Leningrad metro

 The metro is one of the fastest ways to get to the other side of the city. There is no need to stand in traffic jams, it is enough to orient yourself in which direction to move and make the right transfers if necessary. Very convenient mode of transportation.

At the same time, the subway is a place with which many legends are associated. Ghost trains, mysterious underground inhabitants, changing mothballed tunnels, moaning sounds, and the disappearance of people without a trace – all this can be found in urban legends related to the subway.

In 1979 and 1982, Leningrad residents twice encountered something inexplicable while traveling on the subway. Both cases were recorded in the tunnel between the stations Nevsky Prospekt and Mira Square (today Sennaya Square).

On March 3, 1979, at 18:55 local time, passengers heard a strange howl. No one could figure out what was going on until they peered through the train windows. Distorted faces could be seen against the background of the reflections on the glass. The grimaces depicted horror and suffering. The train was moving, but the terrible vision did not disappear.

Soviet people were inherently well-educated and not particularly superstitious people, but what they saw and heard left a serious imprint. At the same time, rumors began to spread that these were souls from the Underworld or disturbed ghosts.

Particularly impressionable women switched to ground transportation after the incident. In total, about 80 people in several carriages witnessed the incident. The incident was quickly forgotten and, I believe, if it had not been repeated in 1982, it would not have been remembered.

Summer of 1982. June 16 – white nights, tourist season. The subway was working as usual, and nothing foreshadowed trouble. But it did happen. At 16:30 or so, a train braked sharply between Nevsky Prospekt and Mira Square stations. The driver later said that blurred human faces began to cover his entire view.

From what he saw, he literally lost his concentration and understanding of what he was doing. The second driver also saw everything that was happening, but he had more experience and self-control. He took control of the train and, upon reaching the station, announced an unforeseen situation.

In addition to the drivers, strange screaming faces, distorted as if made of smoke, were seen by about 40 people in the first three carriages. The situation almost ended in tragedy, so this time it was impossible to turn a blind eye to what had happened.

A group of Soviet specialists went to study the subway tunnels. The main reason is the release of underground gases that can affect perception. But it has not been confirmed. Unfortunately, the so-called "ghostbusters" were not allowed to participate in the study.

These are specialists who, already in those years, studied cases of poltergeists and ghosts, measured levels of negative energy, and generally investigated such phenomena. Since they were not allowed to take, let's say, field measurements, we can only assume what exactly happened in 1979 and 1982.

Nevertheless, they tried to study the case and even came to some conclusions. A survey of eyewitnesses suggested that gas really had nothing to do with it. The train was moving, and physically neither the driver nor the passengers could receive a dose that would lead to such consequences. A group of Leningrad and Moscow researchers came to the conclusion that we are talking about a geopathogenic zone.

There is such a thing as dormant anomalies. They rarely wake up, and they may be active at all once every few centuries. For example, a timeline in the Mediterranean Sea showing naval battles at the dawn of our era. He is seen once every 60-70 years. And what exactly is the cause of the phenomenon is unknown. Maybe there is a sleeping anomaly in the Leningrad metro, which it is simply impossible to identify without certain conditions when it "wakes up".

However, most people do not take such stories seriously, considering them urban tales, legends and horror stories. Let's be honest, if I took the subway every day and hadn't seen anything like this in decades, I would also be skeptical. But since there are so-called "dormant anomalies," nothing can be ruled out.

Night metro

 My father-in-law told me this story. He stayed with friends one day for some reason. It was late at night, but the subway was still running. My father-in-law was not far from Belorusskaya station and decided to take the subway to get home faster (although it was only a short drive to the avenue). When I got down, I was surprised that the station was empty at all. Usually there's always someone at the station, at least some kind of drunk, but here it was empty at all. I stood alone, and soon the train arrived. The father—in-law just wanted to enter, as he felt something was wrong. He says it felt cold from inside. He took a closer look — and the passengers, it turned out, were all looking at him. The faces are frozen, as if in grimaces, the eyes are glassy. The father—in-law was completely scared when he saw his dead friend inside, and he nodded to him in greeting, saying, come in. He took a closer look and noticed his dead wife in the crowd, who waved at him. My father-in-law says he ran screaming from the station. I believe him because I saw how his body hair stood on end when he told me this.

