CH4

I stared at the bare wall where the mirror had been, trying to convince myself it was possible for something that heavy to vanish without a sound. The plaster still showed a faint, cleaner rectangle—proof the glass had hung there only hours ago—but the new words carved across the crackle of old paint stole all my attention:

You shouldn't have asked

I reached out, fingertips brushing the letters. The surface felt wrong—warmer than it should, almost pliable. My palm sank a fraction of a millimetre, as if the wall itself breathed beneath the skin of paint and plaster. I snatched my hand back, heart pounding.

A muffled footstep sounded in the hall.

I spun, flung the door open.

Nobody.

The corridor light flickered once, humming its neon complaint. Empty. Still.

I exhaled, edged the door shut—then caught the flash of white at my feet. A scrap of paper lay half‑tucked under the threshold, words lurching across it in the same hurried, familiar scrawl:

It knows now.

The paper felt damp, like someone had held it too long. I crushed it in my fist, throat tight.

I hadn't planned on talking to anyone, yet an hour later I found myself in a grey fabric chair opposite Dr Mahir, the university wellness officer. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead; the smell of instant coffee clung to the carpet.

He folded his hands, smiling the kind of practiced smile you see in brochures. "So, Adam, tell me what's on your mind."

The walls are breathing and my mirror disappeared.

I said, "Just… the usual first‑year stress, I guess. New city. Hard to sleep."

He nodded, jotting something. "Homesickness is normal. Any nightmares? Trouble concentrating?"

Nightmares. The word sat heavy on my tongue, but I forced a shrug. "Sometimes."

More notes. He asked about caffeine, workload, support systems. I answered in half‑truths, all the while feeling the office shrink around me, drywall tightening like a fist.

Finally he closed the file. "Try grounding techniques," he said. "Breathe, write your thoughts down—get them out of your head." He offered a thin pamphlet. Finding Balance: Mindfulness for Students.

I took it with numb fingers, thanked him, and left.

My phone buzzed before I reached the stairwell. Unknown number:

You lied again.

The screen dimmed. Battery 63 %. I'd charged it all night.

Exhaustion won. I crashed face‑down on the bed after lunch, shoes still on. Sleep grabbed me by the collar and dragged me under.

I dreamt of my room—but wrong. Floor where the ceiling should be, desk nailed sideways to the wall, bed floating inches above my head like a trapped balloon. And on what should have been the floor, the missing mirror hung upside‑down, a dark sheet of glass glinting with sickly light.

Its surface puckered, rippled… blinked.

An eye. Enormous, lidless, centred on me.

Voices swarmed: whispers in English, Arabic, languages I couldn't place—some of them in my own voice, mocking, pleading, overlapping until they were one pulsing hiss. I pressed my hands to my ears. No use.

Something in the inverted room began to weep. Soft, stumbling sobs—like a child who'd worn out its tears long ago but hadn't yet learned silence. I floated toward the wall, ear drawn to the sound. Plaster felt slick beneath my cheek, vibrating with that sorrow.

The child's cry twisted, thinning into a high, keening note that drilled into bone. I tore myself away—fell—and jolted awake, gasping for air that felt too thick to swallow.

Sunset bled through the curtain. My pillow was wet with sweat.

On the wall above the desk, fresh words had appeared in broad, shaky strokes:

You were there too.

My hands shook so hard I nearly dropped my phone trying to check the time. 6:07 p.m. I had slept four hours—yet felt I'd been gone much longer.

I needed answers.

I stepped into the hallway and crossed to 311, knuckles rapping before I lost courage. A moment later, the door opened a hand's width. She peered out: silver hair in disarray, deep lines scoring her cheeks, eyes ringed with sleepless shadows.

"You heard it." Her voice rasped, more statement than question.

"The mirror's gone," I blurted. "The wall—"

She exhaled, weary. "You think it started when you moved in, but it's been here long before us."

"What is it?"

Her gaze slid past me, toward 313. "Memory," she whispered. "This place remembers the people who try to forget. The more fear you feed it, the louder it speaks."

I swallowed. "How do I make it stop?"

"You don't." She began to close the door. "But you can starve it."

My foot shot forward, blocking the frame. "Please—at least tell me your name."

She hesitated, as though recalling something distant. "Miriam," she said. "And you'd best sleep with the lights on, Adam."

Before I could ask more, she pressed my shoe aside with surprising strength and shut the door.

I stood there, pulse drumming in my ears, until the hallway light flickered again and pushed me back toward my room.

Don't feed it with fear, Adam.

Easy for Miriam to say.

I sat at the desk, notebook open to a blank page. Pen poised.

Write everything? Write nothing?

If ink really kept score, maybe recording the truth was digging my own grave. But not writing felt like surrendering my sanity to the dark.

I chose the lie of control.

23:02 — Mirror still missing. New message on wall ("You were there too"). Met neighbor Miriam; she warned against fear.

The moment I lifted my pen, fresh words bled onto the paper without my hand moving:

Write nothing. Watch everything.

My breath caught. The letters formed in my script yet I hadn't written them. Ink glistened wet.

I pressed harder, tried to scratch them out—paper fibers stretched but did not tear. Like the page was skin, healing beneath the blade.

My mouth tasted metal.

I slammed the notebook shut, shoved it into the bottom drawer, and locked it.

"I don't know if I'm still me anymore," I whispered.

The lamp flickered.

Something in the wall exhaled—long, satisfied.

And the room began, very softly, to breathe with it.