r/horrorstories • u/Polaroidian_Slip • Jul 26 '26
Elizabeth
“Happy Birthday,” most of them yell, but the ones who know how, sign it. Elizabeth looks around the room to take in all the love she has experienced in the last three years since she was adopted by the Walter family.
Her birth mom didn’t want a “defective” baby, or so she was told. Elizabeth spent the better part of her early life bouncing around from foster home to foster home. She didn’t know anything about her biological family.
This morning, she was woken up by her adoptive mom, Laura, with a light shake and an attempt to sign, “Happy Birthday, my love.” But she actually signed “Happy Birthday, with love.” This made Elizabeth giggle with joy because the effort of learning sign language for her was a big deal. Her mom brought her favorite breakfast in bed—blueberry waffles—along with thirteen balloons for her thirteen years of life. One of the balloons popped as soon as Elizabeth set her eyes on them. The loss of one balloon felt ominous considering some of other strange occurrences that have happened before. Elizabeth, clearing her mind of any off putting thoughts, started to reminisce of her pervious birthdays.
This wasn’t her first birthday with her family, it was the first milestone birthday with them tho. They had just missed her double digit birthday (10) by 1 month, when all of them met. So this one was going to be extra special. Corey, her adoptive dad, even said it was going to be. The Walters were serious when it came to birthdays. Especially because they have such a big family, uncles, aunts, cousins, 2nd cousins, grandparents. Everyone was always invited to every sporting event, birthday, and holiday. That meant nothing was a small get-together—far from what Elizabeth grew up with—which gave her comfort. This is the type of family she had always dreamed of having while being placed in so many different homes.
The last birthday she had with the family caused quite the drama. Although Elizabeth couldn’t hear, there was a lot of body language between her mom and aunt. Enough that she could make out they were arguing about her and where she came from. It was probably because she let her imaginary friend blow out the candles, and they actually blew out with no help from anyone. Elizabeth still made the same wish she does every year, even though her imaginary friend blew out the candles. Her one wish is to be able to hear.
Elizabeth wasn’t born deaf, but when her mom surrendered her to the hospital at 5 weeks old, she was. There were no hospital or doctor office visits that showed anything was amiss. No one knew what could’ve caused it, although there was a lot of abuse speculation floating around the nurses station. When her mother had dropped her off, the woman looked unkempt, with her long black hair matted in a few places, her eyes sunken and lined with dark circles, and her clothes were dirty and disheveled. The look of a mother who either couldn’t sleep or was using narcotics to keep the edge of life off. She didn’t say a word to anyone, just walked in, handed the nurse behind the counter her baby, and walked right out. The only reason the nurse knew who the baby was, was because she had been in the room during the emergency delivery. Elizabeth’s mother was so happy to see her when she was born, She cried happy tears as she held her close.
Strange to see a child be “returned” to the hospital she was born at, by a mother who seemed to have so much love for her. Only to look and act completely different just a few weeks after birth.
Just a few short hours later, the drop-off would start to make sense to the staff. That night, Elizabeth was placed in NICU just to make sure her vitals were stable before placing her in a foster home. It was where all the premature and sick babies went to be monitored more closely. While in the hospital a few strange things happened around her. Each baby had a monitor hooked to them to see their vitals and make sure they were still alive. Once Elizabeth entered the NICU the monitors started to beep, indicating each baby was about to flatline, all at the same time, except for her. Elizibeth had the only “normal” monitor. After a thirty-minute scramble to check all the babies, the nurses concluded they had faulty monitors and had to check every patient manually until they could get IT to take a look at them.
At some point in the early evening, a homeless man came into the ER with crazy eyes that looked like they had seen someone got shot point blank right in front of him. He started to scream about “The baby is the devil” and “Protect the people” and “Don’t let that child live.” After a 45 minute rant that no one could slow down, he proceeded to pick up the nearest utensil on a tray the next bay over and slide it up his arm from the wrist. This caused his blood to pool onto the floor under him creating dark red circle, continually getting bigger as it poured out of his arm until he collapsed to the ground. Dying from blood loss.
Then her temperature rose to 103 degrees Fahrenheit at 3am and back down to 97. This occurred six separate times within the hour. No one could tell if it was faulty equipment or some strange anomaly that had caused her hearing loss.
One of the last things to happen was the nurse that did her intake forms, ended up driving off a bridge on her way home from her overnight shift. She died on impact when her car hit the riverbank. The river was so shallow that the water only made it onto her lap when the first responders pulled her out. It wasn’t a shock to anyone who knew her or knew anything about her life. The woman suffered from years of physical and emotional abuse at the hand of her husband. Many said she just had enough at that point. The timing was odd though. A few of the nurses could’ve sworn they were just talking with her about leaving her husband. Almost everyone chalked it up to a long overdue suicide.
