Don’t Pay for Microsoft Word! 5 Reasons to Use Office Online Instead
Microsoft Office is the world’s de facto productivity suite, but did you know that most people don’t need to pay for Microsoft Word and other apps? Thanks to Microsoft Office Online, you can access simplified versions of the most popular Office apps for free.
For the majority of users, these stripped-down versions of Office work just fine. Let’s look at some of the reasons to use Word Online, Excel Online, and the other free offerings.
1. Office Online Is Free
The biggest benefit of Office Online is that you can use it without paying. This is the easiest way to get Microsoft Word for free and legally.
Traditionally, you had to pay upfront for a standalone copy of the latest version of Office (like Office 2021 or Office 2019), which could cost $100 or more. Nowadays, Microsoft wants you to subscribe to Microsoft 365. This is more affordable at $7 or so per month, but the subscription still adds up over time.
With Office Online, you gain access to online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Teams, and Outlook at no cost. Lesser-used apps like Microsoft Teams, Forms, and Sway are included in the list of Office Online offerings too. There are no online versions for Access and Publisher, however.
To try it, sign in to your Microsoft account on Office.com, then visit your Office apps page. Here you’ll see everything that’s available and can jump to any app you like.
2. Access Documents Anywhere With Cloud Storage
Having your files saved only to one computer can cause problems when you need them on another device. While the option of saving to the cloud is available in modern desktop versions of Office today, it’s enabled by default and easy to use in Office Online.
Everyone gets 5GB of free storage in OneDrive with their Microsoft account, which is plenty for storing personal documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. When you work in Office Online, all changes save to your OneDrive account as you go.
This means you won’t lose hours of progress if something crashes and you haven’t manually saved for a while.
With the OneDrive app on your phone, you can easily pull up your documents anywhere. And if you need to edit them in a pinch, you can simply sign in to Office Online on any computer.
Even better, Office Online is device-agnostic. You can access it on any device with a web browser, including Linux and Mac machines. Free Office apps for Android and iPhone let you access Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more with similar functionality on mobile.
3. Easy Sharing and Collaboration
A lot of people share desktop Office documents with others via email. While this is fine in moderation, it becomes cumbersome to constantly send a document back and forth. With Office Online, you can easily click Share on a file to send a link to anyone. This menu lets you choose if anyone who has the link can access it, or only people you specify. You can also choose whether others have editing permissions.
Office Online also makes collaborating on documents a cinch. Whether you want to edit a large paper together or both work in a spreadsheet, doing so only requires both parties to have the document open. While a similar function is available in desktop Office with OneDrive, there are more barriers to entry when using the desktop edition.
4. Office Online Offers a Simplified Workflow
The online versions of Office apps aren’t as full-featured as their desktop counterparts. They don’t include the most powerful tools, such as Word’s advanced formatting and Excel’s detailed graphs or macros.
While this can make Office Online unsuitable for professional purposes, these apps are still more than capable for personal use.
However, Office Online lacking features aimed at power users can actually be a benefit for some. You might feel overwhelmed by the number of tools on the Ribbon and options to tweak in desktop Office. If that’s the case, perhaps you’ll love the slimmed-down approach of Office Online.
If you have an old computer with a slow HDD and limited RAM, Office Online may work faster for you, too. While the desktop Office apps are fairly bulky, the web app doesn’t put such a strain on your system.
Office Online also provides organizational benefits. Because it keeps all your files in OneDrive, they won’t take up storage space on your machine (if you choose not to sync them).
Storing all Office files in OneDrive also means they aren’t mixed in with everything else on your system. Each app shows recently edited and pinned files of their type (spreadsheets, presentations, etc.) so you can open them from there instead of hunting around a bunch of folders.
Finally, using Office Online lets you save documents in the standard Office file formats, such as DOCX and XLSX. Because so many people use Office, this is important for compatibility with others. Many free Microsoft Office alternatives don’t work perfectly with these formats, which scores another point for Office Online.
5. Office Online Receives Feature Updates
If you aren’t interested in Microsoft 365, you might consider buying a standalone version of Office, like Office 2021. However, in general, we don’t recommend buying these one-off versions of Office.
