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The day I came home from the army was one of the happiest days of my life. I had been brought home two months early from what was supposed to be a nine-month deployment. I was ecstatic to see my five-year-old son and wife who was due the next month to give birth to my second child. When I got off that bus and had my family in my arms again was pure bliss from the hell I had come from. I had served my time in a black zone, meaning a very dangerous place to be sent, and had seen many of my brothers-in-arms fall to enemy hands. But the war was over now, and I was home. The worse was over, or so I thought. Little did I know that this day, which was the first day of joy I had experienced in months, would be the last such day I would ever experience.

When I got to the three-bedroom apartment I called home, and stood in the doorway, the first things I noticed were the walls. Before I left, I had remembered them being bright, cheery colors. My wife and I had painted them together not longer after the birth of my first son, Clayton. But they were different now, such dark depressing colors. They reminded me of the colors of ashes and rust. I commented to my wife about having painted the home a different color. She simply looked up at me and gave me a dainty smile before helping me bring my bags into our room.

Clayton showed me around the apartment, as if I had never been there before. Some rearranging had been done, though one of the rooms had been completely redone, turned into a nursery for the soon-to-be-born addition to the family. It was a charming little nursery; though I found it strange that one of its walls was mostly covered with a great mirror. I quickly left the room, getting a strange feeling that I didn’t like.

That night, after putting Clayton to bed, my wife and I spent the evening together in our room, enjoying each other’s company. I got to feel the kick of my child in her swollen stomach, and kiss her to my heart’s content. We fell asleep, her in my arms.

I woke up to the sound of static and a chill over my body. Opening my eyes, I was alone in the room, blankets removed, the television on but only static crossed the screen. Looking at a clock, it has been only an hour that I had been asleep. Getting up, I turned the TV off and pulled a blanket around me and went to go look for my wife. I quickly found her in the living room, watching television and munching on a bowl of cereal, wearing different cloths than she had been wearing before.

“Hey, why’d you come out here?” I asked her; she looked up at me with a confused smile.

“What do you mean? I’ve been out here since we put Clayton to bed. You went in there and fell asleep watching TV hours ago,” she told me.

“Oh,” I replied. “I must have been dreaming.”

That’s when I heard it. A faint crying coming from somewhere above, a weeping as if a woman in great peril. My instinct kicked in and I set off to find it before my wife could ask where I was going. I followed the noise up through the apartment building to the level above ours. There I traced it to the room directly above ours. The weeping was louder than ever. I knocked on the door, no answer. I tried calling out, still no answer. This apartment building was very old, incredibly old. I kneeled down and managed to look through the keyhole. I couldn’t see much, since it was dark, but in the corner I thought I saw the hunched form of the crying woman. I called out again, and this time the crying stopped. For the longest time I sat there, but no noise came after that.

After a long moment, I stood and left, going back to my apartment. My wife asked me what that was about, I just shook my head, not entirely certain myself. I went back to bed. I woke up again, this time my wife beside me, sleeping on her side, back to me. I leaned over and kissed her cheek, and looked at the clock. It was three in the morning. I wondered what had awoken me, till I heard it again. The woman crying from upstairs.