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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/keanojeano on 2024-09-09 21:37:12+00:00.
My wife, Clara, and I have been happily married for three years now. College sweethearts that tied the knot as soon as we graduated. We were young, way too young, to reasonably consider trying for a kid - way things were for fresh graduates, it was already hard enough making ends meet for ourselves, let alone a child. But we were not reasonable, we were crazy head over heels for each other. It was always Clara's dream to be the best mother she could be. An infectious desire, so primal and genuine, no doubt borne of her own mother's not-so-great parenting. She wanted to be what her own mother could not. I had always been against having a child so young, but like I said - infectious. Clara convinced me damn well how good of a mom she would be, and knowing her as well as I did, I wholly believed her.
We locked down a cozy little apartment using the meagre funds you would expect from a two graduate's first jobs, and, after a year of trying for a baby, Clara and I would bring new life into the world. At the ripe ages of 26 and 27 respectively.
We welcomed our baby boy, Daryl, into the world three months ago.
I would like to say he came into this world kicking and screaming, full of vim and vigor, ready to take the world on fighting - I would even like to say he came into this world quiet and peaceful, barely letting out a squeak out of his mother's womb, in a dreamlike slumber. I would like to say anything about Daryl's birth - but that is exactly what has been eating away at me for the past three months.
I don't remember a goddamn thing about Daryl's birth.
I don't remember which hospital it was at. I don't remember what date it was. The time. The doctor. The room. Nothing. Every attempt at remembering is met with noise - a tangled mess of fuzzy and incoherent static garbled beyond recognition, yet beneath it all, there was something. Something hushed. Something hidden.
Something wrong.
I tried bringing this up to Clara, but was met with bewilderment. She said she remembered everything; St. Mercy Hospital, Monday, 8th of May, 7p.m., Dr. Morgan, Room 107. She said it so matter-of-factly, and looked almost betrayed at the fact her husband, and now father of her child, did not even remember their own child's birth, especially since, according to her, I was definitely present for. I felt like a total asshole.
Yet that wrongness had burrowed itself deep into my mind. It became a part of my psyche, and as much as I hate to admit it, over the course of those three months, it only grew worse as it festered within me. I couldn't even find Daryl's birth certificate. I followed up at St. Mercy Hospital, asking for a Dr. Morgan that helped birth a Daryl Harrison in Room 107 on the 8th of May, 7pm.
No such record existed, with no birth certificate ever attributed to any Daryl Harrison.
And as little Daryl babbled and cooed, cradled in Clara's warm motherly embrace, I could only look at him and feel...
...Wrong.
I could feel myself withdrawing, like my life coming out of focus. I had to keep up the mask that everything was alright around Clara - this is everything she ever wanted, to be a mother. I never wanted to rip that away from her, ever.
Whenever I locked eyes with little Daryl, past all the innocence I could sense something that didn't belong. Some strange foreign glint deep in there. Past the drool, past the dirty diapers, past the food smeared all across his face, there was something I couldn't describe. A secret knowing. A presence. A masquerade concealing something else entirely. Yet, Clara seemed wholly oblivious, and so I chalked it up to my own paranoia feeding itself in some vicious cycle, validating itself in its conspiracy against what was supposed to be my own flesh and blood. And so I stuffed that feeling down, suppressing it, all for Clara's sake. At least, in front of her.
Clara and I were quite private people, rarely taking to social media for anything. Our lives were very much just our own, and we were always so busy between our jobs and looking after Daryl to even waste the brain space on having a social media presence. Our communication with even our college friends grew scarce. We all mostly went our own separate ways through life.
But we had family. Or, at least, I did. Clara had been long estranged from hers, due to her rocky relations with her parents and being an only child. Any other relation was distant. I, however, was very close to my parents and sister. We had our rough patches, as any family does, but we made it through them and ended up all the more closer because of it. I had assumed they had known about Daryl this whole time, but always thought it was strange how they never chose to check in or stop by in the three months since Daryl's birth. I'd have expected them to be all over me, wanting to as involved as humanly possible, and the fact they weren't just heightened my suspicion even more. I had considered questioning them before, but it would be strange if your son-slash-brother called asking if you remembered the birth of his own son. No matter how you phrase the question, you would look plain crazy with no two ways about it.
But my paranoia was eating away at me, consuming me, and so tact went out the window. I just needed an answer, no matter how it made me feel. I rung my parent's place, and my mom picked up.
"Hey, mom, I was just wondering... Do you remember Daryl's birth three months ago? The details are a bit fuzzy and-"
"Danny Dear, what- what do you mean...? Daryl- oh, how do I say this..."
She was torn up about something. She sounded like she was holding back tears, and I could imagine her hand cupping her mouth to stifle cries as her voice grew muffled and shaky.
"Daryl... That was the name you were going to give your child..."
"Yes, mom, but... going to?"
"Dear, you don't seem to- you- you must have blocked it out... Have you and Clara seen anybody - a psychiatrist or something - since it happened?"
"No mom, I don't remember a damn thing... What happened... to Daryl?"
"He didn't make it, dear."
"What?!"
"Clara had a miscarriage. He died before he was born. In the womb. Right before he was due. You were devastated. But Clara... She was gone. Lost. The poor thing. Grief would not even come close to describing it, the poor thing. This was one year ago, dear."
Silence. Silence for what was likely no more than five seconds, but felt like an eternity. Daryl was never born.
Then what the fuck was in my house, having its diapers changed and being fed baby mush?
"Dear...?"
"Sorry mom, I gotta go. Love you."
I rushed to Daryl's - no, whatever was pretending to be my unborn son's room.
I twisted the handle and flung the door open.
"Clara-!"
Clara stood facing the cot, with it cradled in her arms, gently rocking it as she hummed a lullaby as the moonlight shone in through the window, bathing the room in an ethereal, otherwordly glow.
She slowly turned to face me, still gently humming a lullaby as it lay dormant in her embrace.
Her face, illuminated by the celestial glow of the moon, wore a content smile, her beautiful teeth shining equal parts brilliantly and eerily in the moonlight.
Yet her eyes were an abyssal void, devoid of white. Not even the moonlight reflected in it, rather, it was absorbed completely. It's like she was entranced by it.
And then it turned to face me.
Its pale "face" writhed and contorted in shapes that vaguely resembled human features. Its eyes, black pearls just like Claras', except within them I felt something profound. Ancient. A knowledge beyond the scope of human imagination. I had locked eyes with it for a split second, and I felt as though I had seen another reality, as though they were portals into some other dimension.
As its face continued to warp and distort, it began to resemble what I had once known as my baby boy.
It began to babble at me, stretching out its tiny hands towards me through the cloth it was swaddled in.
Clara, through her resplendent smile and with her abyssal eyes meeting mine now, said:
"Come, he wants his daddy."
I retreated back through the door, shutting it behind me. I slid down the door as I pressed myself against it as the lullaby continued behind me.
This was one week ago.
I never brought this up to Clara. To anyone. She was so happy to be able to be a mom. And so I kept up the facade of a happy family, and continue to keep it up.
But whenever I look at it, a terrible feeling washes over me. A knowing that what I'm looking at is not of this world, and it had brainwashed my wife into truly thinking it was her own.
I don't know its wants or desires - all I know, is that my wife deserves this happiness.
Even if we may be raising something truly beyond human comprehension.