You know, when recalling one's youth, many people find themselves in beautiful, sometimes nostalgic moments and memories from their lives. Many long to relive those times, to feel again those emotions of the carefree period of partying at friends' houses, loud evenings, and the sound of glass goblets clinking under the booming “Cheers!” As for me, I can only say that I would love to erase from my memory what happened to me and my then-close friends in the distant year of 2015.

My name is Emily, I'm 27 now, but back then I was 19. I remember it as if it were yesterday: the winter was harsh. In the good sense of the word — a lot of snow fell, and for the first time in many years, instead of muddy slush on the streets, my eyes were pleased by the dazzling snow that shimmered in the sun, which occasionally broke through the snow clouds. That winter, me and two of my friends, also classmates, had a brilliant, seemingly simple idea — to rent a cheap flat somewhere near the academy together. We justified it by the fact that it would be cheaper for the three of us to pay, and we'd wake up together, go to school together, and overall, life would be much easier and more fun — and not as scary, of course.

But you know, once the party was over and my mind cleared, I forgot about this idea, as did Zoe — the same friend — but Max, her boyfriend, was very eager to find and rent such a flat, constantly hammering it into our heads.

One day, photos of another apartment appeared in our group chat on Telegram, with Max's comment below: “The price is so cheap, we need to take it now while we still can, girls!” I immediately didn't like the place: the harsh yellow and vomit tones from the economy light bulbs hit my eyes, minimal furniture, and narrow long corridors that connected several rooms with a very strange layout. The apartment was on the eighth floor, and the price... It reminded me of the saying about free cheese only being found in a mousetrap, but nothing seemed to faze Zoe and Max.

Though I can understand them: we were students, happy if we had enough to eat, and if we could rent a flat near the academy, complaining or whining was out of the question. And, of course, my friend’s pleas made their impact, so I had no choice but to answer, “Alright,” though something deep inside me was screaming that something was off with this apartment. You know, that feeling of heaviness and discomfort, the sensation that someone is watching you, and you must never let them know that you feel it. In such places, sadness seems to become tangible, it seeps into everything, it starts dripping from a rusty faucet in the bathroom during quiet nights, cloaking the poorly lit room in a black shroud, and white abandoned spider webs sway in a dark corner under the ceiling. Such apartments slowly drive you mad, they seem to kill their owners, making them jump out of windows or seek help from hospitals that provide psychological care... But I reassured myself by the thought that I wouldn’t be living there alone.

That same evening, Max called the landlord. It turned out to be an old lady, sixty years old. According to Max, she didn’t mind that three people our age would be living in the apartment, but Maria Brown, as she introduced herself, arranged to meet us at the apartment at the agreed time and date to discuss the terms of payment and living, and to get to know us better. She even promised to bake some buns before we arrived. You know, that gave me some peace of mind, so my anxiety subsided a bit, though the thought of moving still weighed heavily in my chest.

It was a Thursday when I started packing my things. Everything that day felt off: things kept falling out of my hands, I kept losing important items I had placed in the most obvious spots, I had a terrible headache, and just before heading out to meet everyone at the designated spot, where we were supposed to carry the things to the apartment and then go buy food for the first days, I lost my keys, which were found under the console table in the hallway. After finally saying goodbye to my parents, I was a bit late, but still met Zoe and Max at the meeting point, and we headed straight to the house.

We knocked on the shabby door of apartment 34, and a little old lady with a pleasant face and large glasses opened it. Behind the thick lenses were equally large eyes, giving the impression of the stereotypical sweet and warm grandma from some cartoon. Greeting us with the same friendliness, she led us into the kitchen, where the smell of freshly baked buns made my stomach growl and saliva flow more than usual. We chatted with her, and only after an hour of meeting did she finally say:

“Well, kids, you're good people, so here are your keys. You can pay the first month’s rent now, or whenever is convenient for you.”

“We'll do it now,” Max interrupted her casually, already pulling out an envelope with the required amount.

“Oh, well, okay, okay. I won’t keep you, settle in, enjoy the buns, my number is in your phone, call me if you need anything,” smiled Maria and was about to head out, but then suddenly stopped, as if remembering something she had forgotten to say, and then quickly turned around, pointing her finger at us: “Oh, one more thing. I understand you're young, your blood is boiling, but please don’t make noise at night. The building is old, and most of the neighbors are my age, meaning they're pensioners, so...”

“Okay, okay, don’t worry, Maria, everything will be fine,” Zoe spoke up, seemingly wanting to hurry her along.

“Well then, goodbye, darlings!”

“Uh... why is the rent so cheap?” I blurted out the question that had been bothering me since I first saw the pictures of the apartment.

“Oh, it’s simple, dear, you see for yourself, the repairs are non-existent, there’s no one to do them, I live alone, my husband is long gone, so I set the price to something I would be willing to pay for it, and it’s just a one-bedroom, you understand. Well, goodbye, darlings, don’t make noise, behave yourself, and if anything, you know my number.”