Mobile phone store

 At that time, I was a student at a Moscow university, and, naturally, like many students, I had to get a job in order to earn extra money. For three weeks, I was looking for a job through advertisements and constantly noticed that girls were needed in one prestigious mobile phone salon. Then I thought that there must be very high selection criteria, since they couldn't find anyone in almost a month. At the end of July 2007, I finally decided to go there for an interview. Imagine my surprise when the HR department immediately offered me a job with a one-week probation period. At the same time, the head of the department immediately said: "Don't be scared, no matter what happens." At that time, I didn't attach any importance to these words, I thought it was moral support for a worried intern. But how wrong I was…

On the very first day, I was introduced to the work schedule and my workplace. It was a dusty job — I had to come in after lunch to replace the senior operator of the salon, arrange rooms, look after the windows with cell phones, accept requests from subscribers to resolve technical issues. The salon itself was small, with only three rooms. The furthest room was a storage room with a single door and no windows. The second room is the main operating room and the third room is the security room.

For the first couple of weeks, I worked quite diligently and smoothly, thinking that I was lucky like no one else. However, soon inexplicable things began to happen in the building. Coming to work early one morning (it was a day off, and I wasn't studying), I started turning on the lights in all the rooms and was a little surprised that the door to the warehouse was wide open, while I clearly remembered that I had closed everything the previous day before leaving.

Soon, customers poured into the salon, and I forgot about this incident. By lunchtime, a subscriber came who needed a replacement SIM card. I immediately went to the warehouse to get a duplicate of the plastic... and fell into a stupor when I saw the door slam shut in front of me. A draft? This couldn't be happening. I was scared, but overcoming my fear, I still entered the room for some reason. And then it all started. Banners with the company's logo hanging on the walls began to sway, and flyers began to fly out of the boxes, as if under the pressure of a geyser. I ran screaming into the hall. Cold and terror gripped his body. When I returned to the room with the guard, I looked like a complete fool — the warehouse room was in perfect order, as if nothing had happened.

A week passed, during which I had to experience all the bullying of the poltergeist. On the last day of my internship, I was wiping the display cases before leaving when a small child's palm print appeared on the worn glass in front of my eyes. I quickly closed everything and went home. The next morning, I demanded an explanation from my boss, who arrived to inform me that they were hiring me at the end of the probation period.

The story he told surprised me very much. The fact is that four years ago there was a slot machine salon in the building of the communication salon. One evening, a gambler came here with his son to pass a coin, so to speak. Fortune smiled on him, and he won a huge amount of exchange tokens. There were so many of them that one of them fell out of the stand and rolled under the slot machine. The eight-year-old son reached out to get a coin and, apparently, accidentally touched the pallet bare wires. The child died.

I no longer wanted to stay at my workplace, and I refused the offer of my superiors. Today I work for another company, but every morning I pass by this salon. In three years, in my memory, six organizations have changed in this building. I do not know how things are going there now. But I will never forget what I experienced.

My friend Anechka

 It happened when I was about 8 years old, probably. I grew up as an ordinary child in an ordinary Soviet family. Every summer, I, a pale urban wretch, was sent to my father's grandmother in the countryside. I didn't really like going there, there was no company for me there — all the village guys were much older, and I wasn't interested in my peers myself. As a result, I just spent the whole summer hanging around the yard, helping my great—grandmother, a strong, wiry old woman, drinking fresh milk and counting the days until my parents arrived.

In early August, a monster appeared on our property. Uncle Seryozha, the neighbor on the right, dragged him and put him not far from the fence. I call the old Soviet refrigerator "ZIL" a monster, it's so huge, with a snap-on door. It was in pretty decent condition, though the latch on the door was broken. Why my grandmother needed it, I can't imagine, maybe she was going to grow seedlings in it, who knows? I was wary of going around the refrigerator, because grandma had strictly ordered me not to get in or hide in it, and generally stay away from it. Two days later, I stopped paying attention to this bandura, because it was completely uninteresting, and I just got a girlfriend.

