Rotten photo

 I'm an ordinary Internet dweller — I keep a blog, sometimes I write fan fiction based on my favorite works, obeying popular trends, for some reason I even started accounts on Twitter and Facebook - in general, I lead an active online life. And nothing, as usual, foreshadowed trouble, until one morning a reader from the blog joined my ICQ. I was kind of surprised - I didn't think we'd ever talked to her, even in the comments, and anyway, she was one of those people I thought she was just shy about unsubscribing. In general, she added and writes: "Do you want a joke?" And who refuses to joke in the morning? Of course, I say I want to. She sends me a picture file in response. And the morning, you know, is a busy time, and between checking your mail and reading new comments, you still need to have time to drink tea, wash up, get dressed, and, preferably, put on makeup. And, of course, I was constantly distracted. I go to the computer once again, and the ICQ window is already bursting with questions: "Did you look?", "How are you?", "Did you open it?", "Hey, where are you?". I must admit, I was even surprised by such a stir from a stranger, but I opened the file, why should people be upset? I opened it, and there was an ordinary room with all my favorite carpets on the wall and geraniums, only in the corner there was some kind of cloudy dark spot - clearly either a shooting defect or a crooked "photoshop". "So what? — I'm writing. "Where is there to laugh?" And she said to me, "Oh, forget it," and went offline, and I had no choice but to add her to my mental list of potentially inadequate, turn off the computer and go to work.

In the evening, I remembered about this "joke" again, found a photo, looked at it again. The room is like a room, and the stain is no longer there, it must have seemed like a dream. In a word, it's not funny. I wanted to find this girl and interrogate her, but she was offline. And then I completely forgot about her, because the apartment was suddenly devastated.

At first, it began to stink terribly from the drain in the sink, some kind of rot and dampness. We probably took the entire household chemicals department out of the store, and nothing helps. In the end, Dad couldn't stand it and called a plumber. The plumber came, fiddled with the riser, looked at us like we were idiots and said everything was fine. But there was nothing wrong, because after a couple of days, the bathroom started to stink. And sometimes it seemed that there, in the drains, as if something was scratching and rustling. Crocodiles from the sewers, or what?

And after a while, I go into the kitchen in the morning, as usual, and the ventilation grate is lying on the floor. I put it back in its place and would have forgotten it if I hadn't discovered the same thing the next morning, and the next, and the next. But a person gets used to everything, so putting the grate back in place quickly became my personal ritual, until wet footprints began to appear on it: first a few drops, and then real puddles, muddy, as if a dirty rag had been squeezed out. Well, the smell is appropriate. Then I got a little nervous, but Dad and liquid nails came to the rescue — they glued this unfortunate grate, and it stopped falling off.

But it would have been better if it had kept falling off, because after that everything got even weirder. Muddy puddles began to form under the ventilation, which was glued tightly, and at night the noise of footsteps began to be heard in the apartment. It's like someone is slapping bare feet, first only in the kitchen, then also in the living room. Somehow I plucked up the courage, turned on the light and ran to see what was going on there — there was no one in the living room, only wet spots on the floor. Meanwhile, the drains were already scratching very clearly, and one day, when I was taking a shower, the water suddenly stopped flowing, but a painfully familiar rustling sound was heard from the shower, as if something was trying to get out. I didn't wait for the incident to end, I just flew out of the bathroom as if scalded.

I thought I wouldn't sleep after this, but man is a strange creature — I passed out instantly, but I dreamed all night that I was drowning in some kind of swamp: muddy water, mud and a terrible stench. And guess what the first thing I discovered when I woke up? Puddles near the bed. It happened literally every other night, and the parents became kind of weird. Of course, the first thing I did was run to them to share my nighttime experiences. And Mom and dad smile, look at me like they're blessed, and respond almost in unison— that you're okay, honey. I've never been called cute in my life, and Mom adds, "Go take a bath and relax." What kind of baths are there? By that time, I was just afraid to brush my teeth, and only the fear of getting completely lousy somehow outweighed the fear. But I was already an inch away from asking my friends for a wash by lying about the water being turned off for a month.

