wasn’t the hair dresser or her sister or any of the others. This woman wore a simple dress, her hair was pulled back but not well done. She wore no makeup. She hardly looked like she was attending a wedding. This had to be a joke or something and yet Samantha couldn’t deny what she was seeing.

“Hello Samantha,” the intruder said, closing and locking the door behind them. “I don’t have a lot of time so I’ll be brief and I need you to just listen.”

Samantha couldn’t have interrupted if she wanted to, she was so surprised. It was her, herself, standing there, only there were some slight differences. The Samantha standing before her had some creases around her eyes that the Samantha sitting in the chair didn’t have, as though she were a few years older. There was more muscle on the newcomer as well and there was a slight, unhealthy look to her.

“As you probably can guess,” the other Samantha said, “I’m from the future, and you need to call off the wedding.”

Samantha gaped. Of all the possible things this person could have said, this was not what Samantha was expecting.

“Excuse me?” Samantha finally found her voice. “Why?”

“In the future, there’s an invention that leads to the destruction of civilization as you know it,” the future Samantha explained. “I can’t go into details in case I accidentally give you the idea for it and wind up having it invented sooner, but it seems innocent at first.”

“Okay but why do I need to stop my wedding?” Samantha asked. “We’re not inventors and–

“I don’t have time to explain,” future-Samantha interrupted, checking an odd looking watch on her wrist and frowning. “Just know that your wedding is the key to it. No wedding, no invention.”

Samantha wondered if this was some elaborate prank. Had someone gone out of their way to find a lookalike of Samantha and had them come here to try and spoil her wedding? If so, this was an incredibly terrible way to do it.

Future-Samantha swayed and then sat down on one of the other chairs in the room. She looked worse now than she did when she first entered the room.

“Listen,” she said, “this isn’t just a simple matter of rescheduling your wedding. You can’t marry him. Find someone else, anyone else, but not him.”

It stood out to Samantha that her future self wasn’t saying his name.

“What does Jim do?” Samantha asked. “Is he the one who invents this, whatever it is?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Are we happy together?” Samantha asked. “Can you tell me that at least?”

Her future self was still for a moment, clearly battling within herself on how to answer. Finally, she nodded.

“It was a wonderful marriage,” she said with a faraway look. “But my husband is dead now because of what happened, and if you love him, you’ll call off the wedding and save his life. His death was not an easy one.”

“You couldn’t have come earlier to tell me this?” Samantha demanded. “Showing up a couple hours before the wedding is kind of a jerk move.”

It wasn’t the most intelligent argument Samantha had ever made, but her mind was still reeling from what she was being told.

“I know,” future-Samantha replied, placing her head in her hands and looking like she was getting a head ache. “If I could have picked a different time I would have, but time travel is tricky and this was the only moment we were guaranteed to succeed at.”

“I don’t understand,” Samantha said.

“And I don’t have the time to explain it. Just promise me you’ll call off the wedding, please.”

Future-Samantha’s nose was beginning to bleed and she pulled a tissue from the nearby box and dabbed at it. Her eyes were growing bloodshot as well and her skin was looking even worse.

“What’s happening to you?” Samantha asked, part of her wanting to go and help while the rest of her still worried about getting blood on her dress.

“Time travel’s a one way trip,” she replied, “and it’s pretty hard on you. I wasn’t lying when I said my time was limited. Now promise me you’ll call off the wedding, please. Don’t let me die knowing I failed.”

“I…”

Samantha couldn’t bring herself to say it. She loved Jim. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. How could she explain this to him without sounding like she was making up a terrible excuse? Should she lie, then, and make something else up? Say she was getting cold feet or something?

The future-Samantha slumped in her chair, gasping for breath now. She cried tears that were mingled with blood and she gave up on trying to stem the flow from her nose.

“If you love him,” she gasped, “save him. Call off the wedding…Save them all…please…”

Samantha sat there a moment before she realized her future self was dead. An involuntary scream escaped her lips and she recoiled, leaping out of her chair. A moment later, someone outside tried to come in but the door was, of course, still locked.

“Samantha?” her mother’s voice called through the door. “Are you alright?”

What was she going to do? She was locked in here with a dead body, and not just any body but her own from the future. There was nowhere to hide it, and even if there was, that would be a very short term solution. Someone would find it and then there would be so many questions.

“Samantha, darling?” her mom called out, sounding more worried this time.

There was nothing for it. Samantha rushed to the door, unlocked it, and flung it open. She didn’t want to look at her dead self any longer. She didn’t want to think about what she’d been told. This was supposed to be the happiest day of her life but it was turning out to be a nightmare instead. She gripped her mom in a tight hug the moment she stepped into the room and burst into tears. The gasp from her mother was all she needed to know that she’d seen the body as well.

“Samantha, what’s…”

Her mother’s voice trailed off. Samantha turned and looked back at her dead self, still slumped over in the chair, blood dripping from her face.

“Who…how?” her mother began again, still in shock.

“She was me, mom,” Samantha finally began, and once she started she couldn’t stop. She told her everything that had happened, fighting back her tears the entire time.

It would have been impossible to believe had it not been for the dead body. That was pretty solid evidence and hard to ignore or discount. Slowly, more and more people returned and were told the story. Samantha wanted to be the one to tell Jim but knew she was likely too late already. The police arrived faster than Samantha expected. Everything was moving in a blur now as she answered questions. Jim never appeared. Samantha half wanted him to come to her while the other half thought it would be easier if this was where they went their separate ways. A clean break, you know?

The police were, naturally, skeptical of Samantha’s story. Some forensics people were called in and took DNA samples from both Samanthas to test. Wouldn’t that be a fun realization for them when those results came back.

The wedding was, of course, canceled. Guests were questioned as well to see if any of them had seen this other Samantha’s arrival, but eventually everyone started to leave. The dead body was removed after several photographs were taken of the scene and Samantha, who’d spent most of this time in a smaller side room, finally began to get out of her wedding dress. There was no point in still wearing it. Slowly, with a few more tears, she changed back into her street clothes. She had a bag filled with other, fresher and nicer clothes she could have changed into but those were supposed to be for after the wedding. It felt wrong to wear them now. Better to just wear what she’d started the day in. Nothing special. Just comfy, ugly clothes. No, they weren’t ugly clothes. They just weren’t especially pretty.

Life was about to be very complicated for a while as she disentangled her life from Jim’s. All of their belongings were already moved into their new apartment, and that was going to be messy, trying to get out of the lease. She’d already agreed to move back in with her mom while she figured everything out so at least that part was settled for now.

“What a mess,” she sighed, looking at herself in the mirror.

Her hair and makeup were still halfway done. It wasn’t that bad, overall, just a little off. She went to the restroom and began cleaning her face. She didn’t have any makeup wipes but water, hand soap, and a few paper towels did the trick just fine. It felt good to get the makeup off. She’d never liked the feel of it on her face. Once that was done, she began removing the various pins and clips from her hair. She had a brush, at least, and she worked out the curls as best she could until her hair was mostly uniform again. Only then did she see how truly similar she looked to her future self. If she pulled her hair back they would have been almost indistinguishable besides the faint signs of age in the other Samantha.

When she stepped out of the restroom, her mom was there waiting for her. Together they bagged up her wedding dress, packed away the last of her things, and left the venue. It was a quiet ride that afternoon. What was there to say? Samantha was grateful for the silence as she tried to organize her own thoughts. She just hoped that this was all worth it, that they would, indeed, avoid whatever catastrophe was supposed to have happened if she and Jim got married. All she could really do about that was wait and see and hope.