The shadow in the apartment

 My mother and I used to move from house to house a lot, moving around rented apartments, but I remember one of our homes forever. I was about ten years old at the time, and once again we were preparing to move. It was a pity to leave friends and school, which I was just getting used to, but, alas, the move was inevitable — the landlady urgently needed her apartment.

After packing up all my modest belongings, my mother, her boyfriend Ilya and I went to a new place of residence. Do you remember the old two-story wooden houses? That's exactly what we were supposed to move into, on the second floor. There weren't really any neighbors nearby—it was the middle of summer, half had gone on vacation, and the other half were working in their garden beds. So there was peace and grace.

We broke the silence of the house with our noisy entrance. Mom was rattling pots and other utensils, distributing everything in the kitchen. Ilya grumbled and adjusted the TV. I looked around the apartment — an ordinary two-bedroom, with creaking wooden floors, nothing noticeable. Finally, the boxes were sorted, we had a modest dinner and went to bed — mom and Ilya went to the big room, and I went to the small one.

I woke up at night to the creaking of wooden floorboards. The door to my room was open, and I saw a hallway in which someone was clearly walking. I thought it was Mom or Ilya who went to the bathroom, or to drink water. But a minute later, I saw a huge shadow slowly pacing the hallway, the floorboards creaking from this tread. It was monstrously huge and thin, its head touched the ceiling, its long arms reached to its knees, but there were no clear outlines. There was no face, no clothes, just a shadow that walked back and forth. I was sweating profusely and pulled the blanket up to my eyes, watching this and not believing that such a thing could happen.

The shadow wandered down the hallway and headed towards the kitchen, from where, in a matter of seconds, the clink of pots and plates began to be heard. I was shaking under the covers at the time. There was silence, and IT reappeared in the hallway. It was clearly looking at me now. I couldn't even scream—it felt like my throat was being squeezed by my hands. When it took a step into my room, I closed my eyes. I was shaking like an aspen leaf, and I could hear from the creaking of the floorboards that IT was coming to my bed. No, there was no cold, no breathing, just an oppressive heaviness, as if the air was made of cobwebs and could be touched.

I spent the whole night shaking under the covers, falling asleep only in the morning. She didn't tell her mom anything, and who would have believed a small child? And I saw THIS a few more times, but it didn't fit me anymore. I do not know what it was — we moved out after a couple of months, I have never seen anything like it anywhere else.