I moved into the room because it was cheap, silