Hallway

I'll tell you a story that I can't quite tell whether it's a product of my own sick mind or actually describes processes in the world around me.

It all started about a year ago. I woke up in the middle of the night with the urge to go to the bathroom. Getting out of bed, I walked to the door in complete darkness, opened it, stepped into the hallway, and, looking ahead at the wall of the empty back bedroom illuminated by a street lamp, tried to figure out what was wrong with it. The cause was quickly found: in the middle of a thick rectangle of light, broken into pieces by branches and the window frame, there was a dark, oblong spot that clearly couldn't be the shadow of anything in the bedroom (which I haven't entered since almost the death of my mother, who lived there). It also couldn't be an object hanging from a tree, as it wasn't swaying in the wind with the branches. Taking another step and looking ahead, I saw the round spot shift at a speed proportional to my movement down the hallway, as if it were a balloon suspended midway between my bedroom and the back room. I reached for the overhead light switch. When the lights came on, I couldn't locate the source of the shadow. Slightly startled, I went to the bathroom, relieved myself, washed my hands, and went back to bed. I forgot about this incident for a while.

Again, in the middle of the night (around two o'clock), I left my room for the bathroom and, in complete darkness (all the lights were off), I made out what appeared to be a human figure, standing facing or back to me. The outline immediately seemed suspiciously clear. Quickly squinting and opening my eyes, which had begun to adjust to the darkness after staring at the computer screen, I tried to discern whether I'd imagined it. I couldn't see anything else. I turned on the light, but the figure didn't appear. This time, something crept into my head, and I stopped turning off the hallway light at night.

Returning home after dark, I started to undress, hung my coat on the coat rack in the dark, and reached for the light switch, but something stopped me. I took a step into the hallway, and then, in the doorway of the far room, with the wall illuminated by a lantern, I saw a clear, yet translucent figure walking toward me. I was dumbfounded. Time seemed to stand still. I tried to fumble for the light switch with my hand, but couldn't find it. While I was frantically groping along the wall, the figure passed right through me. To say I was terrified is an understatement. I somehow managed to find the light switch and sat down on the floor in the hallway, breathing heavily and shaking all over. I couldn't stay home that evening, so I had to go for a walk in the streets. I waited for the morning at an all-night bar, then went to work. That evening, I returned home early, turned on every light I could find, even the table lamps, and lay down in bed, completely exhausted. It was only with great difficulty that I fell asleep many hours later.

I was sitting in the kitchen, reading a book and keeping an eye on the stove, when suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a quick movement, as if a shadow had darted from right to left, and then back again, as if bouncing off the door. My heart sank, and I caught my breath. I began to peer into the bright hallway from the dark kitchen. I don't know how much time passed—maybe two or three minutes—and then a dark, barely perceptible outline began to creep out from the right, then another from above, and then from below. Then the outlines became clearer and merged. It stopped and looked like a person standing in the hallway, slightly sideways to me, but without legs—just a torso, behaving as if it had feet attached to it, resting on the floor. It was terrifying. It hung there and then retreated, very quickly—I noticed movement, but the speed was beyond my perception. I couldn't move for a while, the smell of burnt milk on the stove was overwhelming. Finally, I snapped out of my stupor and crawled to the stove. It was terrifying to look into the hallway. About 10 minutes later, I forced myself to look out, but it was empty.

Nothing happened for a couple of months, but on July 21st, two friends and I stayed up late at my place. I went into the kitchen and saw a whole crowd in the hallway—five or seven people, seemingly moving in rhythm, but standing still. I instantly sobered up, my blood pounding in every vein. I said something like, "Guys, come here," and stepped back. While my friends were getting up and heading into the hallway, the figures disappeared, and I don't remember how they disappeared. They were just there one minute, then I looked and they were gone. My friends saw nothing. We walked down the hallway together, checked the kitchen, the bathroom, the back room, and found nothing.

So, something apparently inhabits my hallway. It doesn't make sounds, appears in various forms (and sometimes even consists of more than one being), doesn't take anything, doesn't pull handles, doesn't knock, and doesn't try or fail to get into my room (thank goodness!). I can't imagine how many times it has appeared while I wasn't in the hallway. There's no reason to believe this story is over...