A woman gave birth in a prison hospital room: a midwife came up to examine her, then screamed in horror
That morning in the prison hospital room began quieter than usual. There were no doors slamming in the hallway, no familiar shouts. Everything was too calm – and that in itself was alarming.
“Who’s on the list today?” asked the nurse on duty, laying out the crumpled cards of the prisoners on the table.
The midwife – an older woman with tired eyes, long accustomed to difficult cases – barely raised her head. Over the years of working in the colony, she had seen a lot: broken mothers, women giving birth in handcuffs, tragedies that no one talked about later. But something about today made her vaguely uneasy.
“Prisoner #1462,” the nurse answered. — The contractions will start any minute. She was transferred a month ago from the Eastern Bloc. No family, no documents, and her medical history is empty. She barely talks.
— She doesn’t talk? — the midwife raised an eyebrow. — At all?
— She just nods monosyllabically. She doesn’t look anyone in the eye. As if she’s locked from the inside.
The heavy door creaked. In the ward, more like a cell, a pregnant woman was lying on a narrow metal bed. She held her hands on her huge belly and looked at the floor. Her face was pale, her hair disheveled. But there was something strange in her stillness: not fear or pain, but rather resignation.
The midwife came closer.
— Hello, — she said quietly. — I’ll be with you until the baby is born. Let me examine you.
The woman nodded slightly.
The midwife leaned over to examine the pregnant woman and suddenly screamed in horror.
– Call a priest immediately!
Continued in the first comment

 

The Silence Before

That morning in the prison hospital was wrong from the very start.

Prisons are not quiet places. Even at dawn, someone is always shouting down the corridors, chains are rattling, doors are slamming. Life inside those walls hums with restless violence. But that day… nothing.

The silence was so complete it felt unnatural, like the building itself was holding its breath.

At the duty table, Nurse Elena spread out the crumpled medical cards of the women scheduled for care. She tried to focus, but her hands trembled.

“Who’s on the list today?” she asked, her voice too loud in the stillness.

The midwife, Galina, lifted her tired eyes. She was a woman who had seen everything during her decades of work in the colony. She had delivered babies in handcuffs. She had watched mothers give birth weeping because they knew they would never hold their children again. She had washed blood from her arms in silence, swallowing tears because no one cried for prisoners.

And yet, something about this morning unsettled her in a way she couldn’t explain.

“Prisoner 1462,” Elena muttered, tapping the card. “She’s in full labor. Transferred from the Eastern Bloc last month. No family. No documents. Her medical history is blank. She barely speaks.”

Galina frowned. “Doesn’t speak? At all?”

“She nods. Occasionally whispers one word. That’s it. She never looks anyone in the eye. It’s as if she’s locked inside herself.”

A chill swept through Galina. “What’s her name?”

The nurse looked down at the file. “She doesn’t have one. They call her Anna. Probably false.”

The Prisoner

The heavy metal door screeched open.

The hospital ward was little more than a cell with a cot bolted to the wall. Inside lay the woman.

Her hair was tangled, her face pale, her belly grotesquely swollen. She sat with her hands protectively clasped over it, her gaze fixed on the floor. There was no fear in her eyes, no visible pain, only a heavy resignation—as if she already knew how this day would end.

Galina approached slowly. “Hello,” she said softly, crouching by the bed. “I will help you deliver your baby. Do you understand?”

The woman nodded once. Her lips barely moved.

“Good,” Galina murmured. “Let me examine you.”

The prisoner shifted slightly, spreading her knees. Galina slipped on gloves, leaned down—then froze.

Her face drained of color.

And then she screamed.

“Call a priest. Now!”

The Horror

The nurse and guards jolted, their hands tightening on their belts.

“What is it?” one demanded.

Galina’s voice shook. “There’s no heartbeat.”

The words hit the air like a gunshot.

The guards exchanged uneasy glances. Elena grabbed the monitor, fumbling with the equipment. Galina pressed the stethoscope harder against the woman’s belly, her hands trembling.

