Incidents in the Apartment

Since 2010, strange things have been happening in our apartment, which I'd like to tell you about. I'll start with a description of the apartment—an ordinary two-bedroom apartment in a residential area. We live on the 5th floor (a family of three and a cat), and ordinary people live in the building below. A couple of the residents turned out to be drug addicts, and one of them was recently murdered.

2010. I'm lying in my bed (I was 14 at the time), my parents are sleeping in their room, and I can't sleep at all. Suddenly, I have difficulty breathing, as if someone is choking me. I jump out of bed, but find no one. I didn't panic and went back to bed. After that, no one choked me that night, but the feeling that someone was nearby didn't leave me until I fell asleep. I didn't tell my parents about this incident.

2011. My parents went to the dacha, and I stayed home under the pretext of "it would be boring with you there." At midnight, I turn off the computer and go to bed. Just in case, I leave the light on in the hallway, so I won't be scared. I have a single bed with a plastic headboard—about five minutes after I lay down, someone started tapping on that same plastic, like a fingernail. The tapping keeps coming, and I lie there like a log, afraid to get up. My cat runs into the room and stops by my bed, her eyes blazing, her fur standing on end. I try to pick her up, but she won't let me. Unable to bear it, I get out of bed. The cat runs out of the room into the hallway, and I follow her. I go out and see the cat sitting at the end of the hallway, staring intently in my direction, not at me, but as if behind me. She's so tense, her eyes like five rubles... That's when I really panicked. I called the cat to me, and she slowly crawled sideways toward me, looking at me with guilty eyes. I picked her up and turned on all the lights and the TV, trying to get some sleep. I finally fell asleep in the early morning. When I told my parents, they didn't believe me. Since then, I haven't been alone in the apartment at night.

2012. October. Evening, the whole family is sitting at the table. I walk into the kitchen and pass the door. I notice a stain on the hinges, go closer, and examine it. It turns out it's... soot! I asked my parents what soot was doing in a city apartment. They didn't give me any clear answers. Out of curiosity, I decided to check all the doors. It turns out this soot was everywhere except for one door. I still don't know where it came from or what it means.

And one more thing. A year ago, I noticed that the ventilation grille on the bathroom ceiling was slightly open. It's nailed down in the bathroom and kitchen, but not in the bathroom. Since then, I've been keeping an eye on it, and over time, the gap has clearly gotten wider, even though no one can reach it, and it's impossible for it to swing freely on its own. I feel uneasy looking into this black hole. Who would want to touch it anyway?