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Rituals of the Shadowed Woods - Scary Paranormal Story · Shallow Nights: Scary Bedtime Stories

• 0:26
  Society, we've progressed past the need for childbirth.
• 0:30
  It was messy, dangerous, and just completely inefficient.
• 0:34
  Nine months to wait for a baby that may or may not even be born
• 0:37
  alive. That's why we have the forest.
• 0:40
  The blessing started before my lifetime, but my mom told me
• 0:44
  about how her great grandmother survived childbirth.
• 0:47
  Mom always winced when she told me about it.
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  It always sounded like a Horror Story.
• 0:52
  I couldn't imagine ripping myself out of my mom's own body.
• 0:55
  No, my generation came from the forest, just like all the others
• 1:00
  had before me. We had been blessed.
• 1:03
  There was no death in life giving any more.
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  Just wow, life. For a long time I thought that I
• 1:10
  didn't want kids. I just didn't feel like I had
• 1:13
  that fatherly instinct, you know?
• 1:15
  I tell my mom and she'd always tell me just wait until you find
• 1:18
  that special girl and wink at me.
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  It always pissed me off, but it pissed me off even more when it
• 1:24
  turned out that she was right. I met Jess and everything
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  changed. She was the most beautiful girl
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  I'd ever seen in my life. She was pretty by everyone's
• 1:34
  standards, but she was beautiful in the way that people you love
• 1:38
  always are. I knew I was a lost cause the
• 1:41
  second she smiled at me across that crowded bar.
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  I would have done anything for her, even go into the forest
• 1:48
  with her. Jess have been hinting at the
• 1:50
  forest increasingly more in the past couple of months.
• 1:53
  We've been together five years at that point, and I knew how
• 1:56
  much she wanted to be a mom. I just never felt ready for it.
• 1:59
  Going into the forest together, well, it was binding in a way
• 2:03
  that nothing else was. Couples who went into that
• 2:06
  forest together never broke up. There was no divorce, no
• 2:10
  separations. We completely did away with the
• 2:12
  idea of marriage because the forest was so much more binding
• 2:17
  than that. It almost seems silly to sign a
• 2:19
  legal document when the forest was the true binder of us all.
• 2:23
  We decided to do it after a particularly long, difficult
• 2:27
  conversation. Jess was wearing her favorite
• 2:30
  well worn purple pajamas, sitting on the couch with a
• 2:33
  pillow clutch to her, crying. I couldn't bear to see her cry.
• 2:37
  Besides, she had a point. Weren't humans inherently made
• 2:41
  to be parents anyway? Why was I fighting that drive?
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  I had a flash of Jess's belly, big and swollen with life, and
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  shook it away. No one had gotten pregnant in
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  generations. My natural drive must be to go
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  to the forest. That had to be it.
• 2:57
  So I gave in. It was late autumn and Jess
• 3:00
  never liked her summer birthday and shared it with four other
• 3:02
  people in our class growing up. She wanted our baby to have a
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  more meaningful birthday, and not many people chose autumn.
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  I guess it was more melancholic and when people think of babies
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  they think of spring. Just wanted those deep red and
• 3:16
  burnt orange hues for our baby though.
• 3:19
  I remember how cold it was when we approached the tree line.
• 3:22
  Jess was wearing an old sweatshirt that she wore when
• 3:25
  she went to the gym. I was lugging a massive diaper
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  bag. Just wanted our baby to have
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  everything, even if I had to carry 50 lbs of swaddles into
• 3:33
  the forest. Hello.
• 3:36
  A dark figure in front of us said, Are you here for life?
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  Yes, we've come to care for life.
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  Just and. I said in unison.
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  Sure, it sounded a little stilted, but tradition was
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  tradition. The figure nodded in motion for
• 3:52
  us to follow them into the trees.
• 3:54
  I took a deep breath and glanced one last time at the stars above
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  us. This was the last time in my
• 3:59
  entire life that I wasn't a father.
• 4:02
  I wasn't sure how I felt. Then I followed Jess in.
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  We must have walked for an hour until we reached the clearing.
• 4:09
  I didn't know what to expect beyond getting our baby.
