I slept with my boyfriend, unaware he’d died two days earlier—Now I’m pregnant with his ghost’s childWhen the midnight wind whispered his name through the curtains, I felt his hand brush my cheek, assuring me that the child growing inside was both a warning and a promise.

Episode1

I swear I saw him. I felt his hand, I tasted his kiss, I breathed his warm breathminty as always. He wore that oversized grey hoodie he always complained made him look like a gentle giant. It was real. He held me through the night, whispering I love you into my ear, promising wed marry next year. I remember every second: the way his fingers glided down my arm, how he wept when I wept, how he made love with such fierce passion that I thought my very soul might split in two. And then he vanished.

I woke alone, but I wasnt frightened. I told myself I must have gone for a jog, as I sometimes did. His cologne still lingered on the sheets; the spot where his fingers had brushed my skin still tingled. Something was off.

I called.
Again.
And again.

Then my best friend, Eleanor, appeared in my bedroom, her face ashen. She didnt understand why I was weeping.

Poppy she whispered. Dont you know?

I laughed. Know what?

Thomas is dead.

I blinked. Dead how?

She sobbed louder. He died two days ago, a car crash on the night of the storm.

No. No. No.

I shouted, shoved her away, accused her of cruelty. I showed her the text Thomas had sent the night before, the voice note that said, Im coming over. I miss your body next to mine. She stared at the phone, trembling.

Poppy he couldnt have sent that. He was already in the mortuary.

The world tilted. My knees gave way. I ran to the bathroom, grabbed the damp towel hed used, the hoodie left on the floor, the faint bite mark on my neck.

He had been there. He had to be.

The truth, however, was that Thomas had been buried just yesterday. And somehow, I had made love to him the night before.

Days slipped by. Nights grew unbearable. I could not sleep; every time I closed my eyes I saw himsometimes standing at the foot of my bed, sometimes whispering in my ear. One night his voice floated to me: Dont cry, love. Im still with you. I tried to record it, but only static and my own terrified breathing came through.

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 man I had been with was Thomas. Yet he lay in a grave, decomposing. Still, something was growing inside me, kicking in the darkness, glowing beneath my skin when the lights were out. And each time I sobbed, telling myself I could not bear this, I heard a whisper from the shadows:

You are not alone. Our child is coming.

Episode2

I do not 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 had not spoken to anyone for daysnot even Eleanor. My phone rang dozens of times, each call flashing her name, which I ignored.

How could I explain that I was expecting a child of a man who had been six feet under for weeks? Who would believe me? I barely believed myself, until that night.

Just as I was drifting off, a pressure pressed against my womb from within. It was no ordinary kick; it felt deliberate, as if trying to catch my attention. I sat up, gasping, hands on my stomach, and heard him againThomass voice, inside my head.

Do not be afraid, love. I chose you.

I screamed, bolted from the bed, and stared at my reflection in the mirror, lifting my shirt. I swear I saw a faint blue pulse beneath my skin. It flickered, 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 had become pregnant after my boyfriend visited me, lying about dates and everything except the symptoms: strange dreams, skin that seemed to shimmer, hearing a voice that was not there.

The doctors expression shifted from concern to a measured calm.

Well run some tests, she said gently. Stress can do wonders to the mind, especially when mixed with the hormones of pregnancy.

She pressed her stethoscope to my belly. Her face went pale.

I cannot hear a heartbeat. Something is moving.

She ordered an ultrasound. While I lay on the cold metal table, the technicians face turned ashen. She adjusted the scanner, silent until I asked what was happening.

There is a fetus, she whispered, but it is glowing.

I left the hospital before the results came back. That night I dreamed again. Thomas stood by the old lake where we used to meet, his hoodie fluttering in the breeze.

Our child is not like the others, he said, voice softer than the wind. He is me and more.

What do you mean? I asked.

He only smiled sadly. You will understand soon. But you must protect him.

I awoke to find the curtains wide open, though I was sure Id locked every window. The hoodie from my dream lay neatly folded at the edge of my bed, still warm to the touch. I knew then that what grew inside me was real. It was his, and it was changing me.

The following day I finally called Eleanor. She arrived breathless, clutched me, and listened as I showed her the glowing spot on my belly, recounted the dreams, the voice, the baby. She did not laugh, nor did she scream. She whispered, We need to take you somewhere.

She led me to an old cottage hidden behind the stone church of her grandmothers village. Inside sat an elderly woman with long silver braids and pale eyes. She looked at me once, then said,

You are not the first, but you must be the last.

I asked what she meant, and her answer chilled me to the bone.

You carry the child of a bound spirit. That baby is both a blessing and a warning. Its father should never have returned. The door is now open, and others are crossing.

Take it away? I asked.

To take you away.

The lights flickered, a cold draft swept through the windows, and from the shadows Thomass voice again echoed,

Run.

Episode3

The room turned icy. The old womans eyes widened in terror as shadows stretched across the walls like clawed fingers.

He is here, she hissed, clutching a rosary made of twisted oak and bone.

Eleanor pushed me behind her. By now I feared not Thomas, but the things the old woman warned were comingthose that Thomas had unleashed by breaking the rules.

She scattered ash in a circle and commanded me to stand within it.

Do not leave this circle, no matter what, she warned. 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 the voices rosedozens, perhaps hundredsshouts, moans, pleas, laughter, all seeping from the darkness.

Thomas, please, I whispered. What is happening?

He appeared, but he was not the man I remembered. His eyes were empty, filled with sorrow and fear.

Im sorry, he said. I never meant to drag you into this. I only missed you, wanted one more night, one more moment. I didnt know I was opening a door.

Tears streamed down my cheeks.

Why me? Why the child?

He looked at my belly, then at me.

Because our love was stronger than death. Such love shatters the laws.

From the gloom surged a twisted, monstrous figure, halfmask, eyes blazing. It whistled a low, guttural tune at the sight of me. Thomas stepped between us.

You cannot have her! it roared. You cannot take our child!

The monster laughed.

You broke the rule, spirit. You touched the living. Now we feast.

The walls trembled. The old woman began to chant in a language I could not place. Eleanor clutched my hand, crying, Poppy! Stay inside the circle!

I shouted as the creature lunged. Thomas hurled himself at it, tossing it into the air. The old woman screamed,

NOW! Choose, child! Life or love?

Thomas, bloodied and fading, turned to me.

You must let me go, love. For our child. For you.

I shook my head, sobbing.

I cannot lose you again!

You never really lost me. I live in him now, in you. If you hold on, they will take everything.

The lights exploded, the floor cracked, the shadows howled. With all the anguish in my heart I called his name and said goodbye.

He smiled as he vanished. The darkness receded, the monster shrieked and dissolved into smoke, and silence fell.

I collapsed. The circle dimmed. My baby kicked once then again and settled.

Nine months later I gave birth to a boy. He did not wail like other newborns; he simply met my eyes, quiet and calm, as if he already knew everything. His skin faintly glowed in the dark. And sometimes, when I sing to him at night, I swear I hear a second voice harmonising with mineThomass.

I named him Timothy, after the man who could never truly be mine, for his spirit now lived within him.

Before he passed to the other side, he left me one final gift: a fragment of himself that no shadow could ever take away.

The End.