The company brings new features to Microsoft 365 first, and every few years, it releases a new standalone version of Office with the latest features from the past few years. But these versions only receive security updates; they don’t get new features as Microsoft develops them.
While Office Online doesn’t receive every new feature added to Microsoft 365, the web versions do get new features more often than the standalone Office releases do. If the web versions do what you need, why not stick with them for free and get new features, rather than locking yourself into a desktop version that doesn’t get any new functionality?
See Microsoft’s page covering Office Online updates to see what’s been added recently.
When Microsoft Office Online Isn’t Ideal
We’ve looked at several reasons why Office Online is a great service you should take advantage of, particularly compared to desktop Office. However, it’s not perfect. There are some situations where you’re better off with another solution.
One of the biggest limitations of Office Online is its limited app selection. If you require anything beyond the basics, you’ll need the full version of Office. Apps like Access, Visio, and Project don’t have free web versions.
After trying the Office Online apps, you may also find that they lack a feature you need. You can’t use the web versions to run a mail merge or execute macros, for example. Those require traditional Microsoft Office (see some ways to get an Office license for free or pick up a cheap Office license if you need to upgrade).
Another serious limitation of Office Online is right in the name—you need an internet connection to use it. For those who often travel without internet access, Office Online won’t be reliable enough.
If that’s the case for you, you can try a free Office alternative; check out our comparison of LibreOffice and OpenOffice to review two top choices.
Do You Have to Pay for Microsoft Word? No!
It’s great news that Microsoft Word and other Office apps are available online for free, as you don’t have to pay for the basic functionality. If you’ve never tried Office Online, you should test it out to see if it works for your needs. You could end up saving some money by using it instead of the regular Office.
As you likely know, one of Office Online’s biggest competitors is the Google Docs suite. If Office Online isn’t the right fit, Google Docs might work better for your needs.
Yes, You Can Get Microsoft Word for Free: Here’s How
As far as word processors go, Microsoft Word is still the king. But you don’t have to pay for the expensive Microsoft Office suite to use it. Here are all the ways to get Microsoft Word free.
Of course, MS Word is more than a simple word processor.
It has a wide selection of tools and applications. Whether it’s on a computer or on a phone, it’s the best software for creating, editing, and managing documents. And you can download Microsoft Word for free.
Word Mobile for Windows
For a long time, Microsoft offered a free program called Word Viewer to open any DOCX file without paying for the full version of Office. But Word Viewer was retired a few years back. What you have instead is the new Word Mobile.
You can install Word Mobile on any Windows laptop, desktop, tablet, or phone. If your screen is larger than 10.1 inches, however, you can’t create nor edit files with the free Microsoft Word Mobile. Unless you have a Microsoft 365 subscription, you can only open documents and read them on larger screens.
To grab the app, head to the Microsoft Store and search for Word Mobile. Otherwise, follow the link below and click the Get in Store app button to open it in the Microsoft Store on your Windows computer.
Proceed to download it like any app.
Download: Word Mobile for Windows (Free)
Microsoft Office for Android and iOS
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Microsoft’s all-in-one Office suite for Android and iOS combines Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Forms, and a host of PDF options in a single app, and it’s completely free.
Perhaps the best part about the free Microsoft Office mobile app is how well it represents documents filled with charts and graphics. This has historically been a problem on most mobile office suites, but such files show up perfectly on this app, scroll through smoothly without lagging, and are smartly optimized for mobile screens.
The app also features a strong dictation mode. Apart from turning your voice into text, you can make lists, add punctuation, change lines, and much more. Not bad considering you’re getting Microsoft Word for free.
Download: Microsoft Office: Edit & Share for Android | iOS (Free)
Use the Android App on Chromebooks
Microsoft Office: Edit & Share is also the best method to get Microsoft Word free on Chrome OS.
All Chromebooks now run Android apps, so go to the Play Store and download the same app for the Android linked above.
It will work as if you were using a tablet. The app works fine with a keyboard, and you can keep using the regular keyboard shortcuts you are accustomed to. But in the end, that’s a mobile version of Word, not the proper desktop one. For something closer to the desktop Word experience on a Chromebook, you’re better off using our next option; Office Online.
If you have an active internet connection, you can use the free Office Online instead in your browser. All you need is a Microsoft account, which you can register for free, and then choose the Word app.
