"Keep lying."
The words stared back at me, written in my own handwriting. Same pen. Same pressure. Same tilt to the letters. But I didn't write them.
I couldn't have.
I slammed the notebook shut, my fingers trembling against the cover. My chest felt tight, like the air had thickened into something dense and wet. My mouth was dry, and my thoughts—no, my fears—kept circling the same question:
Who's writing in my notebook?
Or worse… what?
The room was too quiet again. I could hear the hum of the light overhead, the soft creak of the old floorboards beneath me, and the faint tapping of my foot against the edge of the bed.
But I could also hear something else.
Breathing.
Not mine.
Too shallow. Too deliberate.
It stopped the moment I noticed it.
I looked at the mirror again. Still crooked. Still hanging there like a half-told secret. I didn't want to approach it, not after what I'd seen. Not after the scratch marks behind it.
But part of me already knew: I wasn't imagining things.
This room—Room 313—was trying to tell me something.
And I wasn't sure if I wanted to know.
I opened the window just to remind myself that the outside world still existed. Cool air slipped in, bringing the distant noise of traffic, a few birds, the faint chatter of students walking back to their dorms.
Normal sounds. Safe sounds.
But the room still felt wrong.
Like it was hiding something beneath the walls and the floor and the silence.
I plugged my phone back in and waited. No vibrations. No screen lighting up. Still dead.
That didn't make sense. It was plugged in all night. I remember checking it before bed.
Unless… no.
I shook my head and paced the small space. Back and forth. Again. Again.
I glanced at the mirror.
Then looked away.
I needed to distract myself. To act normal. To reclaim the night before it swallowed me again.
So I picked up my bag and forced myself to start unpacking properly. A few shirts. My toothbrush. A copy of The Stranger I didn't remember packing. My highlighters.
I found myself checking the mirror's reflection after every item.
No movement.
No figure behind me.
Nothing.
Still crooked though.
The knock on the door nearly stopped my heart.
Three soft taps.
I hesitated before answering. My voice cracked when I said, "Who is it?"
Silence.
I stood, walked to the door slowly, and opened it just a sliver.
No one.
But down the hallway, I caught a glimpse of a girl stepping into her room.
Same woman from earlier. The one who startled me when I first arrived.
Room 311, I think.
She'd looked at me strangely then. Like she knew something I didn't.
I closed the door gently. Locked it. Double-checked the lock.
And then checked it again.
I sat back down at the desk. The notebook was still there, still shut, like a box I wasn't ready to open again.
But my eyes drifted to it anyway.
I don't know why I did it. Curiosity? Fear? Both?
I opened it slowly.
The words were still there. "Keep lying." And just beneath it, now:
"Don't let it know you're afraid."
I blinked. Rubbed my eyes.
Same handwriting.
Same ink.
Same creeping dread in my spine.
I didn't write that.
I didn't write any of this.
I should've run. I should've packed my things and left. Found a new dorm. Gone home. Pretended this never happened.
But I didn't.
Instead, I picked up the pen.
My hand hovered over the page.
And I wrote, "What are you?"
I closed the notebook. My heart was pounding so loud I thought someone might hear it through the walls.
The silence answered nothing.
Sleep didn't come easy that night. I lay on the bed, fully clothed, staring at the ceiling like it might shift or crack open. Every creak in the walls felt like a whisper. Every shift of the floorboards outside made me flinch.
I kept the light on.
I kept the notebook closed.
But the mirror kept watching.
Even as my eyes finally drifted shut, I felt its presence—its quiet, crooked gaze—clinging to the edge of my dreams.
The next morning, the notebook had a new sentence waiting for me.
No sound. No movement. Just… new words.
"It heard you."
That was all.
Just that.
Three words.
And a coldness that settled deep into my bones.
By noon, I was sitting in the campus café, my coffee untouched. My mind wasn't in my body. It was back in that room. Behind the mirror. Behind the wall.
I tried calling Jeff again. Voicemail.
Tried calling my mom. Straight to voicemail.
I checked my phone. Battery at 72%. Nothing should've gone wrong.
And yet, no messages. No missed calls. Like the phone had been cut off from the rest of the world.
Just like me.
A voice interrupted my spiral.
"Adam, right?"
It was one of the students I met yesterday. Lara, I think.
I nodded slowly. "Yeah."
"You alright? You look... like you haven't slept."
I almost told her. Almost said everything.
But the words from the notebook echoed back.
Don't let it know you're afraid.
So I smiled, a poor excuse for one, and said, "Just adjusting."
She nodded. "Dorm life can be weird. Which room you in again?"
"313."
Her face shifted for a second.
A flicker of something—recognition? Discomfort?
But it was gone as quickly as it came.
"Oh. That one," she said, almost too softly. "Well... if you ever need help settling in, let me know."
I nodded. "Thanks."
She left. I didn't finish my coffee.
That night, the mirror was gone.
I came back, opened the door, and it just wasn't there.
No sound. No struggle. No sign of removal.
Just… gone.
But in its place, scratched faintly into the wall:
"You shouldn't have asked."
And for the first time since I arrived, I said something out loud, just to hear my own voice:
"I'm not afraid of you."
I don't know if I was lying.
But the silence around me answered like it believed I was.
And something—somewhere in the walls—started breathing again.