The day felt different from the start. Helena, the seasoned midwife of the prison infirmary, couldn’t shake the unease that hung in the air. Normally, the prison was alive with noise—screaming inmates, slamming metal doors, and the incessant shuffle of restless feet. But today, an unusual stillness had settled over the building, as though the entire place was holding its breath. Even the wind outside seemed hesitant, barely a whisper through the narrow window of the infirmary.

Helena had seen it all over the years. The births. The broken women. The hopelessness that came with each delivery. But today was different. Something gnawed at her. It was the kind of feeling you get when you know something is about to go terribly wrong. But she couldn’t put her finger on why.

Nurse Claudia’s voice broke through Helena’s thoughts as she flipped through a crumpled stack of appointment sheets. “Who’s next on the list?”

Helena barely looked up. She had already made herself familiar with the list—another inmate, another birth. Same as always. But this one, something about this one, didn’t feel right.

“Inmate 1462,” Claudia read aloud. “Due any day now. They brought her in last month from the East Block. No family, no history, no chatter.”

“No chatter?” Helena’s eyebrows shot up in curiosity. That was rare in the prison. The inmates usually had plenty to say—often about their circumstances, or their time spent behind bars, but this one had been eerily quiet. Not a word. Not a glance.

Claudia shrugged. “She barely speaks. Keeps to herself. Doesn’t look anyone in the eye. Just sits there in silence. But you’ll see soon enough.”

As they made their way to the cell, Helena’s senses were on high alert. The usual commotion outside the practice room was gone. The sound of metal doors scraping against their frames was absent, and the usual clamor of voices had been replaced by silence—heavy, unsettling silence.

The cell door creaked open slowly, and Helena’s eyes immediately fell on the woman sitting on the cot. Inmate 1462 had her hands neatly folded across her swollen belly, her gaze fixed firmly on the floor. Her hair was messy, but her posture was unnervingly composed, as though she were waiting—waiting for something that wasn’t immediately apparent. It was the calmness that unsettled Helena the most. It wasn’t normal. Not in a place like this. And not for a woman about to give birth.

Helena set down her medical bag, taking a deep breath before approaching the woman. She could feel the weight of the air in the room pressing down on her chest, as though something was hanging just out of reach, waiting to make itself known.

“Hello,” she said softly, trying to break the tension. “I’m Helena. I’ll be with you until your baby is born. Can I check on you now?”

The woman didn’t speak. She didn’t even raise her head to look at Helena. Instead, she gave a barely noticeable nod, acknowledging her presence. Helena knelt down, checking the woman’s ankles for any signs of swelling. But as she did, something caught her eye—something she hadn’t expected.

There, near the arch of the woman’s foot, was a mark. It wasn’t a bruise. It wasn’t a scar. It was a symbol. Faint, barely visible, but undeniably etched into the woman’s skin as though it had been there for years. Maybe longer. The mark didn’t belong on an inmate—certainly not one from the streets. This was something different.

Helena’s hand trembled as she reached out to touch it. The skin beneath her fingers felt warm, almost too warm, as though the mark was alive. Something about it felt wrong—off.

“What is this?” she asked quietly, almost afraid to speak the words out loud.

At the sound of her voice, the woman jerked her foot away, a sharp, swift motion that startled Helena. For the first time since entering the room, the woman’s eyes met hers. And in those eyes, something cold, something knowing, flashed for just a moment.

“Please,” the woman whispered, her voice barely audible. “Don’t ask about it. Just… do what you came for.”

Helena stood slowly, her pulse quickening. There was something wrong. Something about the woman, something about the symbol—something she couldn’t explain. The birth seemed perfectly normal, but the woman herself, her silence, and the strange symbol on her foot, made Helena’s instincts scream.

Helena’s thoughts raced, flashes of memories she couldn’t fully grasp. The mark—it reminded her of something she had seen years ago. Something that still haunted her dreams. A symbol carved into the corner of a church altar, just before it burned to the ground in a mysterious fire. The memories of that night, the fire, and the inexplicable events that had followed, had never fully left her.

Now, this symbol was here again. On the foot of a pregnant inmate. In a prison. On this quiet, seemingly innocent morning.

Helena stepped back into the hallway, her legs shaky, her mind overwhelmed with the weight of what she had just seen. She turned to Claudia, her voice low, barely above a whisper.

“Call the doctor. Now,” she said urgently, trying to keep the panic from her tone. “And bring the chaplain, too.”

Claudia raised an eyebrow in confusion. “The chaplain? What for?”

Helena didn’t answer. She couldn’t explain it in words. She didn’t have the answers. Some things couldn’t be explained by science, by medicine, or by anything she understood. Some things were simply too dangerous to be left alone.

She could feel it—the weight of something old, something dangerous, creeping into the air. There were too many questions, too many things left unexplained. Helena knew she was standing on the edge of something dark, something she had never fully understood but had always feared.

The woman, inmate 1462, was about to give birth. But whatever she was carrying—whatever had marked her—wasn’t just a child. It was something far darker. Something that had been waiting for years, and now it was about to be born.

Some things—some secrets—weren’t meant to be brought into the world.

Helena could feel it in the pit of her stomach. And soon, the truth would reveal itself. But at what cost?

