My husband and I recently became parents.
Our firstborn came into our lives like a storm, turning everything upside down. The first few weeks felt like a movie — we were exhausted, but happy. I couldn’t take my eyes off my husband holding our son with such tenderness. To me, he was the perfect father.
But little by little, something started to change.
At first, just small signs: he started staying late at work, became irritable and curt in his responses. Every evening, as soon as Artyom fell asleep, he would ask for “an hour to myself.” He’d lock himself in the study or leave without saying where he was going.
It hurt. I tried to understand — maybe he was just tired? Maybe he had post-partum depression — fathers can go through rough patches too. I gave him space. But yesterday, everything changed.
Our son woke up in the middle of the night, crying.
I got up to check on him, but instinctively glanced at the baby monitor. The camera showed he had dropped his pacifier and was already calming down. Then… I noticed movement in a corner of the screen.
I froze. There, in the dim light, standing motionless, was my husband — staring at the crib.
But hadn’t he just left the house? I had heard the front door slam!
My heart sank.
I ran to the nursery. What I saw terrified me.
There was no one in the room, except our son. No man, no sound. A few minutes later, my husband came in with a grocery bag. Calm, as if nothing had happened.
I couldn’t hold it in — I showed him the recording.
He turned pale, collapsed to the floor, and whispered:
— “I thought he’d never come back…”
He told me that in his youth, he had been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder. Over the years, the symptoms had almost disappeared, and he believed he was cured.
But ever since our son was born, another personality had “awakened.”
He had no memory of what happened when that personality took over. And that part of him… harbored an inexplicable, dangerous hatred toward newborns.
He cried. Said he’d noticed time gaps, strange dreams, objects in his hands he didn’t remember picking up. He thought he was going insane.
He begged for forgiveness, pleaded with me not to be afraid, promised to seek help and treatment.
And I… wanted to believe him.
But that same night, while he was asleep on the couch, I checked his phone.
There was a voice message — a male voice, but strange, muffled, and malevolent, whispering:
— “Tomorrow… Tomorrow we’ll get rid of it.”
I couldn’t take any more chances.
By morning, he woke up to an empty apartment.
I took our son and went to my parents’.
Now we live in another city.
My husband is in treatment. We communicate through lawyers.
I don’t know who he was that night — a father or a monster.
But now, I trust no one but myself.
