For most people home is the place where they can relax and be safe. The place acts as a barrier, walls that separate us from the outside world and danger. But fear is not always far away. It’s always lurking in the shadows, never out in the light but always watching.

I thought the same, but things changed for me since I and my friend shifted to an apartment. It was a beautiful apartment with a beautiful view of the city on one side and a park with a lake on another side. We fell in love with the apartment at first glance. We decided to shift as soon as possible and gave the rental deposit.

It was a beautiful apartment. As soon as you enter the apartment, you see the big living room with Big Balcony just opposite the main door. The kitchen and dining space was on the left to the door. Between the living room and kitchen, a small passage leading to both the bedrooms. My friend’s bedroom was on the right to passage and on the left, we had our bathroom and one small, tiny storage room. My bedroom door was facing the passage’s opening. Both the bedrooms had big windows and the apartment was on the 7th floor, so it was high enough to give us some fresh air.

The apartment was absolutely gorgeous. The only problem was the tripping MCB (Miniature Circuit Breaker). Sometimes the MCB switch used to trip and the electricity goes off in the entire apartment. We have to manually switch it on. These switches were near the entrance door exactly opposite the balcony. We had a sliding glass door on the balcony. Sometimes we used to make faces looking at our reflection on the door for fun.

It all started after a few weeks of moving in. We had some friends over. We were chilling, playing games, and having a beer. We were all sitting in the living room. And suddenly the MCB trips to put us in complete darkness. I got up to switch it on. While I was climbing the stool to reach the switch, I heard one of our friends screaming. I switched on the lights and rushed towards my friends. This friend was sitting on the floor. She said that in the darkness she was stretching, after Stretching when she kept her hand on the ground, she touched a pair of bare feet. She thought it’s one of our friends, so she tried tickling and moved her hands on that body to realize that it’s a naked body and soaked in some liquid. So, she screamed. But none of us had soaked feet or hands and none of us were bare feet.

After a week of this incident, I was all alone in the apartment and the MCB tripped. I switched in on and turned towards the balcony door to see a reflection standing beside me. I turned to my side to see nothing. Then turned to the balcony to see my reflection, standing alone. Few days after this incident, my roommate was making sandwiches and I was in my room. She ran to my room after some time and said that there is someone on the balcony. We went to check together. But there was no one. She swore that she has seen someone crossing the balcony from one side to another. That person even stopped and looked back at her. She was so scared that she spent a few of the nights in my room. She refused to stay alone in the apartment and in her room.

After a week or so, she was sure that she had hallucinated the person. She was relieved. So, I couldn’t tell her that one night in the kitchen, I had seen that person on the balcony too. Initially, I thought that someone had climbed to our balcony. But when I opened the door, the person vanished. But I could see him standing with the doors closed. It took me a few minutes to realize that the person is not on the balcony but in the room standing beside me. However, I was alone in that room. I did not dare to switch off the lights and rushed to my room. I was glad that my roommate was in my room.

Once, she started sleeping in her room again, I have seen that person’s shadow crossing our living room at night. It scared me, but I didn’t want to tell anything to my roommate. I was brave amongst us. I knew she cannot take it and moreover, I was not sure if that was not a trick of light or imagination of my mind. I decided to ignore it. We spent 6 months in that apartment with these small sightings in the living room and balcony. Sometimes things have been moved from places and things missing from the apartment and have been returned after a few days.

One night, I came to bed and switched off the lights. The figure was standing in front of my closet door. In a blink of an eye, it was near the foot of my bed. I turned on the lights and there was nothing in the room. As soon as I switched it off, I could see it again. I turned the light on and left the room, to find my roommate pacing in the living room. Upon asking she said that she had a bad dream and couldn’t sleep again, so she is pacing. We spent the night talking and eventually fell asleep on the couch. My sleep was disturbed by a low grumbling. I opened my eyes to see a face staring up at me. This scared a life out of me. I rolled over on the couch and fell on the ground. When I looked back at the same spot, there was nothing. In fact, there was no one in the house apart from the 2 of us. And she was sleeping on the other couch.

Few weeks after this incident, my roommate and I were in my room. We were watching some funny videos and laughing. In between the laughs, I thought I have heard that grumbling again. I paused the video to listen, but there was nothing. I thought it was my imagination. After some time, we both heard a sound and looked at the door to find a greyish- black face with creepy eyes looking at us. We both screamed and jumped. Within a blink of an eye that face was missing from the doorway and was under my bed. We are screaming with no idea what to do. That face moved from under my bed to in front of my closet. Now we could see him. A man, naked, with greyish black skin and vacant eyes. But we saw only up to the upper torso. The rest of his body was a kind of mist as if he was standing in between very heavy black fog and just peeking to see us.

We immediately left the apartment and spent the night at a motel. None of us slept that night, in fact, we did not sleep for another couple of nights. We spent our days in this motel room. The next morning of this incident, we informed our landlord that we are leaving the apartment. It took us a few days of time to find a new house. But it took us even more courage to go back to that house and pack our things. We shifted to a different apartment. While leaving the apartment, we saw that face again at my room’s door for the last time. This time the face was smiling, a creepy smile. That face still haunts us in our dreams sometimes. But nothing apart from that. I can never forget that smile and those vacant eyes.