And the old lady was right, it’s unlikely anyone would charge more for these, to put it mildly, shabby square meters. But why did I feel so uneasy? I wasn’t comfortable just looking at the photos, and now here I was, inside the apartment... and those feelings that followed me while I was there never left me. As night fell, it all got worse, and only when I left that place did I feel a bit of relief. I started finding any excuse to return “home” as late as possible: wanting to take a walk, needing to buy something, going out for a smoke — literally anything could become my next excuse to avoid staying in that apartment.

Soon, I began to notice that I wasn’t the only one feeling bad, not just mentally, but physically: Max, a sturdy guy nearly two meters tall with the health of an ox, started having persistent illnesses that he couldn’t shake, which kept him in the apartment longer. Zoe, once a cheerful girl who rarely drank, developed alcohol problems, using it as a sleep aid, nearly always drunk. And for me, not much had changed, except that I couldn’t sleep, like the others: insomnia was killing us even more. Even Zoe sometimes turned in bed for hours before finally slipping into troubled sleep, waking up feeling worse than after the loudest and wildest party. Due to our constant absences, we were expelled from school... had to look for jobs, and it was a real nightmare — I was the only one hired, so I was the one bringing in money, buying food, medicine, and alcohol...

I think the reason I felt a bit better was that I came home late, trying to spend as little time there as possible, because the more they stayed in that apartment, the worse it got for them. The apartment seemed to poison them, pulling them further and further into the other world, offering no chance for recovery or escape from the sticky webs and threads it slowly wrapped them in, sucking out their life energy, giving them only negative emotions, which they unleashed on each other and on me.

Their relationship became shaky: once strong love, built on healthy foundations, turned into a fragile razor’s edge. They clung to each other like a cat and dog: Max screamed at Zoe for her unhealthy obsession with alcohol, and she scolded him for not working. And they both lashed out at me because I was better, and that drove them mad.

Of course, we could have already gladly moved out of this apartment, but here's the problem: Maria Brown’s phone number... well, the subscriber was always unavailable. It felt like her phone was always turned off, or we were blocked. No matter how many times and where we tried to call her, the monotonous voice of the operator always informed us that the subscriber was out of range, or there were just three short beeps on the other end of the line. We simply didn’t know what to do, where to put the keys, how to find that old lady who rented us this cursed apartment. And honestly, I had already talked my parents’ ears off about wanting to move out, so going back to them seemed something shameful. It was also strange that the listing for this apartment just vanished; it was nowhere to be found on any of the websites it had been on before, but maybe this could be explained by the fact that the old lady just deleted the post because the apartment was already rented? We never found an answer to this question... until something happened that I will tell you about next, and this is the reason for all this backstory.

You know, I don’t really believe in mysticism, but after this story, I can’t deny anything anymore — especially not something I don’t know. Sure, I can explain some things from a rational and sane point of view, but for some of my questions, and not only mine, I will probably never find answers... It all started when Zoe began hearing strange sounds from the kitchen, like someone tapping a teaspoon on the inner walls of a mug, you know, like when you stir sugar into tea and accidentally tap the spoon against the sides of the glass. She kept convincing us that it was the spirit of the house because her grandmother believed in it, and now she believed too. Then it seemed like different voices were calling her into the darkness, and then the doors started banging. Max and I, of course, didn’t hear it, but Zoe was always on edge: she jumped at any sudden sound, became very quiet and scared, and she was literally losing her mind, drinking more and more each day, hoping it would help her forget, but it only destroyed her more.

One evening, she was sitting in the kitchen, as usual, surrounded by various glasses and jars with a plate of simple snacks. Max and I were in the living room at that moment: I was on the sofa, he was in the armchair, and suddenly we heard some indistinct mumbling, followed by a shrill girl’s scream, the clattering of kitchen utensils, and a bunch of other sounds mixed into an incomprehensible cacophony. We rushed to the kitchen, and I will probably remember this scene for the rest of my life, it’s frozen in my memory like in slow motion, and even now, when I’m writing this story, it flashes before my eyes... sending chills down my spine.

Zoe, all scared, with eyes as big as they could be, holding a knife in her hand, screamed and looked somewhere behind us. A sharp gust, the sound of a window opening, stunned Max, and Zoe was already climbing onto the windowsill... I barely managed to shout: “Catch her!” before my stiff body wouldn’t let me move... And how grateful I am to Max for his good reaction: in those precious seconds, which could have cost my friend her life, he managed to grab her by the collar of her sweater and pull her back into the kitchen. If it weren’t for him, I don’t know what could have happened... but I can easily imagine.

That same evening, without even talking about it, we packed our things, put the keys on the kitchen table, and left the apartment, scattering in different directions without even saying goodbye. I don’t know what happened to my friends now, where they are, or how they’re doing, but now I completely trust my gut feelings, and I recommend you start listening to them. Maybe one day, this will save your life...

So, that’s a moral story, boys and girls: alcohol kills your health, and it might even take your life. To me, it seemed like an ordinary squirrel, spiced up by the oppressive atmosphere of the apartment, the fact that Zoe believed in what she saw and heard, and that she got herself worked up, but then why did we all feel so bad? I don’t know. Maybe there is something in our world that we don’t understand but can feel with our instincts. Who knows? But today, once again looking for a new place to live, I came across the ad for that same apartment... with the same price... and at the top it said: “Landlord: Maria Brown, 60 years old.”