And then it all ended abruptly. And the pipes stopped stinking, and the ventilation stopped dripping. And I began to have such good dreams — as if I were lying in a bathtub, warm, good, surrounded by goodness and peace. And life flowed on as usual — the Internet, work, friends... But now the parents were almost fighting in the evenings about who would go to the shower first, and they sat there for almost two hours — they must have seen enough anti-stress drugs on the Malakhov+ program.

In general, everything was fine until I decided to update my photos on Facebook, that is, to take a picture of myself. I've photographed it a couple of times, and I'm looking at what happened. And then I didn't feel like looking at myself, because behind me, somewhere in the area of the wall, I saw the same spot, exactly the same as in the photo I sent. It was in all the photos, and I snapped about ten of them. Having overcome the desire to escape, I began to take pictures of my native interiors with shaking hands. There was a stain everywhere, I photographed the kitchen — it was there, the hallway — another stain, and in the bathroom it was as if the entire ceiling was covered with some kind of smoke.

That night, I was drowning in a dream again. I wake up, and the whole pillow is covered in some kind of mud. And the parents are walking around, smiling, as if under hypnosis.

And here I found nothing better than to grab my laptop, shamefully run to the nearest cafe with Wi-Fi and, after drinking for courage, climb into the blog in search of this unfortunate reader. When I was thrown onto the "diary is closed or not kept" page, I wasn't even surprised, but I had one last trump card up my sleeve — an acquaintance who seemed to be in the same year with that girl. And, oh joy, there's a green flower in front of her nickname. After the usual hello-how-are-you, I decided to casually find out why her classmate's diary was closed. And I heard something like this — she decided to leave the Internet, said she was tired of wasting time on it, youth is passing, and the session in general... Besides, she became quite withdrawn after her brother fell asleep in the bathroom and drowned.

After finding out when my brother drowned and comparing all the facts, I realized that it happened a few days before I agreed to watch the "joke". And I already knew what to do next. But the trouble is, ever since watching all sorts of "Calls," I've been trying on a situation, realizing that if necessary, I just couldn't do this to people I know, see, or at least communicate with online. I can't live with the feeling that I'm to blame, that something terrible happened because of me, even if I'm just a victim myself. But I can't go on living like this either. This morning my bed was completely wet, as if the blanket had been rinsed in a swamp, and Dad had locked himself in the bathroom and wouldn't come out.

Forgive me.

The horror of the bed

 I turned seven then, and school had just started. My father left us, and my mother and I moved to another city to live with my grandmother. I was very afraid of the dark, and my mother slept in the same room with me. But I was scared anyway, so my mom left a small lamp on at night. A cozy semi-darkness was created in the room. And my fears never went away. I had nightmares, it was scary to sleep alone, and I ran to my mom in the middle of the night.

I was sleeping on the children's corner. It's such a thing — there's a desk and a wardrobe at the bottom, above them is a bed with a sideboard. There's a ladder on the side to climb up. The design turned out to be high, almost two meters high. So much so that my mother couldn't even reach me when I was sleeping. And in the mornings she would wake me up by standing on a stool, or just gently calling from below.

It was late autumn, the time of the darkest nights. In the early morning, it seemed that you could still sleep and sleep. When I woke up at night, I thought it was time to get up for school. I was sure I heard my mother's voice. And sure enough, my mother called me softly again: "Kotka, honey, get up! Get down, let's eat, and go to school."

Sleepy, I sat up in bed and looked down, expecting to see a smile on my mother's face. But Mom wasn't there. I looked over the edge of the bed. Mom was sleeping peacefully.

My first impulse was to get down and crawl under the covers with her, to fall asleep next to her in the warmth of her body. I had already opened my mouth to ask, "Mom, can I come to you?" when my mother's voice came from below again: "Fuzzy, come here."

But I saw that Mom didn't say that. Her eyes were closed, and her lips didn't move. My skin was covered with goosebumps, but I wasn't so scared from sleep. It was more of a perplexity.

I looked more closely at the shadow at the head of my mother's bed. Something was wrong there... The bedside lamp was on the shelf above Mom's bed, at the foot. So there was a thick shadow on the side of the bed. And in that shadow, I was horrified to see an even darker spot. It looked like a blob with blurred edges. Cords extended from the spot like tentacles. And some of them reached out to my mom, disappeared into her hair. Tiny golden sparks ran along these cords from Mom's head to the center of the blob.

