This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Roos85 on 2024-10-20 16:00:00+00:00.

I stood in my kitchen staring out the window, my mind a million miles away. I couldn’t take the tightness in my chest and the weight of what my husband had suggested to me.

My husband David and I have been trying to have a baby for years, but our last visit to the hospital provided the final nails in the coffin after telling us that it wasn’t ever going to happen. I was devastated, but my husband didn’t seem too upset, because he suggested we had options.

I couldn’t believe what he was asking of me, but not only me, also my sister. When he first mentioned that we ask my sister to be a surrogate, It didn’t come across as the worst idea. But when he suggested we do it the traditional way it sent my blood running cold.

A million thoughts ran through my head as I tried to make sense of what he said and wanted. Was he attracted to my sister all this time? Was he using this as a way to sleep with my sister quilt free? I was furious and when I said this to him, he didn’t see the problem. Told me his ancestors have done it for centuries. I didn’t answer him at first. I didn’t trust myself to speak without breaking. It was as if David, the man I’d known and loved, was suddenly a stranger.

It wasn’t just the idea of surrogacy that upset me. It was the way he spoke about it, like it was part of some long-forgotten tradition. He wasn’t talking about clinics or doctors. He wanted Emily to conceive with him naturally. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. My sister, with my husband, to give us the child I couldn’t have? The thought made me sick.

David had been calm, almost too calm, when he explained it. He said it was “the family’s way,” something his ancestors had always done to keep the bloodline strong. The more he talked, the more I felt like I didn’t even know him anymore. It wasn’t just old-fashioned, it was disturbing. I tried to talk to Emily, hoping she’d be as horrified as I was. At first, she thought it was a joke. But when I told her how serious David was, her face changed. She admitted that he’d already spoken to her about it. She had hoped he’d drop the idea if I wasn’t on board. Now, we both knew it wasn’t going away.

Anger burned in me. How could David even suggest this? The thought of him with Emily was unbearable, but there was something else, too, something darker lurking underneath his words. I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to his plan than just having a child.

I started digging. I went through his things, looking for anything that might explain what was going on. That’s when I found the old family records. At first, it seemed like harmless genealogy, but the deeper I looked, the stranger it got. There were symbols I didn’t recognize, notes about bloodlines and fertility, and then I found something that chilled me to the bone: mentions of rituals, sacrifices, and offerings to some kind of ancient god.

Suddenly, everything clicked into place. This wasn’t about having a child. David wasn’t just trying to keep the family line going, he was planning something far darker. My sister wasn’t meant to just carry our baby. She was supposed to be a sacrifice, an offering to this old god his family had worshiped for generations.

I felt sick. My mind raced as I pieced it all together. David had been planning this for years. His calm demeanor, the talk of tradition, it was all a cover for something far more sinister. I realized I wasn’t just fighting to stop an uncomfortable surrogacy arrangement. I was fighting for my sister’s life.

When I confronted him, he didn’t deny it. He just looked at me with that same eerie calm, saying it was the only way to secure the family’s future. Emily had to be the one. She was pure, perfect for the ritual. He spoke like it was already decided, like I had no say in the matter.

The desperation in me turned to panic, a gnawing fear that was eating away at me. I had to protect Emily, but I wasn’t sure how obsessed my husband was about all this and the lengths he could go to make it happen. Time was running out, and I knew that if I didn’t stop him, I’d lose Emily. And if that happened, the consequences would be far worse than anything I could have imagined.

The night of the ritual came. David had prepared everything, symbols drawn on the floor, candles flickering in strange, unnatural patterns. Emily stood off to the side, trembling, terrified of what was about to happen. I was shaking too, but not out of fear. I was ready.

David had no idea how much I had learned, how far I had gone to turn this around. He thought I was beaten, that I had accepted his plan. He had no idea that while he was busy obsessing over his precious “old ways,” I had been finding something older, something stronger.

As David began the chant, my heart pounded in my chest, but I stayed silent, watching him call on forces he didn’t fully understand. He moved toward Emily, ready to start the final part of the ritual, but that’s when I made my move. I spoke words he wasn’t expecting, words I had learned from the darkest parts of those ancient texts. They weren’t meant for me to say, but I had learned to twist the ritual, bend it to my own will. I had spent weeks preparing for this moment, memorizing everything I needed to make sure that he would be the one who paid the price.

David froze as the energy in the room shifted. The symbols on the floor flickered, changing shape, twisting into something unfamiliar even to him. His confidence wavered, and for the first time, I saw fear in his eyes. He tried to finish the chant, but the words fell flat, powerless.

“You don’t understand what you’re doing!” he tried to shout.

His control over the ritual was slipping. The power he’d summoned didn’t care for tradition or purity. It was only looking for one thing: the perfect vessel.

David gasped. His face twisted in shock. The ritual had shifted, and he was no longer the master of it. He tried to stand, but his body convulsed again, and he fell to his knees. His hands pressed against his belly as something inside him began to swell, pushing outward. The horrifying realization dawned on him: the life he had intended for my sister was now growing inside him.

I watched as his belly expanded, stretching his skin tight. The weight of it grew, heavy and undeniable. He looked up at me, his face pale, desperate for a way out, but there was none. The spell had made its choice. David, the man so obsessed with controlling his bloodline, was now the one carrying it. The look of terror on his face was all I needed to know, he understood, and there was no escaping it. He was pregnant.

Nine months later, David was a shadow of the man he used to be. His once-proud posture had crumbled under the weight of his massive, swollen belly, his skin stretched tight and marked with deep stretch marks. His feet were constantly swollen, and his face, once stern, was now puffy and exhausted from sleepless nights of cramps, back pain, and the relentless discomfort of carrying life inside him. He had gone through every stage of pregnancy, morning sickness that left him heaving, strange cravings, and the unpredictable mood swings that left him either weeping or raging at the smallest things. His body ached in ways he never imagined, his back hunched as he waddled through the house, barely able to move with the burden of his own making. The reality of pregnancy had shattered any last trace of his arrogance, leaving him humbled and broken.