Helena’s mind raced as she hurried down the narrow prison hallway, the air thick with a sense of foreboding she couldn’t shake. Her heart pounded in her chest as she called for the doctor and chaplain. The heavy silence that hung over the prison seemed to mock her every step—every echo of her shoes on the cold, concrete floor felt like a countdown. The hospital wing was unusually quiet today. Even the distant sound of the guards’ boots, normally a steady rhythm throughout the day, was muted.

Helena’s thoughts kept circling back to the symbol on Inmate 1462’s foot. It wasn’t just a mark—it was a brand, as if some ancient force had chosen this woman. She couldn’t deny the connection to the fire years ago. A fire that had consumed the old church, leaving nothing but ashes and blackened ruins. The altar, the symbol etched in the stone… and the whispers. The rumors that had haunted her ever since.

“Stay calm, Helena,” she muttered under her breath, trying to center herself. “You’re overthinking it. Just keep it together.”

But it wasn’t just the symbol that unnerved her. It was the woman herself. The chilling calmness with which she had received Helena’s questions—her voice, a barely audible whisper, but laden with an unsettling weight of knowledge. When her eyes had locked with Helena’s, they were too knowing. There was a coldness in them that didn’t belong in this world. Not in a prisoner. Not in anyone.

As she approached the infirmary’s small staff office, she spotted Dr. Watkins, the prison doctor, entering with a clipboard in hand. He looked up at her as she burst through the door, her face pale but determined.

“Helena?” he asked, concern flickering across his face. “What’s wrong? You look—”

“The woman in Cell 1462,” she cut him off, her voice tight with urgency. “We need to go back there now. Bring the chaplain too.”

Watkins gave a questioning glance but said nothing, nodding as he followed her down the corridor. They arrived back at the cell where Inmate 1462 still lay on her cot, staring at the ceiling, her hands resting on her round belly. The eerie stillness of the room had only deepened.

Helena’s throat tightened as she saw her patient again, her silence more unnerving than before. The woman didn’t look up, not even as they entered. But there was a subtle shift in the air—a thickening of the tension that felt suffocating.

“She’s almost ready,” Watkins said quietly, but his tone was anything but clinical. There was something in his eyes now, something Helena hadn’t seen before—a flicker of hesitation, as if he, too, could sense the strangeness hanging over the room.

Without another word, Helena crossed to the cot, kneeling by the woman’s side. The inmate didn’t flinch, didn’t speak. She simply nodded slightly, as if she were aware of the presence of the doctor and the chaplain, who had now entered the room.

The chaplain—a grizzled, older man named Father Rios—stood by the door, quietly observing. He had always been a comforting presence to the women in the prison, known for offering solace and prayers when needed. But today, even he seemed unnerved.

“What’s happening here?” Father Rios finally spoke, his voice quiet, measured. His gaze was fixed on the inmate. “Helena, is something wrong with the baby?”

Helena swallowed, trying to gather her composure. “It’s not the baby,” she said, her voice shaking slightly. “It’s something else. The woman… she’s not just carrying a child.”

The chaplain’s brow furrowed, but before he could respond, the woman spoke, her voice barely more than a breath.

“The child… is not mine,” she said. “I carry it for him.”

Helena’s heart skipped a beat. “For who?” she asked, though she already knew the answer. Deep down, she had always known.

The inmate’s lips curled into a faint, cryptic smile, and she whispered, “The one who waits. He has marked me.”

Father Rios stiffened at the mention of the “mark,” and for the first time, Helena saw something she hadn’t expected—a flicker of fear in the chaplain’s eyes. His hand went to the small cross hanging from his neck, and he murmured something under his breath in Latin.

Helena glanced at the doctor, whose face was ashen, and then back at the woman on the cot. She suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of dread, one that reached deep into her bones, as though the walls themselves were closing in on her. It was all too much.

The woman’s body stiffened, and her hand instinctively pressed against her belly. The stillness in the room became suffocating as they all waited, the seconds stretching endlessly. Then, with a sudden sharp cry, the woman convulsed, her eyes snapping open wide, as though she was no longer the same person.

In an instant, the air turned cold, the temperature plummeting, and the lights above flickered erratically. It was as if something ancient, something dark, had come alive in the room.

Father Rios stepped forward, his face pale. “We need to bless the room. Now. This is… not natural.”

But it was too late.

The woman’s voice rose in a guttural tone—unlike anything Helena had ever heard. It was a voice of both terror and power, not her own.

“You’ve come too late,” the voice echoed. “The child will be born, and all will be lost. He will rise.”

Before anyone could move, the woman’s body went rigid. The lights flickered one last time before going completely dark.

In the silence that followed, the room was filled with an overwhelming sense of something unseen—a presence that was both malignant and ancient. Something that had waited for years, perhaps centuries, to return to the world.

Father Rios crossed himself, his lips moving in silent prayer as the sense of evil intensified. Helena could feel the weight of it, pressing against her chest, suffocating her.

Suddenly, the baby cried—a sound so pure, so human—but it was accompanied by something darker, a whisper in the air that carried the weight of an ancient curse.

Helena couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. She knew then, deep in her gut, that what had been born in that cell was not just a child.

It was something much, much worse.

And with that realization, Helena’s world shifted, and the walls of the infirmary seemed to close in tighter, the sound of something dark and powerful echoing in the distance.

Some things were never meant to be brought into the world. Some things were better left buried.

The truth was here. And it would destroy everything.