Open windows

 I've had a friend since high school. We went through the fire and water of secondary education together, so to speak. We don't see each other very often, but communication is extremely trusting every time. So last summer, she suddenly came and surprised me with the news — she broke up with her boyfriend, who, I must say, was a rather short-tempered and suspicious man, so I didn't feel any grief about it.

The reason for the breakup was also somewhat prosaic, the old feelings were gone, and he did not show himself at his best in everyday life. And since they had been living in a friend's apartment for the past few years, this friend decided to act like a "real gentleman" and not expose her now ex-boyfriend to the street at dead of night. Instead, she took a vacation and went to her relatives for two weeks so that her boyfriend could calmly pack his things and find a new place to live, without scandals and mutual tantrums.

My friend returned to her family's house, found the keys in the mailbox and expected to find an empty apartment. In a sense, it was, except that she was met with a terrible debacle. All the mirrors were smashed, things were knocked out of cupboards and scattered on the floor, numerous plush dust collectors had their heads torn off or cut off, and in the kitchen all knives and forks were forcefully stuck into the countertop. Moreover, the windows are wide open, and obviously not for one day, because a lot of dust and leaves flew into the rooms.

When my friend showed us photos of this mess, we were shocked and horrified. And, of course, they immediately thought that the ex-boyfriend had just gotten drunk one fine evening and caused all this mayhem, because he started with a half-turn and in more peaceful circumstances.

At first, my friend wanted to report him to the police, presenting a photo, but after the anger cooled down, it became clear that no one would mess with such nonsense, the usual household stuff. Moreover, my friend's conscience woke up, saying that I was the initiator of the breakup, so he had every right to freak out, although, of course, not to that extent.

In general, the hope of a peaceful separation suffered a crushing fiasco, but life went on. The pieces were removed, things were put back in place, and everything seemed to flow as usual. It wasn't until a few days later that a friend showed up on my doorstep and asked to spend the night. And she looked like hell.

After a few hours, I managed to get her to talk and ask her why she suddenly couldn't stay at home. It turns out that after everything that happened, very strange things began to happen in the apartment. The light bulbs either burned out or began to flicker strangely, the electricity went out every now and then, the TV showed continuous interference, and if the Internet appeared, it was only in the morning and literally for a couple of hours. The support services just threw up their hands and assured me that everything was fine on their part. And if all this could be attributed with a stretch to problems with the wiring, then the rest did not fit into any gate.

Looking around every minute like a hunted animal, the friend said that she began to see some dark silhouettes out of the corner of her eye, and every day more and more often, and the nights turned into one continuous torture - as soon as the lights were turned off, darkness literally fell on the apartment, there was no glare from passing cars, no light. the lantern outside the window. Nothing at all. And silence. This darkness seemed to absorb all the sounds that could and should have penetrated from the street.

The darkness surrounded from all sides and seemed to be watching. And she was whispering, in dozens of different voices, muttering something unintelligible right in her ear. Sometimes she even felt someone else's icy breath on her cheek. It gave me the creeps.

It didn't look like her friend was lying or being overly suspicious. Although this debacle could well provoke a nervous breakdown... But for some reason I believed her. And about the living, dense darkness, and about the creaks and rustles that had never been there before, and about the night light bulb that instantly burns out with any attempts to sleep in the light...

In the end, I calmed my friend down as best I could, we had a few drinks and somehow fell asleep. But her phone woke us up in the middle of the night. No, they weren't mysterious ghosts, but just her downstairs neighbors, who, without further ado, gave her a terrible dressing down for a noisy party with furniture throwing and promised to call the police if it didn't stop. Naturally, they didn't believe that there was no one in the apartment right now. We sat on pins and needles for the rest of the night and took the first bus to the ill-fated apartment, expecting to see the police called by the neighbors at the entrance.

Fortunately, there were no police. But the apartment was a mess again — all the chairs were lying upside down, and one stool was even broken, as if it had been thrown violently on the floor, things were thrown out of the cupboards again. My friend grabbed the phone and started calling her ex, because the first thought that came to both of us was as simple as a grunt — he ordered a duplicate key and, to make his revenge even more colorful, waited until she left and repeated the feat.

However, the former swore and swore that he had not done anything — moreover, he was in another city with friends. And he didn't cause any damage; rather, he wanted to throw out a couple of his girlfriend's things, even opened the windows for this purpose, but then he just spat and left. So all he's guilty of is having the windows open.

We didn't know whether to believe him or not, so we started cleaning up the apartment. When I was putting things in the closet, I noticed one oddity — the top hinge on the door was broken and dangled on the word of honor. Or rather, it didn't seem strange to me at first, but the same breakdown was found in the next cabinet. And one more thing... In the end, I started checking everything, even the pantry door. And it's the same everywhere. Because of these broken hinges, the doors did not close tightly, and there were small gaps between them, literally half a centimeter.

When we eliminated all the consequences of the debacle and sat down to drink tea, I literally felt with my skin how someone was looking at me from these cracks, from narrow strips of pitch darkness. My friend caught my eye and paled, but said nothing.

And then I got a terrible headache. Actually, it felt like I had at least single-handedly dug up an entire potato field. I wanted to fall down and sleep. But I didn't want to sleep in this place at all, so I hurried home, assuring my friend that if anything happened, she could always come to sleep with me. Which, by the way, she did just a day later. But they didn't let us sleep again, the same neighbors complained about the noisy party. For some reason, when my friend stayed at home for the night, nothing happened. Well, it's like nothing — she just lay there, neither alive nor dead from fear until the morning.

All this went on until her aunt came to visit her friend. After spending the night visiting her niece, she silently packed up and left, and returned the next day accompanied by some strange old lady. I don't know what this grandmother did or said, my friend refuses to talk about it at all, but after her visit, all the oddities in the apartment stopped.

My friend and I continue to see each other, but we try not to remember this story, especially since everything went without consequences. Except that now she very rarely ventilates the apartment and vigilantly makes sure that all windows are tightly closed after dark.

And you know, now I understand that the ex had nothing to do with it at all — it's just that at some point, not only the leaves blew into the windows that were open for several nights in a row. Something evil had seeped in with the wind. Something that might have been wandering around for a long time in search of shelter. Shelter and food.

That's why I also no longer ventilate before going to bed. Just in case.