The massive DSLR camera flash in the professional photographer’s hands began blinking blindingly, throwing out brilliant white light that struck Mira’s retinas without an ounce of mercy. On the magnificent bridal stage, flanked directly by her unforgettable ex—Satya, whose face was already as pale as a sheet of printer paper—and Vanesha, who was glaring daggers full of suspicion from the right, Mira was officially undergoing the longest physical torture in the history of human civilization.

"Alright, hold the coupon... I mean, hold the pose! Nobody blink!" the photographer bellowed with unbridled fighting spirit as he pointed his lens. "Now, tilt your bodies slightly to the left, widen those smiles even more, and show me those brilliantly sparkling teeth!"

Mira, whose body was still pressed tight against Satya's suit sleeve—wedged in by the crush of other guests behind her—forced her facial muscles to work far beyond the boundaries of biological sanity. She dragged the corners of her lips as far left and right as they could possibly go, forming a rigid Pepsodent smile that, viewed from a close distance, looked far more like the desperate grimace of a starving demon than the joyful expression of a supportive friend.

Amidst the repeating bursts of flashing light, Satya hissed in a frantic, choked whisper right beside Mira's ear, keeping his voice low enough to evade the bridal headset microphone.

"Mi... Mira, seriously. Did you show up today for a wedding reception or to launch a suicide psychological bombing campaign against me? Let go of my arm, Vanesha has been glaring at me like she's about to swallow me whole!" Satya panicked, his eyes darting nervously toward his wife, who was flashing a sweet, fake smile right back at the camera.

Mira fired back her whisper with her lips locked entirely in place, terrified of ruining her rigid Pepsodent expression. "Shut it, Satya! Just enjoy our little moment of togetherness as moral restitution for the heart-wrenching trauma you caused two years ago! Think of this as free public entertainment courtesy of your former flame!"

"One... two... three... hold the candid, free poses but keep it elegant!" the photographer shouted again, hammering down on the shutter button with the speed of a commercial sewing machine. Click-click-click!

Those camera-snapping seconds dragged on forever, resembling a three-hour slow-motion sequence in a movie theater packed with pure misery.

Mira's cheek muscles began to suffer from severe cramps. The nerves around her jaw throbbed with a dull ache, as though her cheekbones were about to unhinge and slide right down onto the stage floor. Her eyes watered from staring unblinkingly into the searing glare of the flashbulbs.

"Oh sweet lord... my cheeks are moments away from total paralysis," Mira shrieked internally. "If this photographer doesn't yell cut in the next ten seconds, I am going to barf a rainbow right here on this hallowed bridal carpet!"

Just as Mira’s facial suffering reached its absolute breaking point, a far more catastrophic failure of pure mechanical physics violently struck her lower body.

Remember, ever since stepping out of her boarding room that morning, one of Mira’s feet rested inside an intact stiletto heel, while her right foot relied entirely on a thin sock stretched directly over the blunt, exposed iron spike of the heel that had snapped off back home. As she stood rigidly on the bridal stage—floored with thin red carpeting laid over plywood—her unbalanced body weight continuously hammered downward onto that narrow metal spike.

And right at the final microsecond when the photographer hollered, "Okay, one last free pose, biggest smile yet!" and the camera blitzed brilliantly...

Snap!

The remaining spike on Mira’s right shoe—which had served as her sole anchor to the physical plane—snapped cleanly off its base, ringing out sharply across the quiet background music of the stage.

Instantly, half of Mira’s weight support vanished. Earth's gravity reclaimed her with swift, violent authority.

Her body, which had been standing stiff and frozen with a Pepsodent smile, lost its balance completely, listing sideways at top speed like the Leaning Tower of Pisa about to collapse.

"Uh... oh no!" Mira gasped in panic, her eyes bulging wide.

In a blind panic, her hand—still clamped around Satya’s arm—jerked violently downward, clutching the expensive fabric of the groom's suit jacket for dear life. Consequently, instead of tumbling down in solitary defeat, Mira dragged Satya right down with her into a synchronized nose-dive.

Crash-thud!

Before hundreds of pairs of wide, shocked eyes belonging to the wedding guests inside the luxurious Balai Sudirman ballroom, the groom and his Super Saiyan-updo-wearing ex crashed together into a chaotic, tangled heap right at the base of the floral stage decorations.

The photographer's final flashbulb captured the split-second descent to absolute perfection: an epic masterpiece of a photograph featuring the groom sprawling face-first across the platform floor, yanked down by a woman in a Borneo-peanut-stained baby pink dress whose hair stood rigidly upright, pointing straight toward the venue ceiling.