When I looked down, my head was over the edge of the bed. And the blob seemed to "see" me. She crawled closer to the stairs leading to me. Several tentacles reached out in my direction. Terror flooded me, and my heart seemed to stop beating...

Mom moaned in her sleep, turned her head. The tentacles attached to her tightened. The blob moved away from the ladder, and the free tentacles bent toward Mom.

I clamped my mouth shut so as not to scream, and huddled in the corner of the bed away from the stairs, pulling up the covers. I wanted to rush to my mom, tear those creepy tentacles away from her, but fear held me down. I was crying, shoving a corner of the blanket into my mouth, trying not to give myself away with sobs. I was scared, so scared...

There was no sound from below; I didn't know where the thing was. Is it still near my mother, or is it crawling towards me, clinging to the stairs with tentacles? What did I want then — for it to forget about me, or, conversely, for this thing to switch to me, leaving my mom alone? I don't know. I was dying of terror. I was afraid for my mom, and I was afraid of that thing. I was trembling, and I cowered under the precarious protection of the blanket, trying to make myself as inconspicuous as possible.

Nothing was happening, and I probably passed out from the strain. When I woke up, it was already dawn. Streaks of light filtered through the bamboo curtain. The horror of my experience hit me with renewed force. But I was very thirsty, and the bed was wet—I wet myself in my sleep.

In the morning light, I wasn't so scared anymore, and I decided to look out. The room looked familiar, there were no dark spots, Mom was asleep. A glass of water was on the dresser, and my thirst became unbearable, so I ventured downstairs.

When I got drunk, I thought — should I go to sleep with my mom or wake her up? We obviously overslept. I didn't really like school, so I carefully climbed up to my mother — I wanted to lie down against the wall.

At first, I was confused by my mother's strange immobility — she usually felt that I was sneaking towards her, and hugged me, wrapped me in a blanket. She seemed to be fast asleep now... Snuggling up to my mom, I was scared again—she wasn't as warm as always. In fear, I began to shake my mother, calling out to her —to no avail. I ran to my grandparents with a roar and woke them up.

An ambulance arrived, and my mother was taken away. I kept asking what was wrong with my mom, and Grandma was crying. Then they told me that my mother had died in her sleep at night.

I am haunted by questions: What happened then? Maybe I felt my mother's death in my dream and saw an overly vivid nightmare? Or was something attacking us, and Mom was holding it back, preventing it from reaching me? I don't know.

But I still don't fall asleep on low beds.

Сreature

 There was a family in one village. Mom, dad and daughter. Everything was fine, the family was quite financially well off, they lived in a two-storey house on the shore of the lake. That's just one problem. My daughter cried all the time at night. She didn't just cry, she didn't even throw tantrums, she screamed. At first, when Masha (that was the name of her daughter) was little, she wasn't scared yet, everyone says, like a child, all children scream at night at that age. But as the child grew up, he didn't stop yelling. They took me to the doctor, to fortune-tellers, and so on, but all to no avail! Masha is already going to kindergarten, but the child does not get enough sleep, walks pale and with huge bags under his eyes, does not want to sleep during the day, lies in bed and looks at the ceiling. Parents ask their daughter, "What's the matter? Why? Do you need any help?” But in response, my daughter just shook her head and said that if she told everyone, it would be bad for everyone.

We decided to get a dog. The Great Dane. They tied me to the bed for the night, let him guard me. But that was not the case. The dog disappeared in the morning. Gone, that's all. Everyone thinks, how is that? The dog is not small, it cannot fit under the closet, but all the searches were in vain. We asked the neighbors and the children on the playground if they had seen a dog (after all, the dog was not cheap, and my daughter liked it too..) but they never found it. But my daughter's sleep problems did not disappear, but became even worse. She started not only screaming, but also throwing objects! The parents decided that their daughter would sleep in the room with them. But in the middle of the night Masha fell out of bed and ran to her room. There was a scream. The parents came running.. Musya was sitting on the nursery floor. (that was the name of the Great Dane who had mysteriously disappeared last night) and in her teeth she held a piece of black wool, a piece of skin.. They didn't investigate. Everyone was glad that the dog was found.