We can think of a few reasons why you should use Office Online instead of paying Microsoft to use Word. For starters, you can access documents anywhere through the 5GB of free OneDrive storage you get with a Microsoft account. It also accurately retains Microsoft Word formatting, unlike other apps.
And it automatically saves your work, so you don’t lose it.
Office Online also makes it easier to share documents and work with others. Like with Google Docs, you and your friends can collaborate on the same document in this free Microsoft Word online app. It’s an easy step to cloud computing for anyone who is already hooked into the Microsoft Office ecosystem.
However, you can’t use Office Online without an internet connection. When you need an offline office suite, fully installed on your own PC, then the good old Office is still your best bet.
If you temporarily need the full version of Microsoft Word for free on your PC or Mac, get a trial subscription to Microsoft 365. Until a few years ago, buying Microsoft Office was a one-time cost, but a hefty one.
Now, Microsoft has embraced the subscription model, which actually increases the price but makes a lot of sense if you are using Office on multiple computers for your whole family. Plus, there are some cool freebies packaged with it.
Once you have finished your trial period, you need to make a decision whether to stick with one of the aforementioned Microsoft Word free versions or pay for the full version. The new Microsoft 365 subscription model not only gets you Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote, and Outlook, but if you opt for the Family package, it also adds 1TB of OneDrive storage per person, which is a total of up to 6TB.
The Microsoft 365 Family package is available for $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year. If you plan on sharing your Office with members of your family, this is the best value-for-money deal you can get.
It basically applies to six users; so you can install Office offline on six computers (PC or Mac), six tablets, or six phones, and get the aforementioned 1TB storage for six users each. And you also get some additional safety features for Word Mobile on your smartphone:
The cheaper Microsoft 365 Personal package costs $6.99 per month or $69.
99 per year but supports only one user for 1TB of storage, offline installation on one computer, one tablet, and one phone.
MICROSOFT 365If you don’t like the new subscription model, you can purchase Office at a one-time cost varying from $149.99 to $399.99.
Before you make a decision, check out these methods to get cheap Microsoft Office and Word licenses.
For Students and Non-Profits
Students can get Office 365 Education for free if your school supports it. You can check out eligibility on the official site. However, be warned that the 1TB of OneDrive storage is associated with your school’s account, which means a school administrator can change permissions and access.
Like students, non-profit organizations can get Microsoft 365 Business Premium for free.
Still Nothing? Try Microsoft Word Alternatives
Microsoft Word has always been a fantastic word processor. Maybe you have moved away from it because of its price. Though these alternatives aren’t the full-fledged Office suite that you expect to grab for free, you can still rely on these methods and use them for your productivity.
Otherwise, you might want to consider these fresh alternatives to Microsoft Office. You never know which of those free or cheap alternatives will work out for you.
The price of a word that pushes you to success / Blog about achieving goals
The My Goal service implements tools not only for goal setting and planning, but also for increasing motivation, which is often not enough to realize your dream. And the most powerful of these tools is the price of the word is a promise to give a certain amount of money if you do not reach the goal on time.
Imagine that you had a bet with a friend that if you do not reach your goal, then you will give him 1000 rubles. or 10000r. Agree that then your motivation will simply skyrocket, you will run towards the goal at the speed of light and completely exclude excuses that you cannot do something. The price of the word gives just such an effect. After all, when you have something to lose, you begin to act many times more efficiently.
Why use the price of the word?
• It gives one of the most powerful impetus to achieve the goal and take the first step will be taken almost immediately.
• Increases motivation, excitement and drive, which will make achieving the goal even more interesting and exciting.
• Completely eliminates self-sabotage and procrastination, so you stop procrastinating.
• Significantly increases the speed of achieving the goal, which means you will realize your dream faster.
How to connect the price of the word?
1. Add a goal, on its page, click «Connect block».
2. First, connect the «Deadline» block and indicate the date by which you promise to achieve the goal. It must be adequate to the complexity of the goal, so that the chances of success are high.
3. Next, plug in a «Measurement» block to describe the quantitative indicator of the goal, which allows you to accurately determine that the goal has been achieved.
