A wet apartment

It turned out I had to rent an apartment. The search didn't take long, fortunately, I had the money. It was a nice one-room apartment, no frills, but clean, close to the metro, the furniture wasn't particularly old, and the price was reasonable—not expensive, not cheap. The landlady lives across the street, so she'll keep an eye on the apartment if needed. She's not old and doesn't seem like a hysterical troublemaker. Overall, everything was pretty good.

I moved in and literally the next day discovered the faucets were leaking. Both in the kitchen and the bathroom. I'm a smart cookie—I changed the seals, and it seemed to help. A week later, the kettle started leaking. The old Tefal kettle had cracked right at the bottom. Luckily, there wasn't much water, but some of it leaked onto the floor, which was linoleum. I was worried it would swell, but it seems to have worked out.

About a month passed. I was working all day then. I only came home to eat, shower, and sleep. I jumped up in the morning, drank some coffee, and went to work. And on the weekend, I decided to have a beer. As I was falling asleep, I thoughtfully placed a 1.5-liter bottle of mineral water next to my bed. I remember putting it down well, without even opening it. In the morning, I felt around for it but couldn't find it. It was lying empty in the corner. I was kind of surprised, but then I laughed at myself: I mean, drained that bottle of water overnight. Although I didn't remember drinking it, but sometimes it happens when you're drunk and half-asleep and don't remember.

And a week later, I got flooded. I was sitting at the computer that night and heard the water in the bathtub make a tiny splash. I went there, and there were whole streams running down the wall, and luckily, they were draining into the bathtub. My bathtub is right across from the entrance, across from me. On the left is a sink with a mirror, on the right is an old washing machine. So, there was no water, and water was flowing down the wall opposite the door, right into the bathtub. Of course, I cursed, ran upstairs, and only on the stairs did I remember that I was actually on the top floor. I figured something had broken in the roof. I ran back to call the housing office. By the time I ran, everything had cleared up. Interestingly, even the paint hadn't peeled.

The next morning, I was lying in bed, half asleep, and I clearly heard someone moving around in the kitchen. A couple of dishes clinked. I wondered why the landlady had come. There was no one else to worry about; she was the only one with the keys. I got up, pulled up my pants, and went to the kitchen. I walked in, and there was no one there. That's when it got scary. I was standing in the middle of the kitchen, feeling goosebumps running down my spine. I stood there for a while, as if I'd recovered. I thought I'd heard something in my sleep.

That evening, I had a drink with a friend at his apartment. I came home in the morning, and an hour later my landlady came in and slyly asked me who this girl was. I looked at her, perplexed. What made her think there was a girl? She replied that she was looking out the window that evening, but it turned out the light was on in my room, and I could see a girl's silhouette in the window. I felt creepy. I told her that I wasn't home yesterday, actually; I just got home. She smirked, saying it didn't matter to her, she understood everything. She left, and I felt very uneasy. I thought maybe the woman was trying to scare me.

I slept poorly that night; every noise woke me up. I woke up in the morning, went to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth. I was sleepy, my eyes barely opening. I have a mirror right above the sink—while I brush my teeth, I always look at my reflection. And then I noticed the curtain above the bathroom moving. I turned around and looked—I felt a draft blowing down my legs. A weight lifted my heart. I leaned over the faucet, filled my mouth with water, straightened up, and glanced in the mirror, and there...

... a hand emerged from the bathtub and plopped down on the edge. Green-blue, long, and terribly skinny. I swallowed all the water at once, standing there, unable to move. And then a second, identical hand emerged from the bathtub, as if some dwarf were standing at the edge. And I saw those hands tense, and a head emerge, halfway out, looking at me. It seemed like a woman, with long, wet hair hanging in strands, only her face was a bluish-green. I managed to turn my head, squinted, and there was nothing in the bathtub. It was standing there, turning white. I looked in the mirror again—and there IT was, oozing out of the bathtub, like some kind of slime, shimmering, and looking at me. Then I suddenly woke up and ran away from there so fast I probably broke all speed records. I didn't take any of my things or anything. Then I asked a friend to pick it up, but I was standing in the hallway, unable to get in. My friend said he didn't see anything there, only wondering why I'd flooded all the sofas and broken the bathroom mirror.

A couple of weeks later, I met the landlady. She started asking why I'd run away so abruptly. She asked if I'd seen something. I made the excuse that it hadn't been comfortable to live there. The landlady sighed and said that three people had already moved out of that apartment. Before them, there was a student who'd once slit her wrists in the bathtub and spent a week there before anyone missed her. I had to completely renovate the bathroom...