We decided to install cameras in the child's room. And so they did. The next night, the screams and all that sort of thing happened again . In the morning, the whole family watched the recording. Everyone except Masha, who was in kindergarten. There was nothing like that on the record. Masha is lying in bed, trying to fall asleep... and then the eye opens. The euro window, and try to open them on purpose, but in order to get a draft… A shadow flies in through the window, somewhere up, apparently onto the ceiling (the camera was shooting only in front of itself, the ceiling was not in sight) and then the daughter starts yelling, throws her slippers, a lamp, everything that was at hand somewhere, and then something falls on the bed. It's hard to describe it. It was as if someone had only seen a man in a movie, sewed a costume from memory and put it on a spider. The head is narrow, with a triangular chin, pieces of skin or wool hang in rags, claws, long thin fingers..

And then IT turned to face the camera. It was just terrible.. The eyes are large and black as beads, without a pupil, the hole (in place of the mouth) accommodates several rows of sharp teeth, or rather fangs, and the most terrible thing is the complete absence of a nose. It was crawling towards Masha. She screamed louder and louder, and the pillows and the rest of the contents of the bed were used.… And then it turned its head. 360 degrees, jumped off and flew out the window. My parents were shocked! We agreed that Dad will sleep in his daughter's room tonight. And so they did. In the morning, Dad was nowhere to be found. And the whole window was stained..

Right. With blood. Mom watched the recording. In the middle of the night, it all happened again. Only this time with Dad. My daughter was fast asleep. Dad was thrown all over the room, and then dragged out the window. And all this is accompanied by the sounds of this creature's speech. But not just talking, but singing something like a lullaby, but in three voices together. His facial expressions were inimitable. He moved all the muscles of his face at once. After that, Mom called the police.. But it was all in vain. He was never found, and mom, daughter, and dog moved to the city.

At first, I thought it was all a silly horror story, until I read five more stories where the same noseless creature fits the description of the creature.…

Camping

 I've been used to hiking since I was a kid. It doesn't matter if you go on a picnic for a couple of hours or go for a few days on a free route with serious equipment — it always seemed to me that this was the best pastime. You don't get bored, you do something all the time, you don't sit still - that's the most pleasant thing about such trips. And you're learning a little bit to figure out completely different things — how to light a campfire, how to set up a tent, and how to walk properly so as not to exhaust yourself, but not to circle around the forest, and go back to your start. In general, there are solid advantages and a feeling of pleasant fatigue at the end of the hike, thanks to which plopping down on the sofa after a bath turns into an unearthly pleasure and serves as almost the highest reward. Every year, from the moment of the thaw until late autumn, I go out into nature as much as I can, whether alone or with friends, but I definitely go to the forest.

It was in 2007, at the beginning of July. We agreed to gather at our favorite place, a small clearing with oak trees, since it takes only forty minutes to take the train, and it's close to seven or eight kilometers. The gathering was timed to coincide with Ivan Kupala, everything was one to one — and there was an excuse to meet to sit around the campfire, and to celebrate the holiday and take a day off, and almost anyone can go on the route — to anyone who likes more.

In order not to waste time, we decided: those who were free to leave in advance, put the clearing in order, prepare for the arrival of the rest of the people, prepare firewood, put tents. It doesn't seem like much time is needed, but one by one, the day flew by unnoticed. It was getting late. We decided to make a last pass through the forest, around the camp, and gather dried wood for a fire and remove driftwood from under our feet at the same time. By the way, we were also waiting for nonresident friends, we expected to gather 40 people then, but we didn't specifically discuss who, when and from where to get to the camp: something like a competition — who would approach better unnoticed, or they would still be welcomed at the approaches. One case was considered the ultimate chic — a huntsman nicknamed Leshi managed to put up a tent in the middle of the camp before he was noticed and identified; so now everyone was trying to repeat this "feat"...

To be honest, I really love blueberries, but here, as if to order, one bush with berries filled with juice, then several at once stretch out in a chain... And so he wandered, picking bushes, rejoicing in life. Everything inside me was already ringing with happiness — no thoughts of work, no worries — babble! However, it didn't last long — until it finally got dark. It was only then that I discovered the absence of a flashlight in my pockets, as well as a mobile phone. It's not fatal, but with my "chicken blindness" it's very unpleasant and annoying to poke through the vague outlines of trees, bushes and paths... I didn't seem to be poking for long, but I realized from the subsidence of the moss that I was no longer in the forest, but in the swampy part of it, making circles. I tried to find at least some positive moment in this idiotic situation - I found it! I was pleased with my equipment and foresight, but immediately lost myself in black melancholy about the same foresight — I took the flashlight, but left it in my backpack — THEN WHY did I take it?!