4. Next, in the list of blocks, click the «Connect» button next to the «Word price» block.
5. In the window that opens, in paragraph 1, describe how you prove that you have achieved the goal (for example, add a photo/video/screenshot to your success diary…).
6. In paragraph 2, select your friend from the list (he can register on the site and add you as a friend, or you can simply enter his full name and contacts) or another option where the money will go in case of failure (charity, service development …).
7. In paragraph 3, write any amount, pay it and click «Add». The larger the goal and the higher your income, the higher the price of the word should be in order for it to really motivate (if you earn 20,000, then the amount of 5,000 will be quite significant, but if you earn 1,000,000, then it would be better to pay 50-100t). If successful, this amount will be returned to you, and if you fail, it will be transferred according to your choice. Detailed conditions are described here.
8. After that, your main task is to do everything possible to successfully achieve the goal on time. When you do this, add evidence (for example, upload a photo with evidence to the “Images” or “Success Diary” block) so that it is unequivocally clear to the moderator that the result has been received. And click on the green checkmark above the name of the goal to cancel the goal as achieved and submit it for moderation.
Together with this tool, it is better to connect another one — public promise . Tell friends, family, colleagues… about your goal and voice your promise to achieve it on time, and that if you fail, you will lose money (the exact amount and where it will go). Together, this will create a real jet engine inside, thanks to which you will abruptly begin to achieve the goal and reach the desired result as quickly as possible.
ADD GOAL WITH WORD COST…
P.S. And with the Android application «My Goal» it will be even more convenient and faster.
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Read online «The price of the word» by Maxim Didenko — LitRes
The road to the forest
− Excellent weather today, well! It’s still early, and the sun is already hot. Let’s rush somewhere to nature, — Lena slapped her friend on the shoulder, after which she immediately seemed to change her mood and, puffing out her lips a little, as if in one breath, continued:
— When Tanya — started all our movements — left, then and all our amusements ended; except for playing cards with beer and chips at Brig. I miss those times when we used to go out with a cheerful company: a fire, baked potatoes, tents and an unforgettable weekend. Yes, and I want to take a break from all this turmoil for a long time. How do you like this idea? Come on, agree, — as soon as she finished speaking, she immediately jumped cheerfully around Sergei.
− Today? I like it,” Seryozha answered her, interested in the sudden offer.
— Let’s call those two lovers again, otherwise they are just sitting at home now, like two doves and have become completely boring.
Lena, though not out of malice, but as if with some degree of contempt, narrowed her eyes and continued:
− That’s right, even when we go out for a walk, you see it, right? They and hands almost never open, as if glued together. In general, it was long overdue. Let’s stir them up, besides, the four of us will be more fun. Now I’ll write to Dimon, wake him up and tell him to plan a “fun trip” with a small one closer to dinner. I know that they still won’t be able to oppose me with anything but “we wanted to sit down to watch a movie”, which means they will definitely agree.
— And I’ll take the ball, — Sergey said pointing at her with two fingers and winking at Lena.
***
— Did you take everything? — already three hours later, having gathered the whole company together, Sergey began to check the readiness of each participant in this so-called campaign.
— I would not like to return halfway for some trifle, such as matches. Tonight, they say, it will not be very warm.
− Don’t drift! We took the most important thing, and even without a fire we won’t freeze with this, — Dima replied to Sergey a little sarcastically, but at the same time with a sly expression on his face. — Nastya has one and a half liters of our beloved, and I have four liters of «Light» behind my back.
— In addition, you yourself know that Lena always has one or two lighters in her backpack, — Nastya decided to insert her remark into the conversation so that no one would guess why she was walking and was silent all the way. But no one noticed this, just as they did not notice that the «doves» did not hold hands, but walked even at a small distance from each other; although it was precisely on this that one could pay attention in the first place, for everything looked as if they had quarreled, because they had not been seen walking apart before. No one, except for the observant Sergei, as it turned out.
— No matter how much I thought, I still can’t imagine why she needs them, because she doesn’t smoke, — Nastya said about Lena, who had gone a little ahead, who probably didn’t hear her, because she was wearing headphones, like almost always. “Although I don’t dare to say that their absence would be better, especially when those same matches get damp and leave us without fried sausages … and light at night,” Nastya immediately added after a short pause, looking in the direction of her friend.
