Things We Don't Talk About

"You're not losing your mind. It's just waking up."

He always used to sing me that lullaby. I haven't heard it since he died...until last night.

🎙️ Narrated Confession (Terrified Mother)

I... I don't talk about this. I can't. Most nights, I try to pretend it didn't happen... but every time the clock hits 3:14... I—I need to tell someone before I lose my mind.

Our daughter, Lily… she's only two weeks old. Still pink and soft and helpless. But... she started doing this thing.... Where she would wake up crying. Every night. At exactly 3:14 AM.

It started when we were still in the hospital. Third night in. I remember because I hadn't really slept since labor. I was just starting to drift off when it happened—this... this shrill, high-pitched cry. Like she was being torn open. The kind of sound that makes your blood cold.

It rattled the monitors and made me bolt upright.

Jacob, my husband— got up first. He went over to the bassinet, just to check on her, y'know? Nothing seemed wrong. But when he turned around... I'll never forget his face. Pale, like all the color drained out of him.

He said, "She did it again."

I asked him what he meant. And he said, "She sounded like Matt."

Matt...

Matt was my little brother.

He drowned. Three years ago. In the creek behind our parents' house. He was only nine.

The slackjawed image of his lifeless face still haunts me.

But Jacob didn't really know Matt. He was working nights back then. Never really spent time with him. So how... how could he say that?

I didn't want to believe it. I told myself it was just stress. That I was hearing things, imagining things. But later that night... I stole into the nursery, where Lily lay curled in a white blanket.

Her tiny fists clutched the air. I picked her up, and held Lily in my arms. Her whining dissolved into quiet coos, soothed by my touch.

I traced a trembling finger along her cheek. "It's okay, sweetheart. I'm here." and—I swear to God—she looked up at me with this gaze. This... knowing gaze. Like she'd lived before. Like she'd seen things.

And her eyes… her eyes looked just like Matt's. Curious. Restless. Too old for a baby.

I told myself I was tired. Delirious. New mothers see or hear things; it's the late-night delirium. Yet her gaze felt eerily strange, like she were peering not at me, but at someone behind me.

And that night was just the beginning.

When we brought her home, the crying didn't stop. Every night at 3:14. Not a minute before. Not a minute after. She would awake, then begin crying loudly, making a sound that was too grown-up for a baby her age.

On the fourth night, I waited. I stood until the exact minute, tiptoeing down the hall in my robe. The nursery door was wide open.

When the time came, I crept in... and I swear... Lily wasn't crying. She lay on her back, her tiny chest rising and falling with slow breaths. I pressed my ear close, expecting the usual gurgle, but instead, i heard a whisper, and It was as clear as anything:

"Remember when we climbed the willow?"

My heart skipped a beat.

That was our tree. Me and Matt. We used to climb that willow every summer, right by the creek. I used to push him onto the lowest branch, and he would laugh until his stomach hurt, his curly hair tangling in the breeze. He would sometimes say, "If I can't see the ground, nothing bad can touch me." That was our thing. No one else knew.

No one alive.

I leaned over the crib. "Lily…?"

She moved a little but was still fast asleep. I stumbled back, telling myself again and again that it was all in my imagination.

•

I—I went through his old things the next day. I thought maybe I was losing it. That maybe I'd buried something so deep it was trying to crawl out. I found his drawings... candy wrappers... and then I remembered that voice. That exact phrase. "Remember when we climbed the willow?" And suddenly I couldn't breathe.

The next night...

There was no crying.

Lily did not cry at 3:14 AM. I pried open the nursery door at 4:00 AM, shaking her gently.

But nothing.

At first, I thought—finally, some rest. But around 4 a.m., I got this feeling....A pull. I went to check on her.

The door was wide open.

Lily was wide awake. Just staring... behind me. Her eyes watching the closet.

I followed her gaze.

And there was something there.

A shape. Not a shadow—something heavier, stayed hanging near the closet door. I squinted my eyes, while my heart was beating fast.

I asked who was there... but I already knew.

Then Lily... she started humming.

That lullaby. Our lullaby. The one I made up for Matt. "Rock-a-bye, where the willow weeps…"

I hadn't sung it in years. No one else ever knew it.

The closet door creaked. And something stepped out.

It was him.

It was Matt.

Soaked. Pale. Still a child, still my little brother, but not like I remembered. He looked at Lily—smiled at her—and then... he spoke.

"You found it."

I wanted to scream, to grab the baby and flee, but my feet were nailed to the floor. Behind Matt's silhouette, I heard the faint drip of water.. sounding like the creek on a rainy night.

Then he looked at me. His eyes... they were empty and endless and familiar all at once.

"She remembers." he said. "She remembers what they did to me."

What did he mean? What was he talking about?

Before I could speak, he... he reached into the crib. Picked Lily up—like he was still alive. Like it was normal.

And then he whispered, "Catch me."

With a final glance, his figure dissolved into darkness.

I woke up in bed, soaked in sweat, and my heart hammering so hard I thought it might burst through my chest.

I tried to catch my breath and wipe my palms on my nightshirt, staring at the ceiling, I thought it was just a nightmare. Just the trauma. But...

The bedroom door slowly creaked open.

Jacob stepped in.

"She did it again," he whispered. "She sounded like… like Matt."

The same words. The same ones from the hospital. And I knew—I knew it hadn't been a dream.

I slipped out of bed, careful not to wake our son, and padded down the hallway. When I reached the nursery, the door was slightly ajar. I pushed it open, and found Lily standing in her crib, chubby fingers curled over the rail.

Waiting for me.

And smiling.

•

I don't know what she is.

I don't know what he wants.

But every night, at 3:14... I lie awake. Waiting.

Because I'm terrified that one day...

She won't just cry.

She'll speak.

°

—He always used to sing me that lullaby. I haven't heard it since he died—until last night.199-212.

This first chapter is just a small taste. Each story in Things We Don't Talk About will explore different shades of horror, from the paranormal to the unsettlingly human. Some will be short like this one. Others will go deeper, darker, and stranger.

Consider this the introduction to what's waiting just out of sight.

More stories soon. Don't read alone. Or do.