By the reflection of the lights, I knew where to go, and I went. I didn't go far, because almost immediately I fell into some kind of hole flooded almost to my waist, which didn't cheer me up at all. Cursing and somehow shaking off the fallen leaves mixed up with something, he moved on. Right up to the next pit! Nature finally lost all its charm in my eyes, and I lost the feeling of dryness and warmth, because I managed to practically "dive" into this stagnant "font". Twenty minutes later, the roar of a savage Homo sapiens was ready to burst out of my throat, I just wanted to break something, or better yet, kill someone! My feet seemed to "find" roots and slippery gnarled sticks on their own, the stick-stick stuck into the "strong" bumps as if alive and could only withstand pressure, but not my weight, but the reflections of the lights, which I was guided by, as if they began to dance around me — so often I lost sight of them. kind of... He was silent only from a sharp sense of shame and fear of "becoming famous" — so many years had passed like a campaign, and now — on you! — I got lost in the swamp near the camp!

Gritting my teeth, through which an irritated growl still sounded, I moved on, and then... A miracle! A miracle has happened! A friend saved a friend! One of the guys from other cities was standing in front of me. They usually go out into nature, some in armor, some in their costumes, role—playing games. Even now, some kind of role-playing player in the form of a monk goes into the water and holds a staff in his hands. I tried to turn my grin into at least some semblance of a smile - it's dark, suddenly it doesn't look scary? And with the air of a "cunning partisan" he asked:

— What, you decided to cut it too?

The answer just "killed" me:

— No, I came out at your splash, follow me and I'll take you out.

And off he went, my good bastard guide, without even turning around! And I'm almost steaming out of my ears with anger. Well, I guess it's okay for you, we're not made of anything ourselves!

— You go, and I'll walk myself, I'm not a kid anymore, I won't get lost!

I got it, I see, I've already turned around.

— Don't worry, but follow me, I see a path, but judging by your appearance, you're looking for it!

It became a shame — a man helps a fool out, and he spits into his helping hand.

— I'm sorry, I just can't see very well in the dark, I can almost feel my way...

"I can see that... Let's go already.

They moved. But somehow we moved strangely - the "monk" walks easily, as if on a sidewalk, and not on a swamp, and my legs go up to my ankles! Although maybe he's not wearing boots like me, but moccasins of what kind? And you can't tell by the look of him, maybe it's just that his cassock is hanging on him like a hoodie, and he's thin as a roach?

"Listen,— I say. — I have a request for you: don't tell our people that I got lost in the swamp, okay?

— Don't worry, I won't tell anyone.

And then I just failed. It happened so suddenly, as if I had jumped from a tower into this swamp! I'm trying to swim out, but I'm being pulled down by my legs. I panicked, of course, and tried to shout, but stale water and duckweed were climbing into my mouth, I couldn't see anything, I didn't understand where I was or where I needed to move, and my heart was beating like a crazy drummer, as if it hadn't jumped out of my chest! I'm floundering, waving my arms in all directions, kicking my legs like crazy — and above me, the voice sounds so calm:

— Have you eaten too much fly agaric?

Lo and behold, I'm not in a barrel, but I'm not drowning in a swamp, but I'm sitting in a deep puddle and slapping my hands on it, and I put my feet in a hole with green leaves. And the "monk" stands and looks at me in a characteristic way, with a squint.

— Do you like it here more or will we go further?

I feel the blood rushing to my face — it seemed to me that I began to glow in the dark.

— Let's move on...

Let's go... Again, the "monk" is like walking on the sidewalk, and I'm swimming. And that's when I realize that I don't recognize my "guide" at all. We don't have such guys. And, as I notice, we are not walking towards the campfires, but somewhere sideways... I twisted the cookie in my pocket and poked the guy in the back:

— What's your name anyway, Susanin the hero?

— They call you a swamper...

And that's when I got really scared. Instead of a guy, there's a guy in front of me, overgrown like a guerrilla and puffy like a homeless alcoholic. And he turns around and stares at me.:

"What are you doing," he says, "you're all green?"