Her name was Anechka, a pretty little girl with blonde pigtails, dressed in a plaid sundress. I noticed her from the window when she was standing by the fence and looking at our plot. Naturally, I immediately went out to get acquainted, hoping that the girl, like me, was brought here for the summer and she was bored alone. And so it was. Anya was brought from the city by her parents, she didn't know anyone here and she was lonely. I was happy, I called her into the house, but Anya refused, saying that her grandmother did not allow her to visit strangers and offered to play near the fence. I took out my dolls, cups and plates, and we started playing. Grandma looked out of the window several times, but when she saw us at the fence, she hid in the house again. I liked Anechka very much; I hoped that she would become friends with me and we would spend the rest of the summer together. When it got dark, Anya abruptly got up and said that it was time for her to go home, and she would come back to me tomorrow.

That night I didn't sleep well, for some reason it was hard for me to breathe, I turned around and pulled off the blanket. I got up in the morning sluggish and sleepy, but the thought of Anya made me perk up. I ran out into the yard. She was already waiting for me at the fence, again dressed in a plaid sundress. We played until lunch, then Grandma called me to eat. I was surprised why she didn't invite Anya — in the village it was customary to invite guests to the same table with the hosts, but Anya waved her off and said she would come tomorrow.

The next day we played again, I told Anechka about my parents and school friends, and she sat sad and depressed. I asked her what was the matter, and she told me that her parents quarrel all the time, dad offends mom, and Anya always hides during their quarrels. She doesn't have any girlfriends, and she's very sad and scared. When I was little, I almost burst into tears from her story, hugged her and said that I would always be friends with her, and if mom and dad would let us, we would take her home and live like sisters.

Anechka looked at me strangely and asked if I really wanted to be friends with her forever. I fervently began to convince her that she was my best friend, and I would always be there for her. She smiled and offered to play hide-and-seek. It fell to me to drive. I started counting to ten, closing my eyes. There was a noise, a thud, and then silence. I opened my eyes and went to look for Anya. There's nowhere to hide on our property, except in the bushes or near the chicken coop. Anya wasn't there. I was wandering around the site in confusion, and then my gaze fell on the refrigerator. "Aha!" I thought. That's why I heard a noise — it was the refrigerator door opening, and a thud — the door slammed shut. I hurried to the ZIL, but suddenly my grandmother's warnings came back to me: do not climb inside! I hesitated by the door and timidly pulled the handle towards me. The refrigerator opened with difficulty. I pulled harder, opened it and saw Anya. I reached out to lure her out when she grabbed me and yanked me towards her. The refrigerator door slammed shut, and I was in the dark. I screamed and started banging on the door, but it wouldn't open. I started crying loudly, then I felt movement near me and turned around...

My grandmother found me. She came out to invite me to dinner and saw that the yard was empty. Knowing that I would not leave without permission, she searched all the courtyard buildings and froze when she realized that I could only be in one place. They pulled me out almost suffocated, unconscious, because those old refrigerators couldn't be opened from the inside, and they didn't let air in. If Grandma had come out half an hour later, they wouldn't have saved me...

At the hospital, when I was recovering, I told them how it was. I told her about Anya, how she dragged me inside the refrigerator. Grandma just shook her head in disbelief and told her parents that there was no girl on our property, all these days I was playing by the fence alone. My parents decided that all my stories were just hallucinations from oxygen starvation.

But these are not hallucinations. I remember Anya, even though it's been almost 20 years. I remember her face there, in the darkness of the refrigerator, her eyes bulging, her mouth wide open, her face blue from suffocation. I remember that I promised to always be friends with her and be by her side. I remember.

Car Dealership

 I work in an ordinary Moscow car dealership, of which there are more than two hundred in the capital. There is nothing particularly remarkable about it, the salon is like a two—story glasshouse with lighting and signage. However, it is not located somewhere in the center, but somehow on the outskirts, on the outskirts of the city. On one side is an oil products factory, on the other is a prison, and there is only one road passing by. The salon has been open for six months, and there are always a lot of people during the day — the staff is bustling, customers are pacing. After 8 p.m., the salon empties abruptly, although sometimes it happens that customers stay until midnight when they take a long time to process the documents for the car, but this rarely happens.