— Yeah, she’s a genius, — not without irony, half turning away from the views of his comrades, blurted out Dimon.
“It’s like they had a fight,” Sergey thought, and, unable to resist, decided to pick him up:
− Why are you so gloomy? Didn’t get enough sleep?
− What am I, I am nothing. It’s me because of Lena, she’s strange with us, so I think, why so! — Dima did not keep himself waiting. — Only shh! And don’t tell her that I have such an opinion about her,” he added in a whisper and put his index finger to his lips, and then they both rolled with loud laughter.
Skipping the fun, Lena and Nastya continued to walk in silence, immersed in their thoughts. What the first of them was thinking about, no one almost ever guessed, since everyone knows that she is a lover of going on her own wave and often listening to loud music in headphones, for everyone else very irritable music, not paying any attention to her fellow travelers, while a time when the rest behind her long thick hair didn’t even notice it.
The second one couldn’t give rest to her obsessive thoughts that it was not worth going to this forest and that they were in for trouble, but she didn’t know what. That and why, if this sortie was no different from many previous ones made with the same company, only not in this forest. Just some kind of bad feeling, because due to the groundlessness of these thoughts, she did not want to share them with the others. And she would not have shared if at some point, when everyone was silent, Dima had not asked her why she was silent. Until that moment, it seemed to her that no one would pull this information out of her, revealing to everyone the secret — Nastya is a big coward! But upon hearing a direct question, her faith in her steadfastness immediately collapsed, and she gave up.
— Guys… I have a bad feeling about this whole venture with a trip to the forest, — Nastya still hesitated for a long time. “I read about this place where we are going. There is often some kind of incomprehensible game going on.
− You know, when people get drunk in the forest in hot weather, then anything can seem, but today it will be hot only during the day. At night, we still have to warm up, but you don’t have to worry about it, — Sergey nodded towards his girlfriend, without the slightest attempt to hide the main argument of this evening from half of the ignorant company — the contents of Nastya’s backpack. “And you found something to worry about, coward. In addition, we will all always be there, and when we are together, we have nothing to be afraid of, because we should be afraid! — all with the same smirk, clapping his hand on his chest, he added.
− Hah, you’re still sober, but you’ve already launched your heroic record.
− She’s always like that, what are you guys doing? After all, she’ll drink and calm down, as usual, — pulling one earpiece out of her ear and not letting Dima finish, Lena decided to immediately stop this topic in the bud, after which she returned the earpiece to its original place and skipped, wagging her booty, went on.
Already regretting that she had answered Dima’s question at all, Nastya sighed loudly, clutching the bag with the covers tighter and trotted after the others.
At the place
Lena, having heard a light murmur of water nearby, left the path a little and, moving aside a thick branch of some bush, saw a stream flowing a couple of tens of meters from them. Inviting everyone to go in that direction, she began to make her way through the rest of the branches and thickets, meanwhile shouting out arguments that at least someone would definitely want to plunge into cool water in the morning so that it would be easier to tune in after a hangover for a long way back.
She didn’t hear any objections, so putting the earpiece back in her ear, she continued to move forward, humming softly under her breath, humming the rhythms of her favorite tune.
«I think we’ve arrived,» Lena shouted cheerfully after a minute, taking the liberty of identifying their campsite.
“There is quite a good clearing here, which is very suitable for spreading blankets and lighting a fire. Look, here even the bank of the river is reclaimed, which means we are not the first who came to rest.
Nastya shivered a little and looked at her friend, but said nothing, so as not to invite additional questions or banter.
− Yes, I like it too. Let’s unpack, — supporting the idea, Sergey added. Hearing no objections, he immediately squatted down and began to sort out his backpack, stuffed to capacity with vegetables from my mother’s garden, bread, several bottles of beer and disposable tableware.
The loving couple also began to look for a place in the shade where they could start laying out the things they had brought with them.
It was almost two o’clock in the afternoon and the weather was, as expected, really excellent: the sun was high in the zenith, there was not a single cloud in the sky, but a cool breeze, which, despite the fact that it was already the middle of a rather hot summer, did not burn the skin, but on the contrary — slightly refreshed, gently enveloping the skin.
Apparently, he had time to cool off, walking in the shade of the crowns of tall trees; in addition, there is water nearby, and it is often cooler near the water than in desert places.
