You know, I always thought motherhood would be the best thing to ever happen to me. I really did.
Until I had twins.
One boy, one girl, fraternal. I love them insofar as I feed them, rock them, and put them to sleep in their crips. They’ve really managed to erode my patience though. I knew going in about how fussy newborns would be, but these twins never stopped crying.
Ever. Not from the moment I had them to now as I type this. They’re crying in their room as we speak. It doesn’t help matters that my husband’s a workaholic who refused to take paternity leave. I resent him for it, I think. Actually, yes, I do, it pisses me off to no end that he’ll come home from work, able to leave the constant hell of newborn crying, and then have the audacity to say how hard his day was.
I’ve been spiraling into a deep depression the last few weeks, I can feel it. I know it’s not healthy or helpful to self-diagnose, but I think it’s some kind of postpartum. Every day gets longer and more bleak.
I don’t really get sleep. On the rare occasion I do, however, something strange happens, and it’s why I’ve locked myself in my closet. I’m afraid of what might happen to me.
I get nightmares. I’d never gotten them before I gave birth, but now they’re starting to scare me. I would dream, sure, but these, these are something else entirely.
I’ve had visions, out of body experiences, and dreams.
Abhorrent dreams that involve my children.
The worst one happened last night. I was asleep, like normal, my husband beside me, when I suddenly got up. All of a sudden a weird, bluish haze washed over me and I was walking into the kitchen, my intention unknowable even to myself. I couldn’t control my body in the dream. I just observed myself.
I walked down the dark hallway, with a kitchen knife in my hand. I walked into the nursery and just stood over the crib, knife blade pointed towards my twins. I awoke standing up, something I’d never done before. I was aghast, I dropped the knife onto the carpet and started screaming. I screamed and bawled my eyes out as I danced in random circles, breaking things and running into the wall. My legs quit on me and I fell in a heap on the floor.
I just sobbed in the darkness. I heard voices in my head that told me I was weak, too emotional, and a bad mother. I fell asleep there. When I once again woke up standing over my children’s crib, knife in hand, I locked myself in my closet out of fear.
My husband woke up in the morning for work and found me in the closet with the knife. He scolded me for being crazy and that if I didn’t knock it off he’d take the kids and leave me. But he looked different then I remembered him being, his face was wrong.
Somehow, I couldn’t place why though. Then it hit me…
His eyes were a different color. They were brown. I had known this man since high school, and his eyes had always been blue.
Always. What was happening to me? Was my family even real?
I couldn’t breathe. I tried scheduling for a psychiatrist, but who would watch the twins? I foolishly dismissed the idea and just huddled in the closet until the twins started screaming again. Two bottles of formula to quiet them down and an aspirin for me. I think it was baby formula.
Then the twins climbed out of their cribs. It was a blur, as the orange, early morning sunlight broke through the nursery windows. First my boy, then my girl, both falling onto their heads with sickening thuds.
I screamed bloody murder as I dashed into the room. I switched on the overhead light and froze in shock.
Both of my twins were smiling, an evil wicked smile, directly at me.
Fucking smiling.
With teeth. Newborns.
My mouth ran dry, I backed away as I tripped over my own feet. I crashed into the doorframe as my children both rose to their feet and began jostling over to me in short, awkward footsteps. Their teeth seemed to grow longer the closer they got to me. I scrambled up, petrified, and locked myself back in my closet.
“Why did you have that knife, mommy?” A girl’s voice. I stopped breathing.
“Were you going to hurt me, mommy?” A boy’s voice. Tears flowed down my cheeks in rivers. I sat in there for hours. I couldn’t let them see me.
Then, a door opened. The front door. My husband. I heard footsteps, I had to warn him.
“Honey?! Where are you?!” He shouted at me.
“In here!” I said. He ran, shoes still on, towards the bedroom. I opened the closet. Suddenly, agonized screams emanated from the nursery. No!
“That’s it! That’s fucking it! I’m leaving! I might just call CPS!”
“No! Don’t! They’re out there! They’re trying to manipulate you!” I screamed, shouted, begged him to come into the closet. He didn’t listen.
Suddenly, the twins were behind him. Their eyes were blood red, the sinister smiles wider than ever. They started chewing at his legs, the fabric of his suit pants tore as their razor sharp teeth cut through skin, muscle, and bone. His arms held the closet door in place as his agonized screams rang in my ears as blood flew up and splattered the walls red. The twins chewed completely through his legs, leaving crude, bloody stumps that oozed crimson wetness. Blood trickled out of his mouth and onto my sweat pants as his life drained out of him.
The twins violently jerked his body away as I slammed the closet doors shut. I heard them feasting on the flesh, the sounds sickening. I vomited on the carpet as I caught a glimpse of my son eating my husband’s genitalia.
I’ve been here for hours. I don’t hear anything. I might make a run for it, even if it’s suicidal.
And that fucking crying! Nonstop! It is not going to fool me!
I’m not the mother to these things!