Before the Epiphany holidays

Since childhood, I've believed in all things unknown and mysterious, and many things have happened to me that I'd like to never encounter again. Unfortunately, either I'm the kind of person who attracts all sorts of things, or I'm just lucky enough to have all sorts of devilry...

It happened in January, before the Epiphany holidays. All my relatives had gone away on their own business, and I was left alone in the apartment. I've always been comfortable with solitude and have never been afraid of being alone. I'd never thought before that anything could happen to me in the apartment I'd known since childhood. And so this time, alone, after reading magazines before bed, I fell asleep peacefully.

I woke up around two in the morning to the sound of someone knocking on the window of the next room. The sound of knuckles rapping on the double-glazed window is unmistakable. I listened, wondering if I'd imagined it after all. Five minutes passed, and I calmed down and began to fall asleep. But the knock on the window came again, even louder than the first.

I sat up on the bed. The door to the next room was closed. It was my brother's room, and when he left, he usually locked it, leaving the key in the keyhole on my side. Naturally, I didn't want to go see who was knocking on the window on the fourth floor at night. Then I glanced at my window. A thought occurred to me: if something was knocking on the window of the next room, what would it cost them to knock on mine? The thought made my heart stop, and I felt a choking sensation of fear. Squeezing my eyes shut, I jumped to my window and pulled the curtains tightly—it wouldn't be so scary, after all. My imagination was already conjuring up something terrifying, resembling every monster in every horror movie I'd ever seen.

The knock came again. But this time, it was the door of the next room, from the inside. Terrified, I approached the door and removed the key from the lock, silently thanking my brother for his habit of locking his room. I stood in front of the door and felt something or someone standing there, crouched, waiting. The terror that washed over me made me unable to think.

Five minutes passed. There was no knocking. Then I heard scraping sounds, as if someone was trying to force the door open from the other side. My head spun, and nausea rose in my throat. I did what they do in those same horror movies—locked myself in the bathroom and shook there until morning, remembering all the while that I always felt uneasy in my brother's room and tried to avoid it.

What was that? I wonder about it to this day. But whatever it was, I don't want to go through a night like that again.