"Look at you,— I mutter. — His beard is already overgrown with mud...

I'm afraid to look, and it's impossible not to look, I'm backing away like a crab, I don't even think about the swamp... And then the Swamper exhaled sharply... and burst! He exhaled as if the whole swamp had been stirred up at once — the stench was suffocating, his eyes were watering, he couldn't see anything, and his head was buzzing from lack of air, as if with a concussion... And a piece of ice just formed in my stomach, and my legs, I feel, began to give way... That's when I screamed. I ran so fast that it didn't matter to me whether it was a swamp, a forest, a sidewalk, or even an abstract nothing at all — I had never run like this before or since...

I ran to the camp in a demented state, where they gave me tea and tincture for a couple more hours... I went home on Kupala, and I had absolutely no energy or desire to stay... At first, the guys thought that I was trying to intimidate them before going out at night, but when I just packed up my things and walked along the path to the village, and not directly through the forest to the station.,

At first, the guys thought that I was trying to intimidate them before going out at night, but when I just packed up my things and walked along the path to the village, rather than directly through the woods to the station, they tried to hold me back, but I couldn't stay — I'd never had such anxiety, I felt like I could just break into any moment now, if I stay here a little longer.

Upon arrival home, I started looking for information on the Swamp and this is what I found:

"A swamper is one of the atypical representatives of the evil spirits living in a swamp. There are some differences in the description of the appearance of the marsh, which is mainly due to the sedentary lifestyle of this creature in extremely inaccessible places. According to some reports, it is a sedentary bottom creature, a sullen and eyeless fat man with matted hair, a body covered with a thick layer of mud, fish scales, snails and the like. According to other descriptions, he is an old man with gray fur, long arms and an equally long curled tail with a wide yellowish face (the color of swamp mud) and goose (according to other descriptions — toad) paws instead of legs. The swamper always has big bulging eyes, the same big belly and a huge, matted, tangled beard.

An important fact is that, unlike most other representatives of the evil spirits, the swamper does NOT know how to change his appearance, but he knows how to cause great trouble, and often an unlucky lover of swamp walks sees a monk or a lonely traveler. However, most often it is a black man with a lantern in his hands, moving along the edge of the swamp."

.. Already in August, I went hiking again, as I continued to do in the future, but now, before entering the forest or swamp, I pray and check if the amulet and cross are in place.

My copy

 It all started in December 2008. My best friend called me and said he had a surprise for me. When I arrived at his place, I saw a girl in his room and froze, falling into a stupor. The girl looked just like me—not a ghost, not a ghost, but a living person. Her name was the same as mine, and she was also 23 at the time. Same eyes, same hair, nose, lips, build... It felt like I was looking in a mirror. After that, my friend explained that he was riding the subway, saw her, thought it was me, caught up with her and started talking. When he found out that this girl had nothing to do with me, he became interested and dragged her to his house.

It's been a few months. Nastya (that girl) worked hard to become my friend and talked only with me. It bothered me a lot. I asked my parents if I had a twin sister, and then I introduced them to Nastya. My parents were shocked that we looked so much alike. They asked Nastya to introduce them to her parents. The meeting took place, and it turned out that there was nothing in common between us — we were just terribly similar, and that was it.

Six months later, everyone got used to it. Nastya talked freely with me and my friends, but when I saw her, I was still scared. In January 2010, I was hit by a car. Nothing serious—a concussion and a broken arm. On the same day, my friends reported that Nastya had also been hit by a car, and she had the same injuries as me. In March of the same year, I was hospitalized with poisoning — and what do you think happened next? That's right, Nastya was also admitted to the hospital on the same day with the same diagnosis. In general, there were many such coincidences. All this began to bother me, and I avoided communicating with Nastya.

In October of this year, she died after being hit by an electric train. Naturally, the thought immediately popped into my head — wouldn't this happen to me? As soon as we found out about her death, we immediately ran to her parents to offer help. No one opened the door for us. Five days have passed. I still couldn't contact Nastya's parents — they went to her apartment every day, but no one opened the door. Then the old lady from the next apartment reported that no one had lived here for three years: the owner of the apartment had died, and the children were abroad. We thought Grandma just had sclerosis.

