Tonia had never believed in omens.

She was raised in a modern, educated family where logic ruled and science had answers for nearly everything. Superstition belonged to fairytales, and ghost stories were for children around campfires — not something she, a rational, grounded woman, took seriously. But sometimes, one sentence, whispered at the wrong moment by the wrong person, can shatter even the strongest certainty.

It happened three days before her wedding. She was at a local market buying flowers for the ceremony when an old gypsy woman stopped her.

“You won’t survive this wedding night,” the woman said calmly, looking her directly in the eye.

Not threatening. Not dramatic. It was delivered like a truth, as casual as someone commenting on the weather. And then she walked away, leaving Tonia in the middle of the crowd, clutching a bouquet and trying to shake off the icy shiver that ran down her spine.

She told no one.

The wedding came and went — beautiful, joyous, perfect. Her groom, Maxim, looked at her with eyes full of love and promise. The celebration was filled with dancing, laughter, tears of joy, and everything a bride could dream of. That night, they drove to Maxim’s ancestral home on the outskirts of the city — a large, stone house passed down through generations. It had charm, age, and character. But also… something else. Something she couldn’t quite place.

It was in that house where they planned to spend their first night as husband and wife.

As soon as they arrived, Maxim went to take a quick shower, leaving Tonia alone in the master bedroom — a room she had never been in before. The air felt unusually still. No sound from outside. No creaking of the wooden floors. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.

She unpacked her things, trying to dismiss her unease as wedding fatigue.

And then it started.

First, a smell — faint, sour, like old smoke or burnt wood. Then, the room grew colder, subtly but unmistakably. The heavy curtains swayed, even though the windows were shut. Tonia felt a sudden pressure in her chest, like the atmosphere had thickened.

She turned toward the mirror.

And froze.

A figure — tall, female, featureless — was standing in the reflection behind her. It wasn’t Maxim. It wasn’t her imagination. It was there. Shadowy. Still. Watching.

When she spun around, no one was there.

The lamp beside the bed flickered and then went out. The door to the bathroom slammed shut. She ran to it, pounding.
“Maxim?” she called. Silence.

Then she looked again at the mirror.

A long, jagged crack split across it, and for a split second, she saw the face — not her own, not his — but a pale, ruined face with hollow eyes and a mouth open wide in a soundless scream.

Something cold touched her arm.

She screamed.

Maxim burst from the bathroom, dripping, confused. The light was on. The room looked normal. The mirror was whole. The air was still.

But Tonia was shaking, her skin pale and her eyes full of terror.

She kept repeating, “She was here… She told me I wouldn’t survive…”

Maxim sat her down, trying to calm her, dismissing it as stress. But the next morning, his grandfather visited to deliver a gift, saw Tonia’s face, and stopped cold.

“You slept in that room?” he asked.

Maxim nodded.

The old man lowered his voice and told them something that hadn’t been spoken about in decades.

Fifty years ago, on her own wedding night, the first wife of Maxim’s great-grandfather — a woman named Vera — had died in that very room. Found in the morning, lifeless, her face twisted in fear, cause of death: undetermined. Ever since then, strange things had been reported in the house, especially in that room. No one slept there. The family had simply… stopped using it.

But generations passed. Stories faded. Until now.

And the gypsy woman? She was said to appear only once, always before tragedy — and only to those whose lives were about to change.

Tonia survived. But something inside her never returned to normal. They moved out of the house and never looked back. She never told her children the full story. But sometimes, late at night, she would wake with a start, feeling cold fingers brush her skin.

And once, years later, walking alone through a park, she saw her again — the same old woman with the same dark eyes.

The gypsy smiled faintly and said:

“You survived… But she’s still waiting for the next bride.”

And then she disappeared into the crowd.