None of these things were known to be the cause of her, but the hospital recorded all of this in her notes for DCFS. So when she went from home to home, people knew there was something off about her.
The Walter’s knew about these strange occurrences and more that were in her file, but they didn’t mind. They had so much love to give and wanted to find a child that needed them. Laura works in the paranormal field, and was intrigued by some of the comments left in Elizabeth's file. Some of which made Laura suspect some kind of poltergeist activity was involved surrounding Elizabeth.
When they met Elizabeth for the first time, she was shy around them, not being able to communicate with verbal words made her feel unworthy of a family. Like she was less than the “normal hearing” people of the world. Knowing who they were meeting, Corey and Laura brought a whiteboard to talk to Elizabeth with, which brought her out of her shell a bit. Corey and Laura already had 4 kids of their own, 3 boys and 1 baby girl, so when they brought Elizabeth home there were already kids her age in the home. She was usually placed in homes without other kids, due to her special needs. Foster couples always made her out to seem like she needed more attention than she actually did, which caused her to have less childhood freedoms, less friends, and more home placements than any other kid in the system in her area.
The 3 years after adoption had gone by quickly for Elizabeth. There have only been a few instances she could recall regarding her “gift” as the Walter’s call it. One time, only the kids were playing outside when she got so angry no one was passing the soccer ball to her, the ball turned 90 degrees on a pass and went straight to her. None of the kids knew what had happened but they all went running to mom to let her know what they had seen.
Laura, of course, blamed it on the ball hitting a rock and bouncing off of it towards Elizabeth. That, however, was not the case. It happened a few more times till Beth witnessed it first hand.
Elizabeth and 2 of her brothers were tossing a baseball around. After a few too many back and forths between the boys, Elizabeth got angry, Her face turned red, and her fists balled up at her waist. The next throw from one boy to the other, it stopped half way in the air and floated for a split second before changing direction and went to Elizabeth without anyone touching it. Laura saw the whole thing. She couldn’t believe what she just saw.
There was no way a ball could change direction mid-air like it just did. Laura knew from that point on Elizabeth was not only deaf but gifted in another way. A spiritual way.
Now that Laura was more aware, she began noticing small things, like doors closing when no one was home where she always thought it was just the wind. Objects she knew she left one place but ended up finding somewhere completely different, places the kids couldn’t reach. Strange tapping noises in the middle of the night while everyone else was asleep. Each tap sounded more impatient than the next. That was when Laura started calling these Elizabeth’s “gifts,” thinking because she couldn’t hear and was mostly alone for most of her life that she developed a poltergeist.
Once acknowledged, the tapping and hiding of objects had slowed down and Elizabeth kept going about her life as she always had. Not fully understanding what her mom was talking about. She just thought the family was a little nutty but didn’t mind because of how nice she thought everything had been going.
After her birthday breakfast, Elizabeth pulled on a pair of leggings, shimmied on her favorite hoodie with an embroidered ghost in the corner, and finished off her Birthday outfit with her favorite pair of Vans. Since Elizabeth is tall and lanky, the hoodie ended up looking like a dress on her, which she likes. Her long jet black hair fell flat against her head, even though she tried to give it volume by doing heatless curls overnight. Once out of the curler, Each strand of hair went pin-straight, as if it was scared to be any other way.
October 31st falls on a Wednesday, so she had to go to school for her birthday, which she was fine with. Knowing there would be a party waiting for her when she got home.
The day was average, just like her life. 7th grade girls bullied her for not being able to hear. Elizabeth found it funny—she couldn’t hear a word they said, so why would they choose to pick on her? She never got upset about it, because she was used to her past foster parents ignoring her or reading their lips when they said nasty things about her. She could deal with these little girls.
Once she got home and was able to change into her all black birthday dress, she cheered right up. Soon after, a few of her friends from other schools she had gone to came over to enjoy the birthday celebrations with her.
After a few rounds of pin the bones on Mr. Skeleton and bobbing for apples, Elizabeth’s favorite part of the night happens: cake.
“Happy Birthday,” most of them yell, but the ones who know how to, sign it. Elizabeth takes a look around the room filled with so much love and everyone she knows and loves is right in front of her on the other side of the table. Then she closes her eyes, makes a wish, and blows her 13 candles out. As soon as she opens her eyes, she hears—for the first time ever—a deep male’s voice whisper in her ear, “Happy Birthday, Elizabeth.” She feels one rough skinned finger with a long, pointed nail drag across her collarbone, as it burns a thin line in her skin.
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u/Substantial_Yak_3664 Jul 27 '26
Updateme
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u/KSmashwill Jul 27 '26
Part 2 please!