40 days after her death, they decided to get her photo at the wake. It turned out that in all the photos her face seemed to be smeared with white paint. We ran to the office, where the photos were being developed, and they began to poke us in the face with pieces of paper: "We checked all the photos ourselves, your murals are there, we paid for the money ourselves, what are the claims against them?". We never found her parents. We went to the housing office, to the passport office, to no avail: the apartment belongs to the deceased grandfather, and no one else was registered or lived in it.

I'm still very scared if the same fate awaits me as hers. Fear turns into panic, and I walk around trains and railroad tracks a kilometer away...

Unfamiliar Reflection

 It was a long time ago, about 14-15 years ago. I was in the hospital with some kind of cold nonsense, I was 18 years old. One evening, a girl in serious condition with peritonitis was brought in, operated on and placed in the postoperative ward. We, walkers and curious from idleness, went to visit her. Her name was Ira, she was about 28-30 years old. Despite the successful operation, she looked somehow bad: pale, silent, reluctant to make contact. Well, okay, people can be different...

When she got better, she started talking to a girl from our department.: They were about the same age, so they became friends — they went to the cafeteria together, for walks. Sometimes they invited me with them, although we had no common interests: I was a teenager for them, but in order not to stay with boring women in the ward, I walked with them like a tail. The second girl was from western Ukraine — her name was Mariana, she worked as an assistant prosecutor. But this is by the way, so that it is clear that we are not talking about "downtrodden" rural workers.

Ira once told me that she lives with her husband and little son in a communal apartment, and her neighbor was an old woman who was as mean as hell, and she was just living with a young family. I won't go into the details of communal life, but it was all a real nightmare. When Ira's son was born, they began to think about expanding their housing. This grandmother died here, and Ira got her room. There was no limit to her happiness. That's where it all started. One morning, washing in the bathroom, raising her face to the mirror, Ira screamed in horror — an old woman with disheveled gray hair, a wrinkled face and a toothless mouth looked at her from the mirror.

I will not describe the horror of what is happening, but after finishing the story, Ira said: "Girls, I've already forgotten what I look like—in any mirror it's not me, but a scary old woman. I haven't looked in a mirror for about a month now, I don't tell my family — I don't want to scare them, and they might take me for a madwoman, but that's how I want to live!" Well, we had a little fun and went our separate ways.

A couple of days passed, Mariana looked into my room and said, "Olya, can we sit here with you? A relative from the village came to see me, but it's noisy in our ward, you can't really talk." And she came in with a woman in her forties. We sat down on the bed, and then Mariana said to me, "Come on, let's go out." I replied that I was reading a book and would not go anywhere. She then said, "Well, whatever you want, but then don't be surprised at anything and don't leave the ward." I thought let them talk, we're not bothering each other.

After a few minutes, I realized that something was wrong. Ira was sitting with her head bowed, and this woman was whispering some spells and yawning, tears began to flow from her eyes. I stopped reading and sat like a mouse, afraid to move. The woman was probably removing the damage. But what happened next shocked me. They went to the washbasin, turned on the water, the woman took Ira by the hair and began to wash her, pulling her hair and slapping her cheeks, saying: "Old witch, leave her alone, go to the realm of the dead, you have no place among the living!". From time to time, she lifted the crying Ira to the mirror by her hair and said: "Who do you see?" Ira was crying and saying, "The old woman." Then the woman would bend her over to the water again, wash her, beat her, and lift her by the hair to the mirror. I don't remember how long this nightmare lasted: I was just neither alive nor dead from fear. But when Ira lost consciousness, this woman shouted at me, "Come help me, what are you looking at?!"

We put her on the bed. After a couple of minutes, coming to her senses, Ira went to the mirror and cried: "Oh, there I am! I see my hair, you know, not gray locks and a toothless mouth!" I was so shocked that I would not have been surprised if I had discovered the graying hair on my head. When everyone left, I no longer stayed in this room for a minute and asked for another place that night. I was discharged the next day. I do not know anything more about the fate of this girl.

Over time, the story has been forgotten, but sometimes I think about it and think how much more there is in the world of the unidentified and unexplained. And very scary.

To shield yourself

In the winter of 2013, I fell into a real hell, the name of which is the child's illness. My two-year-old daughter and I were taken by ambulance to a children's hospital with a preliminary diagnosis of acute respiratory viral infections. What kind of acute respiratory viral infection is it for such a mother if my child was ill in a way that never happens with common diseases of this kind! Doctors, may they hiccup in the next world, did not listen to me, saying that they know better how to treat, and unbalanced mothers should not interfere.