I was really late a couple of weeks ago. While I was doing my quarterly report, I didn't notice how night had fallen. I looked at my watch, and it was after midnight. It's not surprising that the guards didn't notice me: our office is on the second floor in the farthest corner, with a magnetic key. The guards don't even approach him when they go around, and we never turn off the light in the office. So, I saw the time and got ready to go home, deciding that I still had to go to the bathroom before going out, because it would take at least an hour to get home... I went downstairs, did all my chores, and came out of the bathroom, and then the next door opened and a man came out. I glanced at it briefly, but I thought to myself that, apparently, the design was too late. And he happily declares to me like this: "Oh, and I thought no one would notice me and let me out of here! Girl, won't you walk me out?" I forced a smile, said something like, "Well, yes, of course," and walked away, all in my own thoughts, the guy was wandering next to me.

We walked through the entire salon, approached the guard, and I said to him, "Well, will you open the door for us?" He jumped up, opened the door, the guy muttered to me, "Thank you!" and got out in front of me. The guard, a young boy, looks at me, smiles and asks: "Are you going to your place too?" I did not pay attention to this remark. I went out over the fence, stood at the bus stop, looked in one direction — not a soul, in the other — not a soul... I was surprised, I think, why did this guy leave so quickly? About ten minutes later, she caught a taxi and left.

There would be nothing surprising in this story if there wasn't a single "but".

I got into a tangle with that security guard guy a couple of days later, and he blurted out something like, "You've got a lot of ego, take it out on yourself!" I didn't understand, I asked him to explain, and he said to me, "Well, when you were late from work, you asked me to open the door for you (that is, "us")." I explain that, they say, to me and to the man-client, and he just twirled his finger at his temple.…

A couple of days later, it turned out that someone had scratched the car in the hall that day. The head of security and I sat down to watch the video from all the cameras, who left when, who went where… How horrified I was when I saw myself walking out of the salon alone that night! I broke out in a cold sweat. The head of security saw it, let's ask what and how. I was impressed and told him how it was, and he replied, "Well, now I understand what the guys were telling me. Everyone says that at night someone seems to walk around the salon, slaps his feet, goes to the first post (exit from the salon), stands, stands, and goes back towards the toilets. Why do you think we had such a turnover? Everyone who was smarter quickly left, there were no living guests, and this one was constantly prowling at night. And after a week, they say, everything stopped, as if someone had released him..."

Wardrobe

 I am a seventeen-year-old girl who dropped out of school in the ninth grade and moved to live separately. Personally, I think it's humiliating to sit on your parents' necks at that age, and it's time to start building your own life. I'm renting an apartment from my mom's friend. It's not much of an apartment, but because of the ridiculous price the landlady asked, I agreed without hesitation. But in vain.

The apartment is one-room, small. And because of the huge cabinet with glass doors standing in the room, it generally seems tiny, there is nowhere to turn around. But I'm not complaining, I'm rarely at home. Either at college or at work, because you need to pay for accommodation somehow. I wake up and walk the dog, then go to college, either to work part—time, or go home, walk the dog, and sleep. And so it is every day.

From the moment I moved in, the landlady asked me not to touch the closet, not to put things there, supposedly she would take him away soon, he was here temporarily. I've been living in this apartment for three months now, and she hasn't taken out the closet in all these three months. Although he didn't bother me, there was a place to put things; it was worth it, let it be. I can't complain at all, for such a ridiculous price.

That's what I thought before. Until Hachi (that's my dog's name) started looking at this closet strangely. Once he even watched, watched, and then jumped back as if scalded, barking at the same time. I just laughed, but I didn't pay attention.

