Scary stories I wrote

The Hunger Within

The first time Sarah felt it, she was alone in her kitchen, fingers idly circling the rounded swell of her belly. She was seven months along, her baby kicking in what she had come to know as an erratic rhythm. At first, she had felt lucky-her little one was "lively," the doctors said. But tonight, a pang of fear settled in her gut as the rhythm twisted, jerking violently in a way that seemed almost... deliberate. Her eyes darted to the dim shadows gathered in the corner of the room, the darkness seeming thicker than usual, watching.

It began subtly, just a whisper of dread, barely a shadow that grew darker each night. She noticed it first in her reflection; her eyes looked sunken, tired beyond the sleeplessness, and her skin took on an unhealthy pallor. But it was the sense of something else, something crawling behind her, lingering at her shoulder, slipping in and out of her peripheral vision, that wore her down. It was a presence that had been in the house since they moved in, like an old, stale smell that never truly went away.

One night, she woke to the sound of her name whispered in the darkness. Her husband lay snoring beside her, oblivious. Heart pounding, she listened, straining for any sound. The silence was thick, syrupy, a hollow emptiness that filled the room like fog. Then, there it was again, faint, a breath on the cold air near her ear.

"Sarah..." it whispered, almost reverent, like a lover or a thing that waited.

She pressed her hands over her belly, the baby's wild movements thrumming with a force that felt inhuman. The doctors said it was normal, that some babies were simply more active, but Sarah couldn't shake the feeling that something inside her was twisting, reaching for the world beyond her flesh.

By the eighth month, things grew worse. Dark smudges clung to the edges of her vision, and she often felt a phantom weight pressing down on her chest. The baby moved constantly, to the point of bruising her ribs, but it was only in the darkness of her bedroom, when the quiet blanketed the house, that she felt the full horror of it. Her belly would contort, jerking in ways that seemed to strain the very shape of her womb. Some nights, it felt like fingers pressing against the walls of her insides, pushing outward as though something far older, far darker than a child, was trying to claw its way out.

And then came the bleeding. Just a thin trickle at first, but it grew heavier each day, staining her sheets with an unnatural shade of dark red. Sarah tried to tell her doctor, her husband, anyone who would listen, but they all said the same thing: everything was fine. She was exhausted, anxious-they waved it off with sympathetic smiles. But the weight in her belly grew heavier, as though the baby were consuming something deep within her. She felt hollow, bones rattling under the surface of her skin, like a shell filled with something not quite her own.

One night, she awoke with her throat tight, unable to scream. Her eyes were wide, staring at the figure beside her bed-a vague, roiling shape darker than the shadows around it, coiled and bent like a thing long-forgotten. Its eyes burned in the night, and she felt it reach towards her, one elongated hand tracing the air as it drifted to her stomach. A searing pain ripped through her belly, and the thing leaned closer, brushing its fingers across the taut skin over her child.

Her breath was shallow as it whispered in a voice like crackling dead leaves, "It's almost time..."

Then it was gone.

Her belly settled into a stillness that terrified her more than the wild movements ever had. It was as if the baby had heard the creature and had retreated, waiting.

The next day, she felt nothing inside her-no kicks, no life. She knew, instinctively, that something had replaced her child, something that now slumbered in her womb. Her body was weakening; her reflection had grown gaunt, her bones sharp beneath her skin. Her husband finally agreed to take her to the hospital, but on the way there, she felt an agonizing, tearing pain deep within.

She screamed as her body convulsed, her hand clutching her belly as something inside her shifted, twisting and clawing with a fury. Then, a hand-not her own-pressed against her from inside. The outline of fingers pushed beneath her skin, and she saw them, defined and unmistakable, pressing and stretching the thin layer of flesh.

Her scream echoed through the night as the creature inside her shifted, hungry and relentless, desperate to emerge.

In the silence that followed, only the darkness waited, patient and listening.

Word count not including this: 811