I swear I saw him. I touched him. I kissed him. I felt him. His breath was warm, his lips tasted like peppermint—the way they always did. He even wore the grey hoodie I always teased him about because it was too big and made him look like a “gentle thug.” He was real. He held me all night. Whispered “I love you” into my ear. Said we’d get married next year. I remember every second. The way he ran his fingers down my arm. The way he cried when I cried. The way he made love to me with so much passion I thought my soul would break in half. And then… he disappeared.
I woke up alone. But I wasn’t afraid. I just thought he’d gone out for a jog like he sometimes did. His cologne still lingered on the sheets. My skin still burned where he touched me. But something felt off.
My calls to him went unanswered.
Again.
Again.
And then my best friend, Adesuwa, walked into my room, her face pale. I didn’t understand why she was crying.
“Simi…” she whispered. “You don’t know?”
I laughed. “Know what?”
“Tari is dead.”
I blinked. “Dead how?”
She sobbed harder. “He died two days ago. Car accident. The night of the storm.”
No. No. No. No.
I screamed. Pushed her. Told her she was evil for saying that. That it wasn’t funny. I showed her the text Tari sent me the night before. The voice note he left saying, “I’m coming over. I miss your body next to mine.” She stared at the phone, shaking.
“Simi… he couldn’t have sent that. He was already in the morgue.”
The world tilted.
My knees buckled.
I ran to my bathroom, pulled out the towel he used, still damp. The hoodie he left on my floor. The bite mark on my neck.
He was here.
He had to be.
But the truth is… Tari was buried yesterday.
And somehow, I had made love to him last night.
Days passed. Nights became unbearable. I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him. Sometimes standing at the foot of my bed. Sometimes whispering in my ear. One night I heard him say, “Don’t cry, babe. I’m still with you.” I tried to record it, but all I got was static and my own terrified breathing.
Then… I missed my period.
Twice.
I thought it was stress. Grief. Trauma.
Until I vomited for the fifth time in one day.
I took a test.
Two lines.
Positive.
I collapsed.
The only person I had been with… was Tari.
But he was dead.
Buried. Decomposing. Gone.
Yet something is growing inside me.
Something that kicks at night.
Something that glows under my skin when the lights are off.
And every time I cry and say I can’t do this…
I hear him whisper from the shadows:
“You’re not alone. Our child is coming.”.
I don’t remember falling asleep. All I remember is waking up in the bathtub, the pregnancy test still clenched in my hand, its two pink lines mocking my sanity. I hadn’t spoken to anyone in days—not even Adesuwa. My phone rang a dozen times. Her name lighting up my screen. I ignored them all. How could I explain that I was carrying a baby for a man who had been in the ground for weeks? Who would believe me? I barely believed it myself. Until that night.
I had barely dozed off when something pressed against my belly from the inside. Not a normal kick. It felt… intelligent. Deliberate. Almost like it was trying to get my attention. I sat up, gasping, my hands flying to my stomach. Then I heard it again.
Tari’s voice. Inside my head.
“Don’t be afraid, babe. I chose you.”
I screamed and scrambled out of bed. I stared at my belly in the mirror, pulling up my shirt. I could swear I saw a faint pulse of blue light just under my skin. It flickered and then faded. My knees went weak. I dropped to the floor, sobbing.
The next day, I forced myself to go to the hospital. I told the doctor I’d gotten pregnant after my boyfriend visited. I lied about the timeline. I lied about everything—except the symptoms. “Strange dreams. Glowing skin. Talking to someone who’s not there.”
The doctor’s expression shifted slowly from concern to quiet suspicion.
“We’ll run some tests,” she said cautiously. “Stress can do strange things to the mind, especially when combined with pregnancy hormones.”
She pressed her stethoscope against my belly. Her face froze.
“I can’t… hear a heartbeat. But something’s moving.”
She ordered a scan. As I lay on the cold metal bed, the technician’s face turned pale. She kept adjusting the scanner. She didn’t speak until I asked her what was wrong.
“There’s a fetus,” she whispered. “But it’s… glowing.”
I left the hospital without waiting for the results. That night, I had another dream. Tari stood in our old spot by the lagoon, the breeze rustling his hoodie.