One day I was so exhausted that I came in and went straight to bed. I woke up at about three in the morning to a strange noise. The apartment is on the second floor, so the idea of a thief came into my head. Unlikely, but quite real, especially since I couldn't find any other decent explanation at the time. I was about to get out of bed when my gaze fell on the closet, which was right in front of me. Oh my god.. I still clearly remember how a chill ran down my back, and there must have been a grimace of horror on my face. There were two bloody handprints on the cabinet doors, and a terrible, most terrible face looked right at me, absolutely white, without hair, as if clean-shaven, with red eye sockets without pupils and a wide-open toothless mouth. At the same time, it "slapped" the glass with its bloody palms, leaving traces on it.

I jumped out of bed, and the next second I was outside. As it is, in a nightgown. What was that?! Where can I find an explanation for this?! As I write this, I recall the events in detail, and my hands are shaking involuntarily. I'm still scared.

I returned to the apartment only the next day, when it was already light and there were people outside. I called the landlady, begging her to take this closet, that I would pay extra if only it would be taken away from here. She asked me in a worried voice what had happened, but in order not to sound sick in the head, I mumbled some nonsense. It seems that she suspected something, because she didn't find out anything, even though I didn't answer anything intelligible. On the same day, in the evening, this cabinet was taken away.

Hachi's strange glances at the place where the cupboard stood stopped. His barking into the void and his strange behavior stopped. I still can't figure out what happened, but I don't want to think about it too often.

Videotape of happiness

 This story began when video recorders were still in fashion. Then fashion gradually faded away, and videos, especially writing ones, became a necessary household item for many. Interesting programs, soap opera episodes, and TV movies were usually overlooked on videotapes. You could also see homemade films shot on a video camera on these cassettes. Some indulged in amateur fucking in the style of "do you know what my girlfriend and I did in bed this summer?". It doesn't really matter. All this was recorded and re-recorded until the tape started to malfunction.

One day, I got my hands on such a tape. They promised homemade porn, but when I turned on the tape recorder, I was disappointed to see another compote of half-erased programs, TV series, and movies. The tape was in terrible condition. The image was constantly twitching, interrupted by interference – snow or colored jagged stripes. I honestly watched this "compote" to the end, rewinding. It's a good thing that the tape was an hour and a half long, while I was watching, I lost it all. Of course, there was no porn there. But there was an episode, probably from some show, that caught my attention.

It was a static picture in the midst of a general mess. They showed an ordinary room in the "Soviet" style. A sofa, carpets in the background, some old furniture. Nothing strange. Except for the one who was sitting on the couch. An unusual creature. He was white-skinned, asexual, and had no clothes on. The creature also had its mouth wide open, as if it was screaming. This picture froze on the screen for only a few seconds, then other frames crawled onto it, from an already familiar movie.

I tried to rewind the moment to get a better look, but I couldn't grasp it, even on frame-by-frame viewing, everything slipped away. When I pressed pause, the picture was already disappearing, and the freeze frame showed an episode of a movie or just a black screen – the void between recordings.

Exhausted by curiosity, I called a friend and said that there was no porn on the tape, but there was something strange. So, let him get his ass off the chair and run to me.

But where one failed, two failed. When a classmate came to me, we were still trying to capture the frame, but still couldn't.

I don't want to tell her about the unsuccessful viewing of "strawberries", do I? And my friend honestly said that we accidentally found some terrible footage on the tape, and now we're trying to catch it. At first, the girl was scared and wanted to leave, but curiosity turned out to be stronger. And the three of us have already started "catching the alien." We had a lot of fun, I remember. Unexpectedly, I managed to capture a clear shot of the creature. We all stared at him.

Almost white, with a barely gray tinge, the creature stared at us from the screen. Without a doubt, she was alive.: She breathed and blinked occasionally. Her toothless mouth, which, in general, attracted attention, was open. Long fingers convulsively clutched the blanket on the sofa.

The image flickered and flickered, making it seem as if the creature was moving and trying to tell us something.

"Maybe it's some kind of sex doll?" – my friend suggested uncertainly.

"Would you have fun with that?"  I retorted.

My friend shrugged his shoulders. And we were staring at the screen again, trying to figure out what the hell it was. The scariest thing was that an unusual creature was sitting on a sofa with a blanket in a completely ordinary apartment with carpets. The creature contrasted so strongly with the general stop that this contrast made us even more nervous.

