Something indescribably disgusting.

I'll start the story with how things started disappearing from our filthy apartment: cutlery, my office supplies. The TV remote—even that vanished without a trace. I didn't pay it much attention: I've always been a scatterbrain and often left my keys and cell phone in the most inconspicuous places, like a houseplant pot or a bread bin. But one way or another, the disappearances became more and more noticeable and significant, and at night, through my sleep, I heard scurrying around in the rooms, strange gurgling and slurping sounds.

That night in the winter of 2007, I slept poorly and tossed and turned under the covers, languishing from the heat gushing from the overheated accordion radiator. Having somehow drifted off to sleep, I heard the now-familiar disgusting sounds. It's the sound a piece of meat, still bleeding, makes when it's thrown onto a smooth surface (I grew up in a village near a farm where cattle were slaughtered, so I'm familiar with it). A dull hooting and slurping sound mingled with it. I broke out in a sweat, not from the heat in the room, but from fear.

Something huge, indescribably disgusting, crouched at the foot of my bed. In the dim moonlight peeking through the closed window, I saw it. It was shaped like a large sack of potatoes, huddled in a servile pose on the floor. My eyes instantly adjusted to the dim light. The creature's body was plump and festering, with bulging veins. I screamed in horror. The thing stared at me with sunken, reddened eyes covered in nauseating, greasy clumps of hair. A piece of my slipper, smeared with saliva, was stuck in its wide mouth. Its face betrayed a sense of satisfaction with the situation. The end of the slipper began to slide into the creature's mouth. The smell of rotting flesh began to overwhelm me, but I found the strength to kick it with my heel.

The abomination snorted fearfully and slid sharply toward the door, leaving behind a vague trail of something like slug excrement. I felt sick to my stomach, but at the same time, I felt a surge of anger at this creature, realizing it was afraid of me and that I could defeat it. I grabbed a heavy metal mop and ran out into the hallway. It was dark there, and in my haste, I fumbled for the light switch on the wall for a full minute. My bravado in the darkness instantly vanished, and I trembled all over, expecting this creature to attack at any second. I thought I heard quiet crawling sounds around me. But when the light finally came on, I saw the hallway was empty. There were no footprints on the floor. Confused, I returned to my room. The creature's sticky footprint had also disappeared, but the floor near my bed was "decorated" with my vomit. Needless to say, I didn't sleep that night.

It wasn't a dream, sleep paralysis, or somnambulism, because, firstly, it all felt too real, and secondly, my slipper was never found. It was the last thing to mysteriously disappear from my apartment—nothing else ever disappeared. It seems strange to me that such a disgusting creature, whatever it was, gave up so easily and apparently "went away" somewhere along paths known only to itself. But several years have passed, and for now, all is quiet in the apartment.