"We were bored."

I was a second-year student then, a punk—drank vodka by the hectolitre and swallowed diphenhydramine in sheets. And then one day, having consumed this poison, I realized that four... I don't know what to call them... people were living in the walls of my apartment? Shadows? Two "men" and two "women." I still remember their flat outlines on the light-colored walls very well. I was talking to them then. When I woke up the next morning, I was horrified: the door to the room was barricaded, all the furniture was overturned, and my hands and body were cut with a chef's knife—the bed was covered in blood. And the knife itself was sticking out of the back of the overturned closet. I spent several days recovering, attributing it to powerful hallucinations and a psyche shattered by vodka and cheap drugs.

A month later, a friend of mine came to visit. Since that day, I haven't had anything stronger than beer and generally tried not to go out. And then he came and offered to take diphenhydramine. I refused, but he took it anyway. Then he lay down on a mattress against the wall, while I went about my business. Suddenly, he jumped up and ran out into the hallway, put on his shoes and jacket, and left my apartment.

He came back only two days later and told me a story that was so familiar to me. I had never told him, or anyone, about it before... Subsequently, neither he nor I ever poisoned ourselves with pharmacological chemicals.

A year passed. I was expelled from university, and I went off to valiantly defend the Motherland with a shovel and broom in hand. Two more years passed. After the army, life tossed me around a bit more, and eventually I returned to my apartment. By that time, I no longer remembered those creatures or those times, considering them my own shame.

And then one day it happened again. I went to bed and fell asleep lying on my stomach. In the army, I learned to fall asleep very quickly. And then, when I was almost completely lost, I suddenly felt someone standing above me on the bed. I felt my blanket being pulled taut to the right and left of my body, and the bed rumpled under this “someone’s” arms and knees. I felt someone breathing above me. I was no longer asleep, but I was afraid to open my eyes. Suddenly, I heard a whisper: “We missed you.” It was such a quiet sound that at first I mistook it for a breath of wind in the curtains. But it repeated itself. I was becoming increasingly afraid to open my eyes, but I knew I had to. When I thought I heard a quiet chuckle above me, I abruptly opened my eyes and rolled over. I managed to feel someone’s hand touch my cheek, heard a quiet whisper: “We missed you,” and saw a blurry silhouette receding into the wall, merging with the shadows from the curtains... It was her—one of those four. And I was sure that the other three were nearby. 

I couldn't live there anymore. Every time I came home from work and turned on the light, I shied away from all the shadows. I was afraid to sleep alone in the dark, because I felt their presence all the time. Eventually, I sold the apartment and moved out. But sometimes, right when I wake up, I still hear a quiet whisper next to me: "We miss you..."