The Creature

My attention was drawn to a barely noticeable movement outside the window, and I involuntarily glanced in that direction.

Moonlight seeped through the branches of the birch tree standing outside, almost unhindered as it poured into the room and spread across it like a soft silver carpet. The wind howled through the deserted streets like a lonely dog, and dry leaves rustled as they were torn from the trees and carried off into endless uncertainty. All of that would have been ordinary enough, but something was truly strange: a shadow was falling directly onto the wall of the building opposite. Crooked and thin like a tree branch—only many times larger and longer.

I couldn’t understand what I was seeing there, beyond the bare wooden fingers of the trees. My mind was completely blank, yet some unfounded sense of unease still gnawed at me.

I realized that the shadow had no source.

For some reason, it didn’t frighten me. On the contrary, I treated it skeptically and almost without emotion, as though there were nothing unusual about it at all.

I shifted my gaze to the interior of my room: a desk lamp illuminating my workspace, a small bed with a green bedspread, a massive dark wardrobe by the entrance, and a couple of armchairs with everyday clothes tossed over them—everything as usual. The room itself was lit only by the same desk lamp, so beyond my small refuge there was complete darkness. The apartment had two rooms, but I spent almost all my time in this one with the large window that offered a wonderful view of the street and evoked a childish sense of power—seeing everything and everyone.

Ten minutes later, I lay down on the bed, hoping to drift into the world of dreams. Tired of the bustle of everyday life, I could finally allow myself to rest. After all, that’s what weekends are for. However, I couldn’t fall asleep. Thoughts of the strange shadow stirred my curiosity and my desire for answers. Oddly, no images came to mind that I could compare the shadow to. It felt as though they were hidden in an endless labyrinth of memories, and trying to find them was like searching for a needle in a haystack. A thought occurred to me: “Why not take a closer look at the shadow?”

The shadow was gone.

I immediately rubbed my eyes to make sure I wasn’t mistaken. There was only the empty reinforced concrete wall with a dozen dark windows. No shadow. Deciding the anomaly had been a figment of my imagination from the start, I simply lay back down.

A few minutes later, something struck the glass.

I leapt from the bed and tried to look around. My head spun from the sudden movement, but I managed to stay on my feet. My heart jolted in my chest and began pounding as if seized by madness. The back of my head grew warm, and my fingers and toes went numb.

The удар came again.

I slumped to the floor like a sack, refusing to believe what I was seeing.

Across the balcony door ran a black stripe that lifted and struck the window with a dull thud. From a distance, it might have looked like some kind of long stick. But could a stick have a living five-fingered hand at its end?

With a scream, I rushed into the next room—the living room—hoping to wait out the nightmare there. My heart continued to pound wildly, sending a sharp pain through my back. My body no longer obeyed me—on the way, I managed to hit the doorframe and knock down the coat rack in the hallway. Air refused to enter my lungs; I was on the verge of losing consciousness.

The sound of shattering glass rang out. Cold washed over my legs as winter air flooded the apartment. I fell and suddenly calmed down. The silence that followed, the cold, and the weakness in my body began to pull me into a kind of trance, creating a strange sense of homely comfort. Even though the surroundings still reeked of something insane, I wanted nothing more than to lie down and fall asleep, to forget all problems and the situation I had found myself in.

The door to the living room remained wide open, and I clearly heard soft slaps interrupted by hoarse breathing. I don’t know why, but I suddenly began to laugh. My mind, refusing to recognize the wrongness of what was happening, was slowly leaving me.

There was no light—only the glow of the moon faintly illuminating the living room.

From around the edge of the doorway, something appeared. I don’t know how to describe it: black as tar, its skin covered the entire face—there were no eyes, no nose. The mouth was a wide slit, almost slicing the head horizontally in two. The head swayed from side to side, bending like clay.

I don’t know how, but it was looking at me. I felt a piercing gaze studying me—or rather, waiting for something. Yes, it was clearly waiting for something.

Every cell in my body screamed about the danger emanating from the creature. My mind painted images of it suddenly lunging forward and crawling toward my face. And the creature continued to wait. Apparently, it wanted to see my futile attempts to escape.

My body went numb; I couldn’t bend even a finger. My soul was filled with an endless sense of loneliness and detachment from the world, like falling into a void.

Suddenly, from behind the doorway, a limb stretched out. Disproportionately long, with a grotesque five-fingered hand at the end, it bent in three places and groped the floor a meter from my face. That’s when it felt as though I’d been struck by electricity. That unnatural, monstrously long “arm” ignited in the depths of my mind a lost will to live. With a wild scream, I jumped to my feet and ran toward the window.

And then—only the fall.

I survived. I don’t even know whether I should be glad or regret it. The feeling of fear has not left me since. Since that incident, people have treated me like a paranoid man, but I don’t blame them for it.

And still, in the darkness, waves of animal terror and anticipation wash over me. Anticipation of what?—you might ask.

I know it will return. I am certain of it. Because yesterday evening I was sitting outside, admiring the night sky covered in stars like a beaded tablecloth. I admired it until I saw a spider-like body slowly crawling along the wall of my apartment building.