“Finally, at least something interesting this year, and not Dota 2 from day to day, or gatherings over beer and movies all summer,” Sergey silently thought to himself, looking from the side at those who plunged into preparation for the rest of comrades.
Dima immediately went to collect firewood, as he had already gotten used to the fact that at all such events the tasks of kindling and maintaining a fire lie on his shoulders. Judging by his calm look, which radiates nothing but lightness, one can say that he is not at all opposed to doing all this.
Taking out the contents of her small beige backpack, which she carried everywhere on her shoulders, Lena sat down under a tree, put a sweater under her buttocks and began to examine what was happening around.
— I see you like it here, — Sergey said, running past her with a container in which he had just washed vegetables.
You smile so thoughtfully. Do you think to help?
She really looked like a long-awaited sortie from the city, in which everything is tired — every day the same sour faces, houses, porches, streets. Unlike her friends, she could not stay at home for a long time, in the same apartment with her family, as she loves solitude more, and with the constant “do this for me” and “do that” from her mother and two brothers, it was very difficult to relax.
Nastya, apparently, forgot about her feelings and quietly humming the words of her favorite song, laid out the dishes with food from the other two backpacks.
— Let’s at least turn on some music, otherwise quite something, each on his own wave, — Nastya shouted enthusiastically, slowly starting cutting vegetables, which she was entrusted with in the old fashioned way to prepare «for the table.» — Well, it’s boring! Lenka-ah, charge something, I know that you always have a lot of different music in your phone.
Having fulfilled the request of the majority, Lena put the phone with playing music on the cover and began to help with the preparations.
Everything went much livelier and more cheerfully to the music.
Some forty minutes later, the whole company was humming merrily behind the covered meadow. Drinking vodka and washing it down with cola, they told jokes and teased each other — this was almost the main feature of this company; not always kindly, but in a friendly way to make it uncomfortable, and then sit and laugh with the whole crowd, after which for about a month to remember this at the first opportunity.
If their parents saw these teenagers now, this would most likely be their last summer meeting, since each of them would be put under house arrest at least until the very end of the holidays, and then back to school.
Even the open meadow came in very handy, since it was no longer interesting to sit still after several glasses of vodka, therefore, dividing it — the playground — into two imaginary equal halves, the guys started playing volleyball, which turned out to be even more fun than it could be was supposed to.
Under a degree, everything around acquires other colors and shapes.
Several hours flew by. Toward evening, when it began to get dark and the mosquitoes began to get terribly, Dima lit a fire. They set up tents in advance, because everyone understood that after volleyball everyone would simply be too lazy to mess with it, and no one wanted to sleep in the open air in the forest. The evening, just like the day, turned out to be perfect: cheerful chatter, fried apples, sausages, bread and even marshmallows (how could Lena not take marshmallows with her, knowing that there would be a fire) — everything that could be planted was suitable into small branches and fry over a fire. Of course, no one had skewers with them, but this, in fact, is not so important.
According to the old tradition, by the end of the evening Nastya reacted very sharply to the scary stories by the fire, as it usually happened at every forest vacation, looking around. She was frightened by the darkness and the fact that near the fire — a bright landmark for anyone who would like to hunt for teenagers — they are in full view, and all sorts of sounds were heard from the side.
Together with all this, the full moon that had already reigned high in the sky by that time, watching them so intently with a cold, alien look, simply resembled the beginning of some kind of horror movie. Almost starting a panic, she persuaded them to discard this idea and scatter around the tents in order to get ready for bed.
Someone
There were two tents. The doves, as expected, went to their tent together; after a fun day spent together, one can already tell from them that they quarreled at all, besides, they couldn’t have scattered to sleep in different tents, even if they quarreled terribly.
Although Lena and Sergey were not a couple, they knew each other since childhood and often spent the night at each other’s houses, so without even thinking about it, they went to the second one. Gray almost immediately lay down on his side against the wall and poked around in the phone, despite the lack of mobile communications in the forest, which is not at all surprising; while Lena sat silently at the entrance and, unzipping the zipper of the tent, peacefully looked at the full moon passing by, thinking that she would hardly be able to sleep today after such a busy day.
