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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/mrbeefthighs on 2024-01-06 04:17:50.

Elle died in labor forcing the doctors to cut our babies out of the womb in an emergency c-section. She knew it was a risky pregnancy, but decided to keep them despite protests from doctors and myself.

They say a woman becomes a mother the moment she gets pregnant and a man becomes a father when he sees his kids for the first time, and its true. Elle would have done anything for her unborn children and she ended up giving her life for theirs.

I was never depressed in the delivery room, instead I raged. Raged at Elle for going through with the pregnancy, I raged at the two babies whose deliveries killed my wife. I raged at the doctors and I raged at God. But all of the anger melted away as soon as I saw my two beautiful babies. I became a father in that moment.

It killed me that Brady and Emily would never know the wonderful, intelligent woman that their mother was or would ever fully understand what she sacrificed for them, but I vowed to make Elle proud in raising them, they were, after all, the only piece of Elle I had left.

When I brought the twins home from the hospital two days later the Television was on in the living room. We must have left it on during the hurry to get out of the house when Elle’s water broke.

I moved across the room to turn the TV off when the commercial break ended and the television showed the scheduled program – House Hunters on HGTV. Elle’s favorite.

That’s what finally broke me.

I dropped to my knees in the living room and bawled my eyes out. Repressed emotion poured out of me in buckets. I hadn’t cried like that in my entire life. I probably could have carried on for days but one of the babies started crying and I snapped out of it. I had people depending on me now.

I needed to be strong for them.

The first few weeks were stressful as shit. I was tired and didn’t read as much of the baby books as I should have. I had no idea what I was doing and felt like I was drowning. Put one baby down and the other one starts crying. I needed help.

I called Elle’s mom and she was giddy to come over and help mother her grandchildren.

She stayed with us for a week. Showing me the ropes. How to swaddle, test the temperature of milk, change a diaper. I couldn’t have done it without her. She even reminded me of a few old nursey rhymes from my childhood that I had completely forgotten about.

One evening after the kids were asleep, I fell asleep on the couch, exhausted from the babies keeping me up at all hours. I woke up sometime in the early hours of the morning in total darkness and heard from the baby monitor the soft singing of a lullaby in nursey.

I rubbed my eyes and headed upstairs to thank my mother-in-law and send her back to bed when I passed by the front of the house and noticed her car wasn’t in the driveway. I remembered then she had left the day before.

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end as I listened to the voice from the baby monitor. It sounded like Elle’s, but a little gravely, like she’d picked up smoking in the afterlife.

I slowly made my way up the stairs and down the hall to the nursery. Standing outside of the door I could hear the quiet singing and even make out the sound of a few soft footsteps of who ever it was walking around the room.

I reached for the door knob and readied myself to burst into the room. The second my hand touched the knob the singing came to an abrupt stop and then I heard a “thump” followed by a burst of cries from my children.

I exploded into the room ready to dispatch whoever was in there, but the room was empty except for Brady wasn’t in his crib. He was on the floor on the other side of the room just outside of the closet door.

I quickly scooped him up and put him back into his crib before tearing the closet door open only to find nothing but the stockpile of blankets and diapers I’d loaded in there myself. I went back to my son and comforted him until he went back to sleep.

The next few weeks were uneasy. I was getting less and less sleep. Each night I couldn’t shake the feeling I was hearing footsteps or raspy breathing through the baby monitor only to rush into the nursery to find nothing but my own sleeping babies.

I thought I was going crazy. Once more I called for back up and my mother-in-law was over in an hour. That night I went to sleep early only to wake up to sounds crying coming from the baby monitor. It wasn’t Brady or Emily. It was my mother-in-law.

I rushed into the nursery to find her in the chair reading a piece of paper with tears streaming down her face.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” She said, “I forgot there was a baby monitor in here.”

“It’s okay,” I replied, “What’s wrong? What are you reading?”

She extended the paper out to me, “I just found this”

I took it from her and quickly read it, “Jesus, Susan” I said to her, “Where did you find this?”

“It was in the closet, I found it when I was looking for some new diapers. It was just out in the open, I’m not sure how I didn’t find it last week.”

It was a note from Elle addressed directly to her mother. It thanked her for taking care of her children and apologized for making the decision to sacrifice herself for Brady and Emily. The words were all very kind and loving, but for some reason it made me think of a suicide note. I guess if she wrote this before she died, then in a sense it sort of was one.

The note was hard on Susan. She left the next day, taking the letter with her.

That afternoon I was up in the nursery feeding my kids when I heard voices from downstairs. I put the babies back into their cribs and rushed downstairs to find the TV was on again. House Hunters. My skin crawled.

I turned off the television and started to head back upstairs when I heard the voice through the baby monitor again. Singing that same lullaby as a few nights ago. I sprinted into the nursey to find Brady and Emily right where I had left them, but I also found something new.

On the floor outside of the closet door was a note, this time addressed to me.

I opened it.

You’re doing an amazing job. I know this is hard and you never thought it would come to this, but I’m proud of you and I always knew you’d be an incredible father.

But you won’t have to be. I’m going to take Brady and Emily with me soon.

You’ve gone above and beyond for them like you always did for me and I know you’re hurting now and its going to hurt even worse when you lose Brady and Emily, but you just have to trust me. This is for their own sake.

I love you forever

Elle.

I called the police who searched the entire house and found nothing. I didn’t want to believe it was Elle. I wanted to believe she was in Heaven. I wanted to believe she was at peace. I wanted to move forward with my life, but this just made letting go so much harder.

That night I moved Brady and Emily’s cribs into my room and we slept with the door locked, which didn’t seem to help because I woke up that night to more singing.

I sat up in bed and put my glasses on and scanned the dark room. It appeared to be completely empty save for myself and the twins, but when I focused in on the source of the lullaby and really

concentrated it almost seemed like there was a part of the room that was darker than the rest of the room around it. A shadow in the shape of a woman gently swayed back and forth as it hummed a gentle lullaby above my son’s crib.

I squinted hard in the low light and tried to make out a face. If only because it would ease my broken heart to see Elle’s face one last time. I had no luck. The black void in front of me continued to sway side-to-side humming quietly. I almost started to hum along when the shape bent at the waist and a long black arm reached down into Brady’s crib.

Terrified, I jumped out of bed and hit the lights only to find the room deserted, whatever had cast that shadow was gone now.

I checked on my kids and laid back in bed shaking with fear. Eventually the feeling subsided and I fell back asleep.

The next morning, I woke up to another note in Brady’s crib.

He’s Sick. He needs to come with me.

He’s Sick? What did that mean?

I took the twins to the doctor that afternoon. They were perfectly healthy.

Brady was dead the next day. The doctor said it was SIDS. Sudden-Infant-Death-Syndrome. Only I knew it was Elle.

No one can really describe grief. The pit in your stomach. The membrane that forms between you and rest of the world. You get lost in your own head and you dread the company of others while at the same time fear the idea of being alone. In intervals I felt drunk or concussed then blind with rage then numb. A complete disinterest of the world around me settled in and I carried on in auto-pilot for the next few days.

My world was crashing down around me and I didn’t even want to look up.

Then I found another note.

I’m sorry, but they need to come with me. It’s for their own sake. I know it’s hard for you, but think of the sacrifice I made. We all need to make sacrifices for the greater good.

Love you forever.

Elle

I tore a piece of paper out of a nearby notebook and scribbled a note back.

Your sacrifice? You’ve been dead for a few months and now you’re just going to take them with you and leave me alone? You didn’t sacrifice anything!

You’re being selfish.

LEAVE ME AND EMILY ALONE

I laid in bed for hours n…

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