“Our child is not like others,” he said, his voice softer than wind. “He’s me… and he’s more.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
But he just smiled sadly. “You’ll understand soon. But you must protect him.”
I woke up to find the curtains wide open, though I had locked everything. The hoodie Tari wore in the dream was folded neatly at the edge of my bed. I touched it. Still warm.
I knew then—whatever was growing inside me was real. It was his. And it was changing me.
The next day, I finally called Adesuwa. I needed help. She rushed over, hugging me tight. I told her everything. Showed her the glowing spot on my belly. Told her about the dreams, the voice, the baby.
She didn’t laugh.
She didn’t scream.
She whispered, “I need to take you somewhere.”
I followed her to an old bungalow tucked away behind her grandmother’s church. Inside was an elderly woman with long grey braids and pale eyes. She took one look at me and said:
“You are not the first. But you must be the last.”
I asked her what she meant, but her answer chilled me to my bones.
“You are carrying the child of a tethered soul. That baby is both a blessing… and a warning. His father should not have come back. Now that door is open. And others are coming through.”
“To take him?” I asked.
“To take you.”
Suddenly, the lights flickered. A cold breeze rushed through the windows. And from the shadows… I heard Tari’s voice again.
“Run.”
The room turned ice cold. The old woman’s eyes widened as the shadows deepened, stretching unnaturally across the walls like claws. “He’s here,” she whispered, clutching a rosary made of cowries and bone. Adesuwa pulled me behind her. But I wasn’t scared. Not anymore. Not of Tari. It was the others I feared now. The ones the old woman said were coming because he broke the rules.
She sprinkled ashes in a circle and told me to stand inside. “Don’t step out, no matter what happens. You hear me?” she warned. “You’re a bridge now. Between life and death. And bridges can be crossed both ways.”
I stepped into the circle. My belly glowed with that same eerie light. The baby kicked, harder than ever before. And then, I heard the voices. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. Screaming. Moaning. Begging. Laughing. All coming from the dark.
“Tari, please,” I whispered. “What’s happening?”
Then I saw him.
But he wasn’t like before. His eyes were hollow, filled with sorrow and fear. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to drag you into this. I just… I missed you so much. I wanted one more night. One more moment. I didn’t know I was opening a gate.”
I stepped closer, tears falling down my cheeks. “Why me? Why the baby?”
He looked at my belly, then at me. “Because our love was stronger than death. But love that strong… bends the laws.”
Suddenly, something else came through the shadows. A twisted, monstrous figure with half a face and burning eyes. It hissed when it saw me. Tari stood between us. “You can’t have her!” he roared. “You can’t take our son!”
The monster laughed. “You broke the rule, spirit. You touched the living. Now we feast.”
The room shook. The old woman began chanting in a strange tongue. Adesuwa grabbed my hand, crying. “Simi! Don’t leave the circle!”
I screamed as the monster lunged forward. Tari tackled it mid-air. The old woman screamed, “NOW! Choose, girl! Life or love!”
Tari turned to me, bloody and fading. “You have to let me go, babe. For our child. For yourself.”
I sobbed, shaking my head. “I can’t lose you again!”
“You never lost me. I live in him now. In you. But if you hold on… they’ll take everything.”
The lights exploded. The floor cracked. The shadows howled. And with all the pain in my heart, I screamed his name and said goodbye.
The moment I did… he smiled. And vanished.
The darkness retreated. The monster screeched and melted into smoke. Silence fell.
I collapsed. The circle dimmed. And the baby inside me… kicked once. Then twice. Then rested.
Nine months later, I gave birth to a boy. He didn’t cry like other babies. He just stared into my eyes, quiet and calm, as if he knew everything. His skin glows faintly in the dark. And sometimes, when I sing to him at night, I swear I hear a second voice harmonizing with mine—Tari’s voice.
I named our son Tarioluwa, which means Tari belongs to God. Because he was never truly mine.
But he gave me one last gift before crossing over.
A piece of him… that no shadow can ever take.
I Slept with My Boyfriend Not Knowing He Died Two Days Earlier—Now I’m Pregnant with His Ghost’s Child
