Transcription
For the first time, I heard them a couple of days ago. I went to bed late, around three in the morning. I’d walked the dog around half past ten, and returned home. I locked the front door and heard ascending footsteps on the stairs. Looking through the peephole, I couldn’t tell who it was, and thought it was my neighbor returning home. He likes to go to the entrance to smoke. I closed the second front door, immediately forgetting about it.
Around one o'clock, I went to the bathroom. Entering the hallway, I noticed the second front door was open. Moreover, I again heard someone running down the stairs, this time from the top floor. Peeking through the peephole, I was sure I'd see the neighbor's children, who have a stupid habit of running around the stairs like horses. The peephole was empty. A stupid feeling came over me, that I was in some wrong movie theater—the sound was there, clearly, but the picture wasn't changing. I even opened the door slightly. Now the footsteps were somewhere below, but then the entrance door slammed shut. Closing both front doors, this time carefully checking the lock, I went to the bathroom.
However, half an hour later, an unpleasant surprise awaited me. It turned out that the dog hadn't finished its business outside. To finish it, she proved too shy inside the house. In other words, I had to take the dog outside. Descending the stairs, I listened to the silence of the entrance hall. No other footsteps. The light bulbs were burning everywhere except the ground floor. A rather unpleasant discovery in the middle of the night, as it seemed that someone was lurking in the darkness of the entrance. I didn't pay attention to such trifles, as I was only concerned about one thing. Returning five minutes later, I looked around before closing the front door. The street was empty. We entered the entrance and began to climb the stairs. At about the third floor—I live on the fourth—I heard the entrance door slam below, and someone quickly began to climb, as if jumping over the steps. I swear I even heard his heavy breathing. My dog and I rushed upstairs. I vaguely remember fumbling with the key, trying to get into the apartment faster. I only heard terrifying, swift footsteps. When we rushed into the apartment, I immediately closed the front door and held my breath. I looked through the peephole—the steps stopped. Someone had to be on our floor. The fact that there was no one was especially frightening. I locked both doors, checking each twice, and went to bed, trying to stop trembling. I thought I wouldn't fall asleep until morning, my hearing catching every rustle. However, I did fall asleep by morning, and when I got up around ten o'clock, the first thing I did was check the front doors. The locks were in place. But I remembered the position of the lever on the first door—it was pushed all the way to the right, but now it was shifted almost to the middle, as if someone had pulled it from the outside with a strong magnet.
And now a new night has come. Night, stairs, steps.