Nothing.

Just silence.

“Stillborn?” whispered the nurse.

Galina swallowed hard. She had seen stillbirths before, but something about this emptiness felt unnatural. Not the stillness of death, but the echo of something that shouldn’t be there at all.

Her instinct screamed at her. This is wrong. This birth is not like the others.

The woman on the bed remained silent. Only her fingers tightened on the sheet.

“Get the chaplain,” Galina ordered. “If the child is gone, it will not leave this world without prayer.”

But then—

A sound.

At first faint, like a whisper carried on the wind. Then stronger, uneven, fragile.

A heartbeat.

Galina gasped. “Alive… he’s alive.”

The nurse sagged with relief. The guards muttered curses under their breath.

The prisoner, for the first time, raised her eyes. They were black as coal. And she smiled.

The Labor

The contractions came hard and fast. The small room filled with groans, shouts, and the metallic scent of blood.

The guards held the prisoner’s arms as she thrashed. Elena wiped sweat from her forehead. Galina barked orders, her hands moving with the mechanical precision of experience.

Hours blurred into a haze of pain and panic. Time ceased to exist.

Then—finally—

A cry.

Weak at first. Then louder. Piercing. Alive.

A boy.

Tiny. Fragile. His skin tinged blue, his chest rising in shallow gasps. But alive.

Galina wrapped him quickly, rubbed him, whispered prayers under her breath. The baby let out a stronger wail.

“Thank God,” she whispered, tears slipping down her cheeks.

The prisoner turned her head. For the first time, she looked directly into Galina’s eyes. And she smiled again—this time wider. Too wide.

The Strange Occurrence

As the baby’s cries filled the cell, a strange thing happened.

The lights above flickered.

The room grew colder, the air pressing against their skin like icy hands. Every breath fogged.

One of the guards cursed. “What the hell—?”

The baby stopped crying. Just like that. His eyes opened.

Galina froze. Newborns’ eyes are supposed to be cloudy, unfocused. But his… were not.

They were black. Bottomless. Just like his mother’s.

The midwife stumbled back, her cross necklace slipping from her blouse. She clutched it, whispering a trembling prayer.

The prisoner laughed softly—a sound that didn’t belong in the throat of any woman.

Whispers in the Dark

The chaplain arrived too late.

By the time he rushed in with his Bible, the baby was quiet in his mother’s arms, staring at the ceiling as though he could see something no one else could.

The prisoner rocked him gently, her lips moving in whispers that were not Russian, not Latin, not any language the priest had ever heard.

Galina gripped his arm. “Father, there is something wrong. Something unholy.”

The priest opened his mouth to respond—then the baby turned his head.

He looked at him. Directly.

The chaplain’s breath caught. “Lord, have mercy.”

The baby’s gaze was too knowing. Too ancient.

And the prisoner began to laugh again.

The Aftermath

The boy was taken to the neonatal unit. The mother remained in solitary.

But word spread. Guards whispered in the cafeteria. Nurses crossed themselves in the hallways. Some claimed they heard the baby crying at night, even when he was silent. Others swore his cries sounded like words.

Galina couldn’t sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw those black eyes staring at her.

She kept asking herself: What did I deliver into this world? A child? Or something else entirely?

The Revelation

Weeks later, investigators arrived from the capital. They carried sealed folders and whispered orders.

One evening, Galina was summoned. A man in a dark suit showed her the prisoner’s file.

Prisoner 1462 was no ordinary woman. She had been transferred from a classified institution in the East. Arrested years ago for crimes no one dared name. Every facility she had been sent to—burned down. Staff disappeared. Survivors whispered of strange rituals in the night.

Her name wasn’t Anna. It wasn’t anything human.

The man closed the file. His expression was grim.

“You did not deliver a prisoner’s child,” he said flatly. “You delivered something else.”

Galina’s stomach dropped. “What will happen to him?”

The man didn’t answer. He only looked at her with eyes that carried the weight of secrets too heavy to speak.