• 4:12
  I asked mom about it and she said everything would be
• 4:14
  explained to us and not to worry about it.
• 4:17
  It was so normal to me that I just took her at her word.
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  It was simple, go into the forest, then get a baby done.
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  Then the clouds above the clearing shifted and bright
• 4:27
  moonlight through the clearing into perspective.
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  That was when I threw up. There were three women standing
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  in the clearing. Well, maybe I should say girls.
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  And they looked no older than 20 and had the same swollen belly
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  I'd pictured Jess with. They stood silently, but the one
• 4:44
  on the far left had tears streaming down her face.
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  I'd never seen a pregnant woman in real life.
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  It was horrifying. Their hair was limp, eyes are
• 4:53
  dull and lifeless. Their skin had all taken on
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  great pallor. I looked at Jess, my mouth agape
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  with horror. She didn't look at back at me,
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  but looked more intently at the girls in front of us, almost
• 5:06
  sizing them up. She nodded at the one in the
• 5:08
  middle. Is she a natural redhead?
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  Just asked the figure standing beside us.
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  The figure nodded and just smiled at me.
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  When you love to have a little redhead running around the
• 5:19
  house, Our very own Pippy Long stockings.
• 5:23
  I stood there numbly, just easily shrugged me off and asked
• 5:27
  the figure more questions. Health, history, vision,
• 5:31
  personalities, pre pregnancy of course, questions about the
• 5:35
  father's. Had they been tall?
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  Short. She didn't want her child to be
• 5:39
  bullied about a weird nose? What were their noses like?
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  She'd love blue eyes but would be OK with green.
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  Is that possible? Was she being too picky?
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  She chuckled. Oh babe, I'm so excited to give
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  birth, it's what we've been waiting for.
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  She said, beaming at me. The figure led the two other
• 5:58
  girls away from the clearing. Only the redheaded girl
• 6:01
  remained. She stared stoically ahead,
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  determined to not meet my eye. I thought it was weird that Jess
• 6:07
  said she was going to give birth.
• 6:09
  It was horrifying, but I'd guessed we were here to watch
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  this woman give birth and then, well, take her baby as our own.
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  I was wrong. I was so, so wrong.
• 6:20
  The figure produced the knife, then it was curved like knives.
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  I'd seen an old pirate story books.
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  The handle gleamed in the moonlight and the jet black
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  handle seemed to disappear into the inky darkness.
• 6:32
  Jess took it from him and smiled at me again.
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  She was crying. I just can't believe this is
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  finally happening. She said, smiling through her
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  tears. Jess.
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  I said, but she was already gone.
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  Then she was on the girl. It reminded me of a nature
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  documentary I'd seen once where the lion takes down an antelope.
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  The girl had tried to run a bit but she was clearly weak and
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  Jess overtook her with ease. I couldn't watch as the woman I
• 6:58
  loved tore open the girl's stomach.
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  I didn't believe it was real. I thought maybe if I run far
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  enough away then it wouldn't be real, so I ran.
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  I collapsed at the tree line and sobbed, for how long I don't
• 7:12
  know. The figure eventually reappeared
• 7:15
  to lead me back to the clearing. Cold feet are normal for first
• 7:19
  time fathers. It said knowingly.
• 7:22
  Jess was cradling a baby in the clearing she had swaddled it in
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  the dinosaur swaddle I dutifully packed.
• 7:29
  Her hair was damp and plastered to her forehead, but she didn't
• 7:32
  seem to care as she cradled him there.
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  She was cooing and singing softly to him as I approached
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  her. Jess.
• 7:40
  I said as I kneeled beside her. What have you done Jess?
• 7:44
  She beamed at me. She was Jess, she was my Jess,
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  she was my Jess, just covered in sweat and blood.
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  She'd been through childbirth and now she was holding our son.
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  Meet our son, she said, and held them up to me.
• 7:59
  I held them in my arms as we left the forest.
• 8:01
  I looked behind me before we left and saw the figure digging
• 8:04
  a large hole. Nothing mattered though.
• 8:07
  Nothing matters the second you meet your child.