The light in the neighboring “dwelling” had already gone out for about twenty minutes and time slowed down. After a while, she noticed that her companion had also fallen asleep and she was left alone with her thoughts and the whispers of the wild.
The silence was broken by a sudden loud rustle and crunch nearby. The sounds were intermittent, as if someone stealthily, looking in the dark for direction, made his way through the dry grass through the broken branches in their direction.
Hidden, Lena tried to understand what or who it could be. His heart began to beat furiously in his chest. She did not know what to expect, but she could not be ready for such a thing, and therefore she became very scared. I wanted to scream, waking up the others, but having proven herself to be always brave and the first to climb into the fire, roughly speaking, she could not afford such weakness, but when she realized that these sounds were rapidly approaching them, she nevertheless decided to shout, but already it was late.
The ligaments became as if paralyzed — they simply refused to make sounds, and she sighed helplessly. A moment later, she climbed into the tent and, fastening the door behind her as quickly as possible, simply waited.
The effect of surprise did its job — she was frightened in earnest, but regaining her composure a little, she immediately caught herself thinking that perhaps the night acoustics played a cruel joke on her, because any noise at night always seems louder and clearer than during the day , and these sounds were made simply by a hedgehog or some other nocturnal forest dweller, walking along the forest edge and busy with their own affairs, and there was really nothing to fear at all, but she was still afraid to give out her location and somehow make noise and tried sit as quietly as possible.
The noises seemed to subside and the next two minutes, waiting for the unknown, turned out to be really tense. Still trying not to make noise, Lena lay down with her favorite backpack under her head and before she could close her eyes she heard a nasty grinding sound — someone or something was scratching the dense polyester fabric of the tent — that was the only thing that separated her from what she wanted climb them outside.
Instantly numb with fear, completely losing control of her body, she mechanically grabbed five of her nails into Sergei’s hand lying next to him, from which he woke up with a scream.
− Hey! What the hell are you doing? he blurted out harshly.
There was no answer, and despite the fact that twilight reigned around — only the full moon slightly illuminated the tent inside with a dim light, through a sieve of material — he, looking at her, saw her eyes filled with horror.
His girlfriend stared at the roof of the tent without blinking and did not respond to questions, so the only right decision was to turn on the flashlight on her phone in order to understand where she was looking. The clock on the screen showed three minutes past midnight. Turning on the flashlight, he pointed it at the dome of the tent, in an attempt to at least understand something.
Lena, meanwhile, began to recover a little, but her gaze was still directed at the source of those sounds, looking through, as it were.
She so carefully looked for evidence that she had not lost her mind and that she had not heard all this, but before she had time to finish this thought, something smoothly descended onto the roof, bending it in the form of a human hand with thin, long fingers and sharp claws, each of which, having dug in, made a hole in what seemed to be quite dense material. The screams that filled everything around woke up the neighbors, and Dima immediately ran out into the street, shining a lantern through the night of his comrades (Nastya did not dare to go out, but only pressed her shoulders to her knees, whispering something under her breath, obviously afraid of what she expected at the beginning days).
− Are you out of your mind? It’s still the middle of the night! – thundered a nervous question from Dima.
But Lena’s hysteria cannot be appeased. When Seryoga heard that there would be more than one outside, he also decided to go out. For the next two minutes, ignoring his friend and not answering his questions about what had happened, he zealously examined every bush and branch around the campsite with a flashlight to make sure that “it” was gone.
Gasping for breath, he tried to explain to Dima what had happened, at the same time throwing all the things into the backpack, not even trying to make an analysis of whether these were his things or not. He didn’t really believe in Sergey’s words and even grinned in his usual manner, but after seeing the holes in the tent and the obvious imprint of a thin, bony hand that left something like a burn on the flat surface of the material, he abruptly rushed into his tent and began to collect things commanding his girlfriend to immediately start doing the same.
In less than five minutes, all four, leaving the tents and a good half of the things they brought with them, made their way through the dense, dark forest, now and then throwing flashlight beams from the phones in different directions, without even realizing what they were running from and what to expect. The oppressive silence around, except for their cries, the crunch of branches under their now clumsy feet, and the gloom echoing their voices hundreds of meters away, did not allow them to relax for a second, and given the recent events, it intensified horror even more, but now fifteen minutes later, the whole company safely got out of the forest and quickly headed towards the house.
