Alona’s eyes fluttered open, the world coming into focus with a dizzying spin. The room was quiet, peaceful, and bathed in the soft morning light. Her heart, still thudding in her chest from the horrors of the night before, gradually began to slow as she realized she was no longer in the forest. She was safe. She was home.
A warm presence stirred beside her, and she turned her head to see Justin lying next to her, his face etched with worry, his eyes scanning her with relief as she stirred.
“Alona?” he whispered softly, his voice tender yet filled with concern. “You’re awake. I’ve been so worried.”
Tears welled up in her eyes as the memories came flooding back, each one more terrifying than the last. The forest, the cries, the Tiyanak... the feeling of its cold, grasping hands pulling her back into the darkness. She choked on a sob, the fear still raw and palpable.
Justin immediately sat up, pulling her into his arms. “It’s okay. You’re safe now. I found you... I found you in the forest.”
She clung to him, her body trembling as the words spilled out of her in a frantic rush. “I— I was running, Justin. I tried to get away, but they were everywhere. The cries... there were so many of them. And that thing— that creature— it wasn’t a baby, it was something else. Something evil.”
Justin’s arms tightened around her, his voice soft and reassuring. “I found you just outside the house, unconscious. You were alone, Alona. I didn’t see anything else.”
She pulled back slightly, looking into his eyes with desperation. “No, Justin, you don’t understand. It was real. It attacked me. It tried to kill me.”
He wiped the tears from her cheeks with gentle fingers, nodding slowly. “I believe you. Whatever happened out there, I believe you.”
But there was a flicker of doubt in his eyes—something unspoken, something lingering just beneath the surface. Alona saw it, even though he tried to hide it. She wasn’t sure if he truly believed her, or if he thought it was the result of exhaustion and trauma. Either way, she didn’t push. She just wanted to forget it.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said, his voice breaking the silence. “We’ll go back to the city, where it’s safe. We’ll leave all of this behind.”
Alona nodded, her heart heavy with relief. Yes, leaving the countryside was exactly what she needed. The forest had its grip on her, and she wanted nothing more than to escape its clutches for good.
Two months later, life seemed to have returned to normal, or at least as normal as it could be after the terror Alona had experienced. Back in the city, the noise, the people, and the familiar routine had helped push the nightmares away. Justin had gone back to work, and Alona was beginning to settle into a routine herself, though a surprise had upended their lives.
She was pregnant.
The discovery had been a shock, especially considering the strange timing. She had been careful, but when she missed her period and the test confirmed it, Alona was both thrilled and anxious. The pregnancy, she hoped, would be a fresh start. Something beautiful after all the darkness.
But as the weeks passed, a strange unease settled over her. The pregnancy felt... different. Not just physically, though the symptoms seemed unusually intense—the nausea, the dizziness, the fatigue. No, it was something deeper. A feeling of dread that she couldn’t shake.
She told herself it was just her mind playing tricks, the leftover trauma from the forest creeping into her thoughts. But as her belly grew, the feeling of unease intensified.
The baby kicked often, harder than she expected, and sometimes in the middle of the night, she would wake to sharp, almost painful movements. Her dreams, too, became more and more disturbing. In them, she would hear the familiar cries of a baby—the same cries she had heard in the forest—and each time she would wake up drenched in sweat, her heart pounding.
She tried to talk to Justin about it, but he brushed it off as typical pregnancy fears. “You’re just anxious,” he’d say, kissing her forehead with a smile. “It’s all going to be fine.”
But Alona wasn’t so sure. Deep down, she knew something was wrong.
As the months wore on and the due date approached, the dread became unbearable. Every time the baby moved inside her, it felt wrong—unnatural, almost violent. She would stare at her reflection in the mirror, her swollen belly, and feel an inexplicable terror. It wasn’t normal, she kept thinking. None of this was normal.
And then the day of delivery came.
The labor was brutal. More agonizing than she could have ever imagined. Alona screamed through each contraction, her body writhing with pain as if the child inside her was clawing its way out. She gripped Justin’s hand, her nails digging into his skin, but he didn’t flinch. He was there with her, whispering words of comfort, though the look of fear in his eyes betrayed his calm exterior.
Hours passed in a haze of agony, the doctors and nurses working frantically around her. Alona’s mind blurred with the intensity of it all, her vision swimming in and out of focus as she fought to stay conscious.
And then, in a final, excruciating push, it happened.
The baby was born.
For a moment, there was silence. The room went still. Alona lay back, panting, her body drenched in sweat, waiting to hear the familiar cry of a newborn. But it didn’t come.
She turned her head weakly, trying to see the baby, but the doctors were huddled around it, their faces tight with concern. One of the nurses moved to block her view, and Alona’s heart sank.
“Is the baby...?” she began, her voice hoarse, barely above a whisper. “Is the baby okay?”
There was no answer. The doctors were speaking in hushed tones, their backs turned to her, and Justin had gone pale, his hand still gripping hers but slack, his gaze fixed on the tiny bundle in the doctor’s arms.
“Justin?” Alona whispered, panic rising in her chest. “What’s wrong?”
Finally, one of the doctors turned to her, his face ashen. He held the baby, but something was terribly, horribly wrong.
Alona’s breath caught in her throat as she looked at the child—her child. It was small, unnaturally small, with skin as pale as death and dark, sunken eyes that gleamed with something unnatural. Its mouth—oh God, its mouth—was too wide, too sharp, filled with tiny, jagged teeth that looked more like fangs than anything else.
The baby opened its mouth and let out a low, guttural cry—nothing like the innocent wail of a newborn. It was a sound that sent chills down Alona’s spine, a sound that she recognized all too well.
The Tiyanak.
Alona’s world shattered in that moment. Everything came rushing back—the forest, the cries, the creature that had attacked her. She had escaped it, or so she had thought. But now she realized the truth. She hadn’t escaped at all.
The Tiyanak had followed her. It had taken root inside her, growing, festering. And now it had been born.
“No... no, no, no!” she screamed, struggling to sit up, her body wracked with pain and terror. “That’s not my baby! That’s not my child!”
But the thing in the doctor’s arms squirmed and twisted, letting out another inhuman wail as it reached for her with tiny, clawed hands.
Justin stood frozen, his face pale as he stared at the creature, unable to move or speak. He had no words. No explanation. He was just as horrified as she was.
The doctors quickly took the child away, their faces grim, and Alona collapsed back onto the bed, sobbing uncontrollably. She felt empty. Hollow. As though everything inside her had been torn out, leaving nothing but a void of despair.
For hours, she lay there, crying, her mind spiraling into darkness. Justin stayed by her side, but neither of them spoke. What was there to say?
Weeks passed in a blur, but the horror of that night never left Alona. She refused to see the child—the creature—again. The doctors had told her it was being kept under observation, that it was “different” but stable. They hadn’t used the word monster, but Alona knew that’s exactly what it was.
Justin tried to comfort her, but he was distant now, lost in his own fear and confusion. He visited the hospital often, checking on the child, but never spoke of it when he returned. Alona couldn’t bear to ask.
One night, as she lay awake, unable to sleep, she heard it again.
The cries.
Faint, distant, but unmistakable. The same cries that had haunted her in the forest, the same cries she had heard in her nightmares.
She bolted upright, her heart pounding. The cries were coming from the room next to hers—from the nursery.
Her blood ran cold. She knew what it meant.
The Tiyanak had returned.