Incuboo

CW: Sexual violence, self harm, physical violence, abuse

Lucky had always been the quiet girl in her little town. The one who walked with her head down, the one who sat in the back pew at church beside her mother Jane and her father Lemuel. The one who was taught—over and over again—that sex before marriage meant hell. Her parents didn’t just preach it; they breathed it. It was stitched into her childhood, whispered into her prayers, and wrapped tight around her mind like a chain.

So Lucky grew up terrified of intimacy. A hand on her shoulder made her flinch. A compliment made her blush to the ears. Male affection? She avoided it like fire. By twenty‑one, she was still a virgin and practically invisible in the dating world.

But every night, she watched TV couples kiss and touch so easily. She scrolled through social media seeing people her age show off relationships, anniversaries, babies, joy. And deep in her chest, curiosity spread like a small spark.

What does it feel like to be loved like that? Touched like that? Wanted?

One night, she signed up for a dating app. Her hands trembled, but she did it.

That’s where she met Matt.

He was sweet, funny, and patient. They talked for weeks, staying up late, smiling at their phones like teenagers. For the first time, Lucky felt chosen. But when she explained her rule—no sex until marriage—he hesitated. She saw the shift in his eyes even through the screen.

Two days later, he ended it.

Lucky cried herself to sleep that night, buried under blankets, whispering through her tears, “God, please… send me someone who wants me as I am.”

But prayers aren’t always heard by the one you’re praying to.

That night, something else listened.

⸻

Lucky dreamed she was sitting in a small, quiet coffee shop. The lights were warm, the room empty except for one man sitting across from her as if he had always been there. Tall. Dark. Broad shoulders. Eyes that looked like they had lived forever. He smiled at her with a familiarity she couldn’t explain.

“You look like you needed company,” he said.

And strangely… she did. Being with him felt natural. Like she’d known him before she was even born.

They talked for hours. She laughed harder than she had in months. And when she invited him back to her place in the dream, he leaned in, kissed her, and everything inside her melted. Her body reacted like it already belonged to him.

She woke up the next morning breathless. Confused. The dream felt too real—his touch, his voice, the heat of him. She pressed a hand to her lips as if the kiss might still be there.

All day, she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

That night she returned to sleep hoping—almost needing—to see him again.

And there he was.

This time he was waiting for her, leaning against a brick wall in the dream like he’d been expecting her.

“Who… what are you?” Lucky asked, her voice trembling.

He chuckled softly, that same charming, disarming smile.

“Just enjoy our time,” he whispered. “No questions.”

And night after night, he came to her. For weeks. The dreams grew more intense—sweet at first, then heated, then passionate. Lucky didn’t know how to stop it, and deep inside, she didn’t want to.

But by week six, her body in the real world changed.

She felt sick. Light‑headed. Tired.

The doctor ran tests, then came back with an expression so baffled it terrified her.

“You’re pregnant,” he said.

Lucky’s heart stopped. “Impossible.”

When he examined her again, he whispered, “Your hymen is fully intact. You’ve never been sexually active.”

Lucky left the clinic shaking.

That night she confronted the dream man.

“I’m pregnant,” she said.

His smile appeared… but this one wasn’t warm. It was slow. Crooked. Dark. A smile that made her stomach twist.

Lucky backed away, trying desperately to force herself awake.

The moment she finally broke free from the dream, she sat straight up in bed, drenched in sweat, breathing like she had been drowning.

The fear didn’t leave her for days.

⸻

Lucky dug through the internet, researching dreams, sleep demons, folklore. She found thread after thread of women telling stories that mirrored hers—mysterious pregnancies, dream lovers, strange hauntings.

Most of them… had died while pregnant.

But there was one survivor.

Jazlyn.

She lived only a few cities away.

Lucky drove there with trembling hands gripping the wheel. When Jazlyn opened the door, she looked older than her age—haunted eyes, thin voice, someone who had lived through something that nearly stripped her sanity away.

“You’re not the first,” Jazlyn said before Lucky even explained. “And you won’t be the last.”

Jazlyn told her the word she had been avoiding.

“Incubus.”

A demon that comes through dreams. A seducer. A parasite.

“He doesn’t love you,” Jazlyn said. “He wants what grows inside you. If you don’t get rid of that baby immediately, it will be born a demon—and it will destroy you first… then everything else.”

Lucky felt the room tilt. She wanted to cry, scream, run. Deep inside she wanted to keep the baby—but her reality began collapsing.

The incubus didn’t only appear in dreams anymore.

He appeared in shadows. Mirrors. Corners of rooms. Smiling that same sinister smile, staring like the baby already belonged to him.

Lucky stopped sleeping. She kept knives near her bed. She whispered to herself she could do this, she could survive it, she could end it.

But the closer she came to making a decision, the more the incubus clawed his way into her waking world.

Until one night, he stepped fully into her room—no dream. No boundary. The air snapped cold. His eyes were no longer human. They burned like coals.

“Don’t touch it,” he hissed when she reached for her stomach.

“It’s mine.”

Lucky screamed and lunged for the kitchen drawer. The incubus grabbed her, yanking her backwards with supernatural force. The room shook, lights flickering violently as he pinned her against the wall.

“This world will kneel to my child,” he whispered in her ear.

And Lucky knew.

There was only one way out.

With every ounce of strength she had left, she reached the knife on the counter, twisted her body, and stabbed herself in the stomach.

The incubus shrieked—an unearthly, bone‑splitting sound. His form cracked, splintered, then exploded into black smoke that vanished into nothing.

Lucky collapsed.

When she woke again, she was in a hospital bed, weak but alive. The baby was gone.

And so was the demon.

Weeks later, when her body healed and the nightmares finally faded, Lucky met someone—a real someone. A man who didn’t rush her. Someone gentle, patient, the opposite of everything she had been trapped by.

For the first time in her life, Lucky felt like she was living in her own skin—not her parents’ rules, not a demon’s obsession.

Just her.

Free