Yes, it was hell, without a doubt. For three days, my daughter slept almost without waking up, just to take medicine or get an injection. She was slowly falling into a coma. I couldn't sleep or eat for three days. I just sat there, hugging the baby, crying and praying. During this time, I lost 8 kilograms, both temples turned gray; I looked like a not very fresh corpse. Then something happened, which is why I stormed into the resident's room, cursed all the doctors there and demanded to immediately take my daughter for an X-ray and finally start treating her normally. The diagnosis was disappointing: pneumonia on the right in the lower lobe. The most vile type of this disease is not monitored with a stethoscope and is practically not detected by a blood test. Thank God, everything worked out — the ivs and antibiotics did their job, my daughter got better and a week later she was already playing in the hospital corridors with other children, eating with an appetite and reluctantly going to bed.

What happened then, on the third day of our stay in the hospital, became my worst memory. Having not slept for more than two days, I fell into a strange stupor, half asleep, half awake. In this state, lying on the edge of the bed and habitually hugging my daughter, I saw a dark shadow waving near us, going up to the ceiling. It's strange, because I left the night light on, and now it was dark in the room. I felt a chill of fear, I couldn't move, looking at the dark anthropomorphic figure. She seemed to be wearing a hood, along which faces were constantly changing, flowing into one another. The many-faced trash stretched out its paws to my daughter! Dark, tentacle-like appendages were moving half a meter from the bed when rage replaced fear. "I won't give it back!I croaked, rolling over with an effort and covering the baby with myself. There was only one thing in my head: to hide her, to hide her, to prevent the demon who came from the darkness from taking her away from me. Something cold and burning touched my back, tracing paths on my shoulder blade. Unbearable pain twisted my body, I screamed and jerked...

The ward was flooded with the soft light of a bedside lamp. The dark essence is gone, dissolved. I won.

Two weeks later, we were discharged home. My daughter made a full recovery, but my condition was only getting worse. I was plagued by a constant, exhausting cough, and no medications helped. I've had a lot of tests, gone to all the doctors, to no avail. There was only one thing left: I went to an oncologist to donate blood for cancer markers. The result should come in a few days, although I probably already know what it will be...

I have no fear for the future. Lately, I've been looking at the thin, barely noticeable lines of scars on my shoulder blade in the mirror more and more often, and I'm thinking. I think that on that fateful night, I shielded my child from an unknown dark creature, saved the person most dear to me. It's probably worth my life.

Ghosts in the apartment

 Mom saved up for an apartment for a long time, and we finally moved in. Everything was fine at first, but then all the fun started! At first, our windows kept opening and closing, but we didn't react, we thought it was the wind. Later, the switch in the hallway started to turn on at random (especially often at night), and knives and forks began to disappear. It became really creepy when I was alone at home and in the bathroom: of course, the light turned off, I turned off the water, I wanted to go out, and then I heard shuffling footsteps. I was numb with fear and started crying. The footsteps stopped, and then the water turned on!

The numbness subsided, and I rushed out of the bathroom like a bullet! It went on like this for 4 months. Mom heard it too, but tried not to pay attention. But even she gave up when the following happened: by nightfall, I was scared again, and I went to sleep with my mom. For some reason, no one could sleep, and we heard shuffling footsteps, immediately after the lights began to turn on and off furiously, and suddenly deathly silence… We heard a metallic creak, as if something was rolling. At first I thought it was a bike, but I remembered that it was outside. Mom and I turned on the light and looked at each other. We barely slept that night.

In general, it "rolled" around our apartment for another week, we couldn't stand it and moved back to grandma. We bought the apartment through an agency, and we were told that the owners had gone abroad. When we moved out, we asked the neighbors why the owners had left. The neighbors were so surprised and told me that no one had left, but it was like this: an old woman and her disabled son lived here, who rode in a wheelchair (that's what was riding). This man was poisoned, and his mother died of grief. But most importantly, when we moved out, we found our personal knives and forks – they were behind the refrigerator in the damp ground, wrapped in a bag. Mom says that's how they wanted to damage us and get us out of this apartment.