The way home
The way back — from the forest and home — took four times less time, since they did not spend it on leisurely chatter, stopping every now and then when someone started laughing, holding their stomachs and stopping, in which they took group photos or “selfies”. Everyone walked as fast as they could, and thanks to this, already closer to one in the morning they reached the familiar street where Dima and Nastya lived — she turned out to be the closest of everyone in the company.
The street was located on the outskirts of the city, so there was no sufficient lighting along it and right next to the house itself, which made it possible to feel at least in some kind of safety. Having experienced severe stress, it was not surprising for everyone that no one wanted to go to their home, since for this they would be forced to split up and do the rest of the way alone, and this was out of the question.
The apartment that Dima’s parents left for him for the summer when they left to live in a dacha was located on the ground floor of an old two-story house that had seen a hard life, dating back to the distant Soviet times, into the entrance of which all the guys hurried to enter without further ado, and climbing to the apartment, immediately lock the door behind you with all kinds of locks.
For the next forty minutes in the kitchen, where all the guys sat on chairs and even on the floor, there was complete silence. No one dared to speak first, but each of them had plenty of thoughts in their heads about what really happened after all.
Dima, who was the best of all, got up and turned on the coffee machine, as it is absolutely necessary now to cheer up and put his thoughts in order, and it does not matter that the clock hand was approaching two in the morning.
There were no curtains on the windows. Only thin translucent tulle, behind which you can see exactly the same depressing picture: a dim lamp on a lamppost near the entrance to the entrance, located directly opposite the window, as well as a lonely broken wooden bench, in which the pillars dug into the ground have already completely rotted and could not even withstand a heavy plank beam, which closed them together.
No one showed much desire to come close to the window. Nevertheless, each of those present cast wary glances out the window at any breath of wind, movement of the shadows of branches or wires hanging from a pole.
It was simply impossible to relax.
The second time the silence was broken by the sound of coffee pouring into cups. Almost an hour had passed since they arrived at the apartment, but no one had uttered a single word, but the anticipation of hot, strong coffee cheered up the members of this quiet community a little, and Dima decided to interrupt this silent movie, but since he couldn’t find any other words, he decided to start saying at least something, in the hope that his comrades would support him:
«Well, that was out of the ordinary…» He had barely finished his sentence when there was a knock on the door like a bolt from the blue. It is not difficult to assume that not only him, but also all those present at that moment, the insides simply broke off, becoming a heavy burden. Three knocks on the door with a long enough pause — about a second — were very strange.
«Who does that anyway?» — for sure, these thoughts would have flashed through the head of at least one of them, if it all happened under less frightening circumstances.
Usually people make either three or four quick knocks on the door or ring the bell.
For a while, no one could move, but then common sense got the better of the situation, and the landlord decided to go check who was there.
— You never know, maybe a neighbor has come — situations are different, — as if answering a question posed to him, he spoke into the same silence. Cautiously approaching the door, he looked through the peephole. The landing was lit by a fluorescent lamp, which allowed him to see everything that was happening behind the door, but he could not see anyone behind it. Continuing to watch for a few more seconds, he closed the lid of the peephole and had already turned around, returning back to the kitchen to the guys, when the same three knocks on the door immediately sounded again. A loud and distinct knock right behind him, behind a thin, old wooden door. He was afraid to open and meet face to face with an uninvited guest, but he did not know what to do next either.
Who did they bring along? What does he want? There was still no one to be seen through the peephole. Was this knocking at all, or was it some kind of collective paranoia that they successfully infected each other with, after which they still continued to whip up this whole nightmare themselves?
I remember that someone from the company also said that they saw some kind of half-blurred silhouette of a girl in a white torn dress somewhere outside the window. Was it true, or a simple play of shadows, warmed up by the imagination, or just their own reflection in the glass, distorted by a frightened consciousness — it was impossible to say for sure, but none of them left the feeling that someone was watching them closely from the other side of the glass.
Perhaps one can somehow blame alcohol and the wild imagination of adolescents for everything, but that terrible imprint of a bony hand with long, thick claws on it, which pierced and almost burned through the roof of the tent, cannot be denied.