The Day I Had My C-Section, 208 Pregnant Women Died

The day of my C-section, my husband, Simon, burst into the operating room. Defying doctors and my family, he violently pulled me out. “Iris, you can’t have this baby!” he yelled, his voice strained. “If you want to live, come with me!” I had no idea what had gotten into him. But he was holding a knife, and I was too terrified to resist. I just let him drag me onto a train. Later that afternoon, a notification popped up on my phone, and my blood ran cold. Within ten minutes of us leaving the hospital, every single pregnant woman in that hospital—except for me—was dead! My face went ashen. I tried to ask him what the hell was going on, but he just pointed to the window behind me, a look of pure terror on his face. “Don’t look back! We have to get off this train, now!” 1 Simon and I had been married for almost three years. He was even more excited about this baby than I was. He’d even booked my C-section himself. But now, he’d suddenly changed his tune, forbidding me from having the child? Seeing the fruit knife in his hand, I was scared rigid. “Simon, do you even know what you’re doing?” I whispered, trying to reason with him. He glanced nervously at the doctors and nurses around us. “Iris, I’m perfectly clear-headed!” he insisted, his voice low and urgent. “If you want to live, you absolutely cannot have this baby today!” My father, hearing the commotion, rushed in, furious. He raised his cane, ready to strike Simon. “What in God’s name are you thinking? You won’t let Iris have the baby? Do you want her to die, taking the child with her?” Simon glared at my father like he was the enemy. “I’m saving her!” My mother’s face flushed crimson. “Simon Hayes, I’ve already called the police! If you don’t want to go to jail, just…” She didn’t finish her sentence. Simon shoved her aside and pulled me towards the operating room. “Mom!” I cried, seeing her fall to the floor. I tried to wrench my hand free, but he held me tight, his expression grim. “I’m your husband! I wouldn’t hurt you! Come with me!” He completely disregarded my pregnancy, dragging me forward with all his might. Only when we were safely on a train did he finally relax. Fuming, I slapped him. “Simon Hayes! You’d better explain this to me, or we’re finished!” The chill in his eyes slowly receded, but a hint of vigilance remained. “Iris, don’t ask why. Knowing too much won’t do you any good.” Our argument quickly caught the attention of a flight attendant. He glanced at my belly. “Ma’am, you’re very pregnant! You shouldn’t be getting angry right now!” As soon as he spoke, countless passengers turned their heads, openly staring at my swollen belly. “What are you looking at?!” Simon snapped, pulling my hand tighter. He then led me towards another carriage. I could tell he was terrified. He seemed so afraid of anyone discovering I was pregnant that he even took off his trench coat and tied it around my belly. “What are you so afraid of?” I couldn’t help but ask him. He shushed me, his voice bone-chillingly cold. “Shhh, don’t talk! Don’t ask why!” My phone suddenly rang, its jingle jarring in the quiet carriage. Simon pulled out his phone, and his face instantly turned ghostly white. I leaned in to look, and my blood ran cold. ‘Local Maternity Hospital: 208 Pregnant Women Die Mysteriously from Cardiac Arrest…’ Wasn’t that the maternity hospital Simon had dragged me from just moments ago? Simon had been telling the truth! Besides me, all 208 pregnant women at the hospital today had died! I snatched the phone, frantically scrolling through the photos in the post. Only when I saw the body of my best friend, Chloe, did I finally break down crying. Just before my surgery, she’d been cheering me on, and now she was a cold, lifeless corpse. Trembling, I grabbed Simon’s collar. “What the hell is going on? Why did they all die?!” 2 He looked utterly tormented, unwilling to answer my question. He just kept apologizing. “Iris, I’m sorry! I couldn’t save that many people.” I wanted to call my parents, to ask them what was happening. The next second, their call came through. “Iris! Are you okay? Where are you? We’ve been worried sick!” I couldn’t hold back my tears. “Dad! Mom! I’m okay!” “I saw the news! Chloe died, and all the other pregnant women at the maternity hospital. Do you know why?” My dad’s voice, full of confusion, came through the phone. “Iris, what are you talking about? Chloe just gave birth, she and the baby are perfectly fine! All the other mothers are okay too!” After he spoke, someone else snatched the phone. “Iris, it’s Chloe. You need to tell Simon to bring you back right away! You can’t delay having this baby!” I was certain it was Chloe’s voice! She really wasn’t dead. But what about the news photos I’d seen earlier? I was about to ask Chloe when Simon quickly snatched my phone. “They’re lying to you! Don’t trust anyone!” Lying to me? I tried to find the news story again, searching frantically, but it was nowhere to be found. The article seemed to have vanished, as if it had all been a trick of my mind. Simon looked surprised, too, but quickly regained his composure. “It’s all a hoax! Iris, the only person you can trust is me!” I had no idea what he was talking about. All I wanted to do at that moment was get off the train. But the train entered a tunnel, plunging the carriage into darkness. “Iris, you can’t get off this