A Dark Apartment

About a year and a half ago, we moved into a new building, but I'm talking about the apartment my family and I lived in before. First, it's worth mentioning that the apartment was built by the Germans after the war, and a lot had happened there over the years, so it's no surprise that it had become "unpleasant." My great-grandmother and grandmother had lived there, so we became tenants too. My mother told me that as a small child, I would point to corners and talk in broken childish language about "the strange man."

As I grew older, I noticed strange things more and more often. When I walked down the dark hallway to my room, I sometimes thought someone was watching me, and I was never a coward or a paranoid person. I had the impression that someone was following me, about to grab me, and I hurried into the room. I periodically saw all sorts of shadows in the mirror, but I attributed them to my overactive imagination. Sometimes at night I'd hear strange voices or rustling sounds in the empty room, even though there were no mice there. Another thing to note is that the apartment was always dark. Literally. Even on a bright sunny day, little light penetrated. Since it was a communal apartment, and our neighbors, for some unknown reason, didn't live in their room, it was empty, but open. Sometimes, when I peered inside out of curiosity, I felt even more uneasy than in the rest of the apartment, so I rarely looked there, and there was nothing to do there anyway—an empty room with a gray ceiling and peeling walls, in need of renovation.

We had an icon hanging above the front door. Despite being regularly wiped down and kept clean, it was constantly covered in cobwebs and dust. Maybe it's a small thing, but it seems strange to me. My mother tried to bless the apartment, walking around the corners with church candles, and they would start to smoke and spit blackened wax. There would be a lull for a while, but then it would start again. Whenever I had to stay home alone, I almost always felt uneasy. Alone, the walls seemed too dark, the ceiling too low, the silence suspiciously oppressive.

For some reason, the last night was the most terrifying. After selling the apartment along with the occupants of that empty room and dividing the money, we immediately began packing. That night, I was more scared than ever. I want to say that of the three rooms we had, we owned two, and since my grandmother lived in one, my parents and I had to share the larger room. To have some privacy, my part was separated by curtains. I remember how hard it was to sleep. The cats behaved more than strangely—they would retreat into corners and hide, occasionally hissing. The curtains were moving strangely (there were no cracks, so there was no draft). Something like a quiet howl was coming from the apartment hallway. Lying in bed, listening to this horror, I suddenly felt a weight on my legs. I scolded the cat and sat up to pet him, but no one was there. As soon as I lay down, I felt a strong pressure on my chest. I can't describe the horror in words. Grasping the crucifix on the nightstand with difficulty, I hugged it, and the pressure immediately disappeared.

The next day, after we'd moved our things into the truck, my father and the movers went to the new house to unload them, leaving me with my grandmother and mother. I wanted something to eat, so I went to the store, got some groceries, and handed my mother the change. Ten metal rubles fell from my hand and landed on the floor. When I bent down to pick them up, I didn't see any money, even though there was nowhere for them to roll. There really was nowhere—all the furniture had already been removed. Then my grandmother started sweeping with a broom and still couldn't find anything.

The other day, I discussed these events with my mother, and she also told me a scary story. In her youth, she listened to rock music, especially "Alisa." Back then, she had a poster of the singer, Konstantin Kinchev, hanging in her room. One day, her friends spent the night at her place. While chatting before bed, they both saw the singer smile creepily and wink from the poster in the moonlight. It couldn't have been a hallucination, since everyone in the room saw it at the same time. My mother also remarked that for some reason, this apartment primarily harms teenagers and children.

Since I still go to the same school I did before moving, I sometimes walk past that apartment and look at the windows. They are just as dark against the neighboring windows. I immediately feel uneasy, so I try to walk faster. I'm very glad I don't live there anymore.