23 October 2025 – Diary
I slept with Tom, unaware that he had died two days earlier—now I’m carrying the child of his ghost.
I swear I saw him. I touched him. I kissed him. His breath was warm, his lips tasted of mint, just as they always did. He wore that oversized grey hoodie that always made him look like a gentle hulk. He felt real. He held me all night, whispered “I love you” into my ear and promised we would marry next year. I can replay every second: the way his fingers slipped down my arm, how he cried when I cried, how he loved me with such fierce intensity I thought my soul would split in two. And then… he vanished.
When I awoke alone I wasn’t frightened. I told myself I must have gone for a run, as I sometimes do. His cologne still lingered on the sheets, my skin still burned where his hand had been, but something didn’t fit.
I called. Again. And again.
My best friend, Mabel, burst into my room, her face ashen. She didn’t understand why I was sobbing.
“Emily… you don’t know?” she whispered.
I laughed. “Know what?”
“Tom’s dead.”
I blinked. “Dead… how?”
She sobbed harder. “He died two days ago—in a car crash on the night the storm hit.”
“No… no… no.”
I shouted, shoved her away, called it cruel, said it wasn’t funny. I showed her the text Tom had sent the night before: a voice note saying, “I’m coming over. I miss your body next to mine.” She stared at the phone, shaking.
“Emily… he couldn’t have sent that. He was already in the morgue.”
The world‑shaking truth hit me. My knees gave way. I rushed to the bathroom, grabbed the towel Tom had used—still damp—the hoodie he’d left on the floor, the bite mark on my neck.
He had been there. He had to be.
But the truth is… Tom was buried yesterday. And somehow, I had made love to him last night.
Days dragged on. Nights became unbearable. I couldn’t sleep; every time I closed my eyes I saw him—standing at the foot of the bed, 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, but all I got was static and my own terrified breathing.
Then my period stopped. Twice. I blamed stress, grief, trauma, until I vomited for the fifth time in a single day. I took a pregnancy test. Two pink lines.
Positive.
I collapsed. The only person I’d been with… was Tom. Yet he was dead, buried, rotting. Something, however, was growing inside me. Something kicking in the darkness, something that glowed under the skin when the lights were out. And whenever I wept and told me I couldn’t go on, I heard a whisper from the shadows:
“You’re not alone. Our child is on its way.”
—
I don’t recall falling asleep. I only remember 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 Mabel. My phone rang dozens of times; his name lit up the screen each time. I ignored every call.
How could I explain that I was expecting a baby from a man who had been six feet under for weeks? Who would believe me? Not even I fully believed it—until that night.
Just as I drifted into sleep a pressure pressed against my belly from within. It wasn’t a normal kick; it felt purposeful, almost clever, 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, leapt out of bed, lifted my shirt in the mirror, and swear I saw a faint blue pulse beneath my skin. It flickered, then vanished. My legs gave out; I collapsed, sobbing, onto the floor.
The next day I forced myself to the hospital. I told the doctor that I’d become pregnant after Tom visited me. I fabricated dates, lied about everything—except the symptoms.
“Strange dreams, skin that shimmers, hearing voices of someone who isn’t there.”
Her expression shifted from concern to a quiet suspicion.
“We’ll run some tests,” she said cautiously. “Stress can do wonders to the mind, especially when mixed with pregnancy hormones.”
She pressed her stethoscope to my belly. Her face went pale.
“I can’t… hear a heartbeat, but something is moving.”
She ordered an ultrasound. While I lay on the cold metal table, the technician’s eyes widened. She adjusted the scanner, silent until I asked what was happening.
“There’s a fetus,” she whispered, “but it’s… glowing.”
I left the hospital without waiting for the results. That night I dreamed again. Tom stood by our old spot beside the lake, the wind tugging at 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 gave a sad, sad smile. “You’ll understand soon. You must protect him.”
I awoke to find the curtains wide open, even though I’d locked everything. The hoodie from the dream lay neatly folded on the edge of my bed, still warm to the touch.
That’s when I knew—what grew inside me was real. It was his, and it was changing me.
The following day I finally called Mabel. I needed help. She rushed over, hugged me tightly, and listened as I showed her the glowing spot on my belly, told her about the dreams, the voice, the baby. She didn’t laugh. She didn’t scream. She whispered, “I have to take you somewhere.”
She led me to an old cottage hidden behind her grandmother’s church. Inside sat an elderly woman with long grey braids and pale eyes. She looked at me once, then 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 spirit. The baby is both a blessing and a warning. Its father should never have returned. Now the door is open, and others are crossing.”
“‘Crossing” what? I asked.
“To take him,” she said, “and to take you.”
Lights flickered. A cold draft swept through the windows. From the shadows I heard Tom’s voice again:
“Run.”
—
The room turned icy. The old woman’s eyes widened as shadows stretched along the walls like claws.
“He’s here,” she whispered, clutching a rosary made of bone and amber.
Mabel pushed me behind her. Fear of Tom was gone; now I feared whatever else the old woman spoke of—those who came because he had broken the rules.
She sprinkled ashes in a circle and told me to stand inside.
“Don’t leave, no matter what. Hear me? You are now a bridge between the living and the dead. 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 a cacophony of voices rose—dozens, maybe hundreds—shouts, moans, pleas, laughter, all emanating from the darkness.
“Tomas, please,” I whispered, “what’s happening?”
He appeared, but not as I remembered. His eyes were empty, filled with one sorrow and terror.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I never wanted to drag you into this. I just missed you so much. I wanted one more night, one more moment. I didn’t know I was opening a door.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks.
“Why me? Why the baby?”
He looked at my belly, then at me.
“Because our love was stronger than death. Love like that shatters the laws.”
From the gloom a twisted, half‑faced monster with blazing eyes hissed.
“You broke the rule, spirit. You touched the living. Now we feast.”
The room shook. The old woman began chanting in a language I didn’t understand. Mabel clutched my hand, sobbing, “Emily! Stay in the circle!”
I shouted as the monster lunged. Tom threw himself in front of me. The old woman screamed, “Now! Choose, girl—life or love?”
Tom, bloodied and fading, turned to me.
“You have to let me go, love. For our child. For you.”
I shook my head, “I can’t lose you again!”
“You never really lost me. I live in him. In you. But if you cling, they’ll take everything.”
The lights burst, the floor cracked, the shadows roared. With every ounce of pain I could muster I called his name and said goodbye. He smiled one last time, then vanished. Darkness receded, the monster shrieked and dissolved into smoke, and silence fell.
I collapsed. The circle dimmed. My baby kicked once, then again, then settled.
Nine months later I gave birth to a boy. He didn’t cry like other infants; he simply met my gaze, quiet 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—Tom’s.
I named him Thomas Jr., a nod to the man who never truly left. Because he was never really mine.
Before he passed on, he left me one final gift: a fragment of himself that no shadow can ever steal.