train! And you can’t go back! Because…” He stopped mid-sentence. I looked at him and saw his face had turned ghostly pale again. “Simon! What’s wrong?” His eyes, wide with terror, were fixed on something behind me. Through his constantly shrinking pupils, I could faintly make out a blurry shadow. But there was only a window behind me. Was there something outside the window that had frightened him? Out of instinct, I wanted to turn my head to look. But Simon reached out and pressed my head forward. His lips trembled, and he spoke in a voice I’d never heard before. “Don’t look back, run!” I could distinctly feel his hand shaking; he was clearly terrified. At the same time, a cold draft blew across the back of my neck. The next second, he pulled me from my seat. He dragged me, running, without stopping even when he bumped into several people. Only when the train fully emerged from the tunnel, and light appeared above us, did he slowly stop. But his hand was shaking even more violently. I looked up and realized that all the passengers in the train were staring at me with strange eyes. More precisely, they were staring at my belly. It was a blank, lifeless gaze. They weren’t doing anything, but I instinctively felt a chilling dread. As if at any second, they would rush towards me. Thankfully, the train pulled into a station, and Simon immediately pulled me off. Once we were off the train, that strange sense of fear dissipated. I looked at Simon. “Simon, what did you see just now?” His expression of extreme terror was still vividly etched in my mind. It felt as if we would have died a horrible death if we had been even a second slower. What was he so afraid of? What was he hiding from? Was it that blurry black shadow? He didn’t answer me. He just hailed a taxi. “It’s not safe on the ground anymore. We’re going to the airport.” I was pushed into the taxi again. On the way, the driver struck up a conversation. “Ma’am, you’re in great shape! I saw you from a distance, running with that big belly, and you’re perfectly fine now!” His words made me realize something. Ever since Simon had dragged me out of the hospital, I’d been running as if my life depended on it. But as the driver said, I hadn’t felt the slightest discomfort. This baby seemed unnervingly resilient. 3 Every time the baby was mentioned, Simon became incredibly sensitive. He warned the driver, “It’s none of your business. Don’t pry.” Just as he finished speaking, my mother’s call came in again. I reached for my phone, but Simon, sitting beside me, turned and warned me, “Don’t answer! We can’t trust anyone right now!” The driver shot us a strange look. I ended up not answering the call. But a minute later, Chloe called me. Simon glared at me again. “Don’t answer!” I couldn’t take it anymore. I started arguing with him in the car. “Simon, what do you even want? You won’t let me have the baby, you won’t let me go home, and now you won’t let me contact anyone?” “That news report…” He looked at me, his expression grim, about to speak. But then, a deafening explosion ripped through the air behind us! I turned to look, and saw the train we had just gotten off had derailed, crashing into a mountain. “This…” The shockwave from the explosion rushed towards us, making the driver stomp on the accelerator. I was still reeling from the immense shock. But then, Simon’s chilling voice echoed in my ears. “That’s why.” “Everyone who looks back dies! We must never look back.” If the news report earlier had been a figment of my imagination, then this train crash, right before my eyes, was undeniably real. We drove in silence until the taxi safely pulled into the airport. Then, I suddenly realized. “We need to call the police! How can we just run when something so big has happened?!” The driver gave me a scrutinizing look. “Ma’am! What happened that requires calling the police?” “The train crashed into the mountain just now! Didn’t you see it?” He furrowed his brow, then said something that made my blood run cold. “Ma’am, are you having a nightmare? We came out of the train station a while ago, and nothing happened on the way here.” His expression was natural, not at all like he was lying. So he didn’t remember? But it had only been twenty minutes! How could he suddenly have amnesia? I looked at Simon beside me; his face was still pale and drawn, but he showed no intention of speaking. Something this big had to be in the news. I pulled out my phone again, frantically searching for information about the train. Nothing? I directly dialed 911. I told them about the accident with the train. But the police’s explanation was exactly the same as the driver’s. He even warned me not to make false reports or spread rumors! I was utterly desperate! What the hell was going on?! “Ma’am, you don’t look so good! You’re heavily pregnant; maybe you should go to the hospital?” the driver said kindly, glancing at my belly. Simon, as if not in control, shoved the driver and quickly pulled me towards the airport entrance. My phone in my pocket rang again. This time, it was my mother-in-law. Simon just glanced at it, then, with a look of fear, threw my phone into a trash can. Not just mine, but his own too. No tickets were available at this hour. I don’t know how he managed it, but he secured two tickets for a flight taking off in ten minutes. The destination was the Himalayas! “What are we doing going to the Himalayas?”