I live in a small provincial town (you might even call that a settlement) in the depths of Russia. Like many semi-rural places all over the world, this one (let's call it K.) feels the impact of urbanization, which I personally do not find all that healthy of a process. Over the last two decades, lots and lots of shops and small shopping points have been opening in K., far more than necessary to provide its people with all sorts of goods. One of such points is named "Iridescent" ("Raduzhniy" in Russian) supposedly after the color of its walls - which don't actually resemble a rainbow spectrum, and are instead rather boring stripes of beige, gradating from light to dark.
For some reason, I sincerely hated going to that particular place. Iridescent houses mainly clothing stores, but also a gardening shop and a hairdresser. It was solely the latter I visited the place for. The hairdresser, let's call her L, is a very gentle lady who knows me since the early childhood. I always felt that she has a very kind soul, and I think that I am very lucky to trust my hair to such a person. Now, L previously worked in another building, which is also a local post office, this was the place of her work for many, many years - but she was forced to move to Iridescent recently. Needless to say, I wasn't feeling good about going there even if it was still L who worked with my hair.
I just couldn't explain what exactly I felt wasn't right with this building. Speaking objectively, it was fairly new and hastily built, so the interior wasn't comfortable at all, and the corridors between the shops were quite narrow. But it wasn't just that. When I was there once, I had to meet a rather disagreeable person, which further worsened my impressions. Then I ended up having some awkward conversation with people I barely know. Those could've been just common, unfortunate encounters, yet I just couldn't help feeling very uneasy about all this - but L seemed to be fine, and I still felt more or less okay in her presence.
Then a bit later I learned that L moved her business to a place that was just outside Iridescent. It was the first floor of a cafe, I think. That still didn't go well with me, and soon for L as well. During this period I noticed that the cafe on the ground floor attracted many shady types - alcoholics, and possibly thugs. But this was almost typical for this neighborhood. What I wasn't expecting was L getting kicked out of her new place. She told me, while unsuccessfully trying to cover her tears, that the property owner asked an enormous sum as a rent. Soon she moved to a completely different place, far from Iridescent. I was feeling very sorry for her, but at the same time I was also genuinely content about not having to go there anymore.
When I first visited L's business at the new place, we talked a little about the reasons why she was forced to move. Then, among other things, she mentioned the strange occurrences she experienced while working at Iridescent. The traders, including her, were frequently hearing footsteps in places where were no customers or traders or anyone else. The building has multiple floors, and apparently the upper section was temporarily empty and nobody was using it for some time. Yet this was where the sounds were coming from. According to L, the footsteps were fairly distinct. Some people also reported their wares being moved, clothes on display touched as if by invisible hand. Then someone mentioned that a terrible crime happened on this location long ago - a girl was raped and murdered. They didn't find who did it. The rumor goes that the place is haunted by this girl's restless ghost. I've been told that earlier this piece of land was occupied by a school, perhaps it all happened there. Between this period and Iridescent, the place was simply devoid of any constructions.
I told L about disliking the place in general, and she wasn't surprised, only telling me that perhaps I can sense these things. I would call myself a very sensitive person in general, so this could be true, maybe I was repelled by the ghost's energy. Of course, one can discard my feelings as subjective altogether and call minor unlucky events, and perhaps even L's bad luck with her business in Iridescent Building a series of coincidences - but in conjunction with the history of this place and the unexplained sounds and movements, a picture is forming. And that picture still gives me chills. Especially that the building is still there to this day.
Loading comments....
