13 May 2025
I woke up alone, the sheets still warm from the night before, and for a moment I thought I’d simply drifted off after a late‑night run, as I sometimes do. The scent of his aftershave lingered on the pillow, and a faint sting remained where his hand had brushed my skin. Something, however, felt wrong.
I called. Again. And once more.
Soon after, my dearest friend Margaret appeared at my door, her face ashen. She didn’t understand why she was crying.
“James…”, she whispered, “don’t you know?”
I chuckled, “Know what?”
“Toby’s dead.”
My heart stopped. “Dead how?”
She sobbed harder. “He died two days ago—car crash on the night the storm hit.”
No. No. No.
I shouted, shoved her away, told her she was being cruel, that it wasn’t funny. I showed her the text Toby had sent the evening before: “I’m coming over. I miss feeling you next to me.” Her hands trembled as she read the message.
“Sara… he couldn’t have sent that. He’s already in the mortuary.”
The world tilted. My knees gave way. I rushed to the bathroom, grabbed the damp towel he’d used, the oversized grey hoodie he always complained made him look like a “soft‑hearted bruiser”, and the faint bite mark on my neck.
He had been, I told myself. He must have been.
But the truth was that Toby had been buried just yesterday, and somehow I had been with him last night.
Days passed. The nights grew unbearable; sleep refused me. Whenever I closed my eyes, I saw him—sometimes standing at the foot of my bed, sometimes whispering in my ear. One night his voice floated to me: “Don’t cry, love. I’m still with you.” I tried to record it, only catching static and my own panicked breathing.
Then my period stopped—twice. I chalked it up to stress, grief, trauma, until I vomited for the fifth time in a single day. I took a test. Two pink lines. Positive.
I collapsed. The only person I’d been with was Toby, but he was dead, buried, rotting. Yet something was growing inside me, kicking in the night, glowing beneath my skin when the lights were out. Each time I wept and said I couldn’t bear it, I heard a whisper from the shadows:
“You’re not alone. Our child is coming.”
—
I don’t remember falling asleep. I only recall waking in the bathtub, the pregnancy test clenched in my hand, those two pink lines, mocking my sanity. I hadn’t spoken to anyone for days—not even Margaret. My phone rang dozens of times; her name lit the screen each time, but I ignored every call.
How could I explain I was carrying a baby fathered by a man who’d been under the earth for weeks? Who would believe me? Not even I fully believed it—until that night.
Just as I was drifting off, something pressed against my belly from within. It wasn’t a normal kick; it felt purposeful, as if trying to get my attention. I sat up gasping, hands on my stomach, and heard his voice again, inside my head:
“Don’t be afraid, love. I chose you.”
I screamed, bolted out of bed, lifted my shirt in front of the mirror, and swear I saw a faint blue pulse flicker just under my skin. It blinked, then vanished. My legs gave out, and I collapsed, sobbing.
The next day I forced myself to the hospital. I told the doctor that I’d become pregnant after my boyfriend visited me, lying about dates and everything except the symptoms: strange dreams, glowing skin, hearing a voice that wasn’t there. She shifted from concern to quiet suspicion.
“We’ll run some‑thing,” she said cautiously. “Stress can do a number on the mind, especially with pregnancy hormones.”
She pressed her stethoscope to my belly. Her face froze.
“I can’t… hear a heartbeat, but something’s moving.”
An ultrasound followed. While I lay on the cold metal table, the technician’s complexion turned pale. She adjusted the scanner, said nothing until I asked, “What is it?”
“There’s a fetus,” she whispered, “but… it’s glowing.”
I left the hospital without waiting for results. That night I dreamed again. Toby stood by the old lake where we used to sit, the wind lifting his hoodie.
“Our child isn’t like the others,” he said, voice softer than the breeze. “He is me… and more.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He only smiled sadly. “You’ll understand soon. You must protect him.”
I woke to find the curtains wide open, though I’d locked everything. The hoodie from the dream lay neatly folded at the edge of my bed, still warm to the touch. It struck me then—what grew inside me was real, his, and it was changing me.
The following day I finally called Margaret. I needed help. She arrived breathless, I poured out everything, showed her the glowing spot on my belly, recounted the dreams, the voice, the baby. She didn’t laugh, didn’t shout—she whispered, “We need to take you somewhere.”
She led me to an old cottage hidden behind her grandmother’s chapel. Inside sat a wizened woman with long grey braids and pale eyes. She glanced at me once and said,
“You’re not the first, but you must be the last.”
I asked what she meant; her answer chilled me to the bone.
“You carry the child of a bound soul. That baby is both a blessing and a warning. Its father should never have returned. The doorway is open now, and others are crossing.”
“Are they coming for the child?” I pressed.
“To take you,” she replied.
The lights flickered, a cold draft swept through the windows, and from the shadows I heard Toby’s voice again:
“Run.”
—
The room grew icy. The old woman’s eyes widened as darkness stretched along the walls like claws.
“He’s here,” she whispered, clutching a rosary of bone and oak.
Margaret pushed me behind her. Fear of Toby had vanished; now I feared the others the old woman warned about—those who came, because he’d broken the rules.
She scattered ash in a circle and instructed me to stand inside.
“Don’t leave, no matter what. Do you hear me?” she warned. “You are now a bridge between the living and the dead, and bridges are crossed both ways.”
I stepped into the circle. My belly glowed with that same unsettling light; the baby kicked harder than ever. Then the voices rose—dozens, perhaps hundreds—shouts, moans, pleas, laughter, all emanating from the darkness.
“Toby, please,” I begged. “What’s happening?”
He appeared, but not as I remembered. His eyes were empty, full of sorrow and terror.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to drag you into this. I just missed you so much. I wanted one more night, one more moment, and didn’t realise I was opening a doorway.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks. “Why me? Why the baby?”
“Because our love was stronger than death. A love like that breaks the laws.”
From the gloom a grotesque, twisted figure emerged—half‑face, eyes like embers. It hissed at me. Toby stepped between us.
“You can’t have her!” the monster roared. “You can’t take our child!”
The creature laughed. “You broke the rule, spirit. You touched the living. Now we feast.”
The room shook. The old woman began chanting in an ancient tongue. Margaret clutched my hand, crying, “Elliot! Stay inside the circle!”
I shouted as the monster lunged. Toby hurled himself at it. The old woman screamed, “NOW! Choose, child! Life or love?”
Bloodied and fading, Toby turned to me. “You have to let me go, love. For our child. For you.”
I shook my head, sobbing, “I can’t lose you again!”
“You never lost me. I live in him now, in you. If you cling, they’ll take everything.”
Lights burst, the floor cracked, shadows wailed. With every ounce of pain in my heart I shouted his name and said goodbye.
He smiled as he vanished. Darkness receded, the monster shrieked and dissolved into smoke, and silence fell.
I collapsed. The circle’s light dimmed. The baby inside me kicked once, then again, then settled.
Nine months later I delivered a boy. He did not cry like other infants; he simply to me, eyes steady and calm, as if he already knew everything. His skin faintly glowed in the dark. Sometimes, when I sing to him at night, I swear I hear a second voice harmonising with mine—Toby’s.
I named him Edward, after my lost love, meaning “guardian of wealth”. He is not truly mine.
Before crossing beyond, Toby left me one final gift: a fragment of himself that no shadow can ever strip away.
