13 May 2025 – Diary
I never imagined I would spend a night with a man I thought was alive, only to discover he had been dead for two days. Yet there I was, trembling under the thin blanket in my flat on Lime Street, feeling the warm breath on my neck, his mint‑scented cologne filling the room. He wore that oversized charcoal hoodie he always mocked for making him look like a “soft‑hearted brute”. It felt real. He held me close until the small hours, whispered “I love you” into my ear and promised we’d tie of the knot next year. I can still picture the way his fingers traced the line of my forearm, how he wept when I wept, and how passionately he made love to me, as if my very soul might shatter in two. Then, as suddenly as he had appeared, he vanished.
I awoke alone, yet I felt no panic. I told myself I must have gone for a jog, as I sometimes do on rainy mornings. The scent of his aftershave lingered on the sheets, and my skin still smouldered where his hands had been. Something, however, didn’t sit right.
I rang his number. No answer. I tried again. And again.
My best friend, Eleanor, burst into the bedroom, her face ashen. “James… you don’t know?” she whispered, voice cracking.
I laughed nervously. “Know what?”
“Oliver’s dead.”
My heart stuttered. “Dead how?”
She sobbed louder. “He was killed in a car crash two days ago, on the night the storm rolled in.”
“No… no… no,” I shouted, pushing her away, accusing her of cruelty. “That’s absurd. Look at the text he sent me last night, the very voice note saying, ‘I’m coming over. I miss having you here.’ He couldn’t have sent that from a morgue.”
Eleanor stared at the phone, shaking. “James… he couldn’t have.”
The world tipped. My knees gave way. I dashed to the bathroom, grabbed the damp towel he’d used, the hoodie tossed on the floor, the faint bite mark on my neck. He had been there. He must have been.
The truth was that Oliver had been buried yesterday, and somehow I had made love to him the night before.
Days blurred. Nights became unbearable. I could not close my eyes without seeing him—standing at the foot of my bed, whispering in my ear. One night his voice drifted: “Don’t cry, love. I’m still with you.” I tried to record it, but only static and my own terrified breathing came through.
Then I missed my period—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 stared back at me.
Positive.
I collapsed. The only person I’d been with was Oliver. He was dead, interred and rotting. Yet something was growing inside me—a tiny life kicking in the darkness, a faint glow under my skin when the lights were out. Whenever I wailed, a whisper seemed to echo from the shadows: “You’re not alone. Our child is coming.”
The next morning I awoke in the bathtub, the test clutched in my hand, the two lines mocking my sanity. My phone buzzed a dozen times, each call from “Eleanor”, all ignored. How could I explain 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 thumped from within my belly. It wasn’t a normal kick; it felt purposeful, as if trying to catch my attention. I sat up, gasping, hands pressing against my stomach. Then I heard his voice again, inside my head:
“Don’t be afraid, love. I chose you.”
I screamed, leapt from the bed, and stared at my abdomen in the mirror, pulling my T‑shirt aside. I swear I saw a faint blue pulse just beneath the skin, flickering then vanishing. My legs gave out and I collapsed, sobbing.
The next day I forced myself into the hospital. I told the doctor that I’d become pregnant after a visit from my boyfriend, lying about dates and everything except the symptoms: odd dreams, skin that seemed to shimmer, hearing a voice that wasn’t there. Her expression shifted from concern to a measured suspicion.
“We’ll run some tests,” she said gently. “Stress can do strange things to the mind, especially when hormones are at play.”
She pressed her stethoscope to my belly. Her face tightened.
“I can’t hear a heartbeat, but something is moving.”
An ultrasound was ordered. While I lay on the cold metal table, the sonographer’s face drained of colour. She adjusted the scanner, then whispered, “There’s a fetus… and it’s glowing.”
I left the hospital without waiting for the results. That night a dream found me again. Oliver stood by the old pond behind our former house, the wind tugging at his hoodie’s hood.
“Our child isn’t like the others,” he said, voice softer than a breeze. “He is me… and more.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He only smiled sadly. “You’ll understand soon. But you must protect him.”
I awoke to find the curtains wide open, though I’d locked the windows. The hoodie from the dream lay neatly folded at the foot of my bed, still warm to the touch. That’s when it hit me—what grew inside me was real. It was his, and it was changing me.
The following day I finally called Eleanor. She arrived breathless, hugging me fiercely as I recounted everything, showing her the faint glow on my belly, telling her of the voices and the dreams. She didn’t laugh or scream. She whispered, “We need to take you somewhere.”
She led me to an old stone cottage hidden behind St. Mary’s church, where an elderly woman with silver braids and pale eyes waited. The woman stared at me once, then said:
“You’re not the first, but you must be the last.”
I asked what she meant. Her reply chilled me to the bone.
“You carry the child of a bound soul. It is both a blessing and a warning. Its father shouldn’t have returned. The door is open now, and others are crossing through.”
“Others to take it?” I asked.
“To take you,” she replied.
Lights flickered. A cold draft swept the room. From the shadows I heard Oliver’s voice again: “Run.”
I entered a few days later into a circle of ash the old woman drew, standing inside as the room grew icy. She clutched a rosary made of bone and amber, warning me not to leave the circle, for I was now a bridge between life and death. The glow in my belly intensified, the baby kicking harder than ever.
Voices erupted from the darkness—hundreds of cries, pleas, and cruel laughter. I called out, “Oliver, please! What’s happening?”
He appeared, eyes hollow with sorrow.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I never meant to drag you into this. I just wanted one more night, one more moment. I didn’t know I was opening a gate.”
“Why me? Why the child?” I asked, tears streaming.
“Because our love was stronger than death. Such love breaks the rules,” he answered.
From the shadows a twisted, half‑faced monster with burning eyes emerged, hissing at me. Oliver stepped between us.
“You cannot have her!” the beast roared. “You cannot take our child!”
The creature laughed. “You broke the law, spirit. You touched the living. Now we feast.”
The cottage shook. The old woman began chanting in an ancient tongue. Eleanor clutched my hand, sobbing, “James! Stay in the circle!”
I screamed as the monster lunged. Oliver threw himself at the beast, and the old woman shouted, “Now! Choose, child! Life or love?”
Bloodied and fading, Oliver looked at me. “You must let me go, for our son’s sake. For yours.”
I shook my head. “I can’t lose you again.”
“You never truly lost me,” he whispered. “I live in him, in you. But if you cling, they’ll take everything.”
The lights exploded, the floor cracked, shadows howled. With every ounce of strength I shouted his name, then said goodbye. He smiled one last time and vanished. Darkness receded, the monster dissolved into smoke, and silence fell.
I collapsed. The circle dimmed, and the baby inside me gave a single, gentle kick, then settled.
Nine months later I gave birth to a boy. He didn’t cry like other newborns; he simply looked into my eyes, calm, as if he already knew everything. His skin carried a faint sheen that caught the dimmest light. At night, when I sing to him, I swear I hear a second voice harmonising with mine—Oliver’s voice.
I named him Thomas, after the man who once belonged to a god, because he was never truly mine.
Before I passed over into whatever comes next, he left me one final gift: a fragment of himself that no shadow can ever steal.
Lesson learned: love that defies death can open doors you never intended to walk through; guard the thresholds you open, for they may let in more than you bargained for.
