Only she could remember what happened on her wedding day. The passing shadow in her peripheral vision, the cool gust of wind that blew into the church, the whisper that set out across her skin, unnoticed by everyone else.


A year had passed, and still Amelia could not shake off his presence. Whatever had come with the day, it had never left. The memory lay over her like a second skin, transforming everyday moments into distant memories of that haunting encounter. Even at home, in her peaceful sanctuary, it lurked; it remained there, indefinite and persistent. She held onto the anguish for a year, and now she finally found the courage to speak.


It was their anniversary. Everything was perfectly normal—the food, the candles, the moment until she said the words.


“Do you remember the blackout?” she asked her husband, faintly smiling at him from across the table.


Ethan frowned. “What blackout?”


She put her fork down. “When the lights went out. Right before we said our

vows, everyone froze, and... something walked down the aisle.”


He chuckled softly in confusion. “Honey, nothing like that happened. You must

have been nervous that day.”


Amelia knew more than she wished to. She could still feel the cold breath that had swept through the church, the rotten odor emanating from beneath the roses, and the unnatural stillness of the guests, as if they had been frozen in time. She remembered in detail what she had seen in the dark - what no one else had seen. A ghastly figure, tall and slender, standing at the very end of the aisle, cloaked in a garment that shimmered like liquid, its surface rippling as it moved. The veil came so low that it obscured where a face should have been. The figure glided with soundless steps toward her. A knot of fear formed in her throat. Her body did not respond. The figure stopped a few inches from her, leaning down, turning the air around her icy cold, freezing the very edges of her breath. Then it whispered, its low voice a chill creeping onto her skin. “I now pronounce you mine. You must follow me.”


For a split second, it felt as if the church was dissolving around her. A sudden chill seeped into her soul as unearthly whispers coiled around her, echoing from nowhere and everywhere at once, unsettling and persistent. She felt a cold breath cling to her skin, the entity's presence stretching her vision, distorting everything familiar, twisting the world into something unrecognizable. Time froze around her.

Then, with a sudden crack of electricity, the world slammed back into place - light and sound flooded in, Ethan’s eyes met hers with quiet kindness, the priest’s voice resumed, and the guests stirred slightly, settling back into the rhythm of the world. For an instant, everything felt too vivid, too sharp, before normalcy took over. But Amelia knew she had seen it; something that would haunt her ever since, something that had marked her as its own, even as the universe pretended the moment hadn’t happened.