Rented apartment

I came to St. Petersburg thanks to my university admission. The following year, I was lucky – I rented an apartment, but since the landlady didn't suit me with her frequent unexpected visits and demands for several months' payment in advance, my boyfriend and I decided to move. We also found a one-room apartment, renovated and furnished – a real find. While looking around the apartment, I noticed it was blessed: there were stickers on it – we had the same ones when my grandmother's house was blessed. Casually, I asked about the previous tenants. I was told they had left before the lease expired, meaning they wouldn't get the deposit (meaning if we decided to leave before the end of the agreed-upon term, the same fate awaited us). I didn't pay any attention to this. On January 2, 2009, we were already moving our things.

Everything was fine until April, but then something started happening. It all started with my keys: I always left them in the hallway, but I'd find them anywhere but where I'd left them. One day, while taking a shower, I felt my chain break. I simply didn't have time to catch the cross, and it slid down the drain with the rush of water. Upset at losing the cross—a gift from my mother—I tried to pick at it with my fingers, but I couldn't find it. Two weeks later, after another spring cleaning, I found it by the bathtub. My computer started acting strange—it would turn on by itself in the middle of the night.

When I left for Moscow, I asked a friend to look after my cat, left her the keys to the apartment, and offered to let her stay with me instead of the dorm. She happily agreed. Three days later, I came home, and she brought me the keys, but she never even stepped through the door... We'd see each other everywhere after that, except at my place. I asked what had happened, but she flatly refused to talk about it. Around that time, my second friend stayed overnight. She took off her gold earrings and put them on the table, but the next morning we still couldn't find them.

I was terrified at home. I started asking the landlord why the previous tenants had left and why the apartment needed to be blessed. I never got an answer.

One incident was the final straw. That day, I came home and immediately developed a terrible headache. I sat down on the couch and simply blinked... and when I opened my eyes, my first thought was that the power had gone out, but the computer was working. Then I heard the door open and asked, "Who is that?" The light came on. My boyfriend was standing at the entrance, saying, "Honey, I missed you so much!" I jumped up to him and started hugging him. He tried to kiss me, and then I remembered he'd called me and said there were no tickets for today or tomorrow, and there was no way he could come. I started pushing him away and repeating the same phrase over and over: "Who are you? Who are you? You're not Victor!"

A moment later, I found myself sitting on the couch. The light was on, I heard the door open again, and my mother came in. I watched in disbelief as she began to approach me, saying, "Daughter, I missed you so much." Horrified, I crawled onto the couch, repeating the same words: "Who are you? You're not Mom!" Facts floated through my mind: she was in another city, far from St. Petersburg, and where did she get the keys? A moment later, I'm back on the couch, the light's on, no one's there...

My first thought was: this is a dream, I need to wake up... I jumped off the couch and ran to the wall. My cross was there, among the dishes. I frantically searched for it, looking around. I felt something approaching me. I turned around... But the wall was gone, and half my hand was gone. Instead, I saw the floor and the wallpapered wall, and there I saw my friend's earrings on the floor. Then I remembered some fragments of a prayer—I heard my grandmother say it to me as a child.

I opened my eyes again, feeling my voice trembling. The main thing was that this time it was all real; I wasn't sitting on the couch, but standing against the wall. I immediately ran to the door. The keys were gone again; they were on the stove in the kitchen. I flew out of the apartment like a bullet and went to my friend's. Later, I told her what had happened. It seemed she didn't believe me. I didn't tell anyone anything anymore, but my condition worsened with each passing day.

As the New Year approached, I felt like I was about to commit suicide. I practically begged my boyfriend to move out, money be damned, but we still made it through the end of our lease.

When we'd packed up and were sitting waiting for the car, my head started hurting again. I lay down on the couch and blinked again, and then my boyfriend came over, lay down next to me, and hugged me. Then he said, "Take me with you, I'll miss you." I smiled and said, "Silly, we're going together!" He repeated, "Take me." And then I realized—it wasn't him! I screamed, "NO!" and opened my eyes. Victor nearly fell out of his chair and rushed over to me, asking, "What happened?" I asked him how long I'd slept. He said maybe two minutes, tops.

 By the way, my friend's earrings were found exactly where I saw them, and my cat disappeared without a trace after four months in that apartment. Now everything is fine, we live in a new apartment, and nothing is happening.