"Oh, my God!  A classmate shouted. "It's looking at us!"

The creature was actually staring at us with dark, cloudy eyes. Her mouth twisted as if she wanted to tell us something, but she couldn't because she had no tongue and no teeth either. A dark hole in the mouth, like the entrance to hell.

- Turn it off!  The classmate screamed again, broke off and ran away, leaving us alone with the silently screaming creature.

With shaking hands, I reached for the remote and turned off the tape recorder.

"Who gave you this?" – I almost threw my fists at my friend. – Strawberry, damn it! Some kind of perverts!

He shrugged his shoulders.

- It was a long time ago. At the Dali kiosk. I was picking up the latest episode of Alien, and this one happened to be in the package. There's a sticker there, you saw it– "amateur video." I decided that porn had been shoved at me, I wanted to watch it, got distracted, forgot, and didn't take it back to the kiosk. I gave it to you later. Listen, I was sure it was a strawberry! Just throw it away!

We broke the tape, even tore the film, threw everything in the trash and forgot about this case for a while.

Writing video recorders have been replaced by writing DVD players. Bulky cassettes were no longer needed, because you can record more on discs. The disc could be played on a computer at all, and the TV was not needed.

As time changed, so did we. A friend became addicted to drugs and died of an overdose. A huge inheritance suddenly fell on a former classmate, literally out of nowhere, from an uncle whom she had never known and had never heard of before. She didn't care about the deceased, she took what was due and left the country. My life after university gradually turned into a boring swamp: work-home, home-work. No real friends and love, no big money, no great achievements. In general, a lot of people live like this now, and I wasn't particularly worried. He lived and lived.

CDs were also a thing of the past. So I decided to throw away the accumulated collection. For some reason, I started sorting through the disks. I came across one – Verbatim, on which there was a half–erased inscription in black marker - "amateur video". I didn't remember that. I put the disc in the drive and started playing. And he was stunned.

First there were pieces of old TV shows and TV series that had gone into the past, and then a pale creature with an open mouth stared at me from the screen. Sitting on a blanket. In an apartment with carpets. The image was twitching and covered with static, as if I was watching an old videotape.

In a panic, I pulled out the disc and threw it off the balcony.

I watched the shiny surface sparkle in the sun. The disk rested peacefully on the green grass. Everything seemed so peaceful and calm. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, the children are laughing, but the creature has remained immured in the disk, and that's where it belongs. Although it was at least plus thirty outside, I could feel the bitter cold. My hands were shaking, I was covered in cold sweat, and I had to drink hot coffee.

At that time, I still thought that I was wrong – the disk should have been broken and thrown away, in case someone picked it up... But I honestly didn't have the courage. And we destroyed the tape that time, but for some reason the recording is intact.

A week later, I received a message in My World on mail.ru . You know, sometimes you get spam from friends on these social networks. And spam is often called a "Letter of Happiness." Distant virtual friends want to share their happiness with you at least like that. They say they care about you, so read and send the letter, maybe it will help. Alla Pugacheva read this letter and now she has Maxim Galkin. Or maybe Boris Moiseev.

I didn't remember the "friend." Just for the sake of playing in the "World", I made friends with those who knock. This is a social network for gamers.

The letter consisted of one word "thank you" and a link below. I still can't figure out why I clicked on it. Maybe I was curious – what am I being thanked for? I have not sent such letters to anyone.

The link opened a website with a video clip. They wrote a warning above the video.

Attention!

We consider it necessary to warn you. Before you watch the video below, you should remember that after watching it, your life will change forever. The changes will be gradual, but you will feel them. Perhaps you will have incredible luck. And maybe your life will turn into hell. None of those who watched this video died, disappeared, or lost their sight, but the lives of ninety-nine out of a hundred people have not changed for the better. And only one of them had a big stroke of luck.

No one knows which group of people you belong to. Maybe you're one of the ninety-nine unlucky ones, or maybe you are the lucky one.

I've never considered myself lucky, but then my hand seemed to reach out by itself to the huge play button frozen on the monitor.

Familiar snatches of old shows and TV shows flashed by, and a white-skinned screaming creature appeared on the screen on a sofa with a plaid. The video stopped. An inscription appeared: "Continue? Yes/No".

I jerked my hand away in fear.

I remembered a friend who died of an overdose, and a happy, rich classmate. I didn't know which group I was in.

I didn't risk my dreary life.

Would you take the risk?

Midnight conversation

 On a summer evening, at about eleven o'clock, I was in a hurry to get home to talk to an old friend. She was a strange but interesting girl from another city, with whom I sometimes spent the evening hours. I've never seen her photo, and today was the first time we were supposed to talk on Skype. It should be noted that I could not communicate with her like with the others: I seemed to lose control of myself and spoke to her sincerely, being a closed person.

When I returned home, my cat ran into me. She meowed loudly, froze for a moment, and immediately ran with a wild scream to the other corner of the room. My attempts to pick her up were unsuccessful: she struggled, bit... It wasn't like her. But, preoccupied with thoughts of the upcoming conversation, I did not attach any importance to this.

I sat down at my laptop, turned on Skype and started calling her, but the connection was cut off. I waited a few minutes and called again. She took the call. Her webcam was not connected. The first thing that made me worried was the sound problems. White noise, through it — her choppy voice, which changed timbre and broke. I tried to ask her something, but I couldn't hear anything because of the background noise.

Finally, she connected the webcam. I saw a background of wallpaper and wall paintings. And then her head appeared in the frame. It is dark gray, the eye sockets are black, and the mouth fluctuates in its position. I screamed automatically and hit the "Print Screen" key. Her voice became clearer, and I could hear her say it was just a communication problem. I calmed down a bit, but my hands were shaking and I was nervous. I decided to save the screenshot. "Paint" didn't open the first time, and I furiously clicked on the shortcut until a window opened, then a second, a third... This opened six copies of the program, in one of which I saved a screenshot.

During my time clicking on the image editor, Skype began to show a picture that was less frightening, but also unpleasant. Now her face was just black, but the background remained the same.

She talked to me in a pleasant voice for a while, and I relaxed, but then it started again: the background began to float, change color, and her face turned gray again, with black eye sockets, hair, and a slightly open mouth. I poked at the "Print Screen" again, scared. Her voice was distorted beyond recognition again, and the white noise increased. I copied a screenshot into one of the open "Paint" windows...

And it happened two more times. The fourth time, the image became unbearable to my eyes, and the sound hurt my ears. Her voice sounded like a scream, and her head was jumping from one place on the screen to another. Soon the connection disappeared completely.

The call lasted 38 minutes and ended at 00:01. I logged out of Skype. Her heart was pounding, her hands were shaking, and her strange head was in front of her eyes. Only later, when I calmed down, did I decide that the problems were caused by poor connectivity and faulty RAM.

But during the next conversation, my friend told me that that evening she had gone to another city for a relative's funeral, but she could not warn me in time. The house remained empty...

Night music

 The story actually happened 2 years ago with a friend of mine, whose name I don't want to mention. It will seem unreal to you, I also thought at first that it was fiction — but I saw the door that was ruined by a night visitor, and the girl's eyes full of fear.

She woke up at night. My husband was not at home, he went on a business trip, the children were sleeping in another room. She was lying on the bed and couldn't figure out why she woke up. It was one o'clock in the morning. She got up and went into the kitchen. Pouring herself a glass of water, she sat down on an armchair, opened the window and lit a cigarette. She felt cold and sad for no reason. Because of this sadness, at first she did not hear the melody coming from the street. But the melody was getting closer and was very close — it seemed that its source was about to fly through the open window. The girl understood that this melody should not exist in principle: it's night outside, everyone is asleep, no one can enter the courtyard, since the house is protected by a large fence, and the gates are closed at night. But this music was so soothing, it was like a child's lullaby, and I really wanted to lose myself in it. And despite the anxiety of his mind, his soul yearned for this melody; it seemed that once he went outside, all the problems and adversities would go away forever.

The girl got up, went into the children's room to check if everything was all right with the children, and went to the exit, mesmerized by the melody. She threw a blanket over herself and was about to open the door of the house, but then decided to look out the window anyway. Going to the window, she screamed in horror. Her three-year-old son was standing on the street, he was all in white clothes, but they were dirty and stained with bloodstains. The child stood and looked out the window, in his hands he held a music box, which emitted this melody. The girl understood that this was not her son, because just a minute ago she had seen him sleeping peacefully in his crib. Fear gripped her. She checked to make sure the door was closed, then slid to the floor. She was afraid to move, she could not go into her room or into the children's bedroom, because she was afraid that "it" would see her in the window. The music was getting closer, and the girl could already hear it near the front door. There was a knock on the door. The girl's heart was pounding wildly, fear paralyzed her entire body, she couldn't even move... There was a second, third, and fourth knock on the door, then the creature began to break down furiously and shout: "Mommy, open up, I'm cold, let me in! MOMMY!!!". The voice, at first childish, turned into a rough male voice. It was banging, screaming, and the music was playing non-stop. The girl, realizing at some point that she was going to go crazy, jumped up and ran to the children's room. After making sure that the children were still sleeping peacefully, she sat down on the floor next to her son's crib, wrapped herself in a blanket and waited, not knowing what, just waiting...

The banging and cursing continued for a while, and then everything went quiet. The girl understood that if she had not looked out of the window and gone out into the courtyard, something irreparable could have happened. She could not sleep, and the next morning, still in fear, she opened the front door and realized that the night's events were not a terrible dream, as the entire door was mutilated from the outside by strong blows...

Skinny

 One day during the summer holidays, when I was sitting at home for days and bored, my friend Masha called me and invited me to stay at her grandmother's house. Masha was a silly girl — sometimes when we were together in a big company, I literally covered my face with my hands. But spending time with her was fun and carefree. Her grandmother's house stood in a remote forest — dilapidated, old, but cozy. I've already been to this house a couple of times at Masha's invitation.

The road was long — we drove for almost five hours. The place where Masha's grandmother lived could not be called a village or a cottage — just a couple of houses a few dozen meters from each other.

I was placed on the second floor in a separate room, although I would prefer to share a room with a friend. The room was a little dark and not very cozy. When I was sorting things out, my friend stood next to me and grumbled:

— No, well, what kind of business is this? Am I going to watch horror stories all night by myself?

—Come on, it's okay,— I replied. "When Grandma falls asleep, I'll come running to you." Agreed?

—Okay,— Masha said with relief.

At half past ten, I went to my friend's room, although I would have preferred to sleep — I was too tired on the road. She quietly opened the door and went out into the hallway. The stairs were very steep and creaked loudly, but Masha's grandmother was already asleep and would hardly have woken up before morning.

When I entered my friend's room, I was horrified: she was lying on the floor, her eyes were open and completely black. It seemed that there was no fat left in her body: Masha was plump, but now she looked as if she had died of anorexia. She was white, thin, and had swollen veins... The window in the room was broken and everything was stained with some kind of yellow liquid. I stood motionless for about ten seconds, not even able to scream, and then I noticed some kind of black muzzle flashed behind the broken window. I screamed so hard that I almost tore all my vocal cords.

Literally immediately, I was almost blinded by the bright light. It turned out that Masha had entered the room and turned on the light.

"What are you yelling about?" "What is it?" she asked, startled. "I've been looking for you everywhere."..

"How so?" — I was shocked. "But you are."..

I pointed to the place where she had been lying, but there was only an empty carpet.

"Why did you break the window?"  Masha continued to wonder.

Then her grandmother came into the room, awakened by my scream. We went downstairs to the kitchen together, and I told them everything I'd seen. They were both scared. Then my grandmother told me that this was the fifth time a window had been broken in this room for no reason.

We sat in the kitchen until morning. Masha moved into my room this morning. We spent a couple of weeks at her grandmother's house, but neither I nor anyone else had such terrible visions.

A month later, Masha was admitted to the hospital with severe abdominal pain and liver problems. She was discharged only six months later, pale and very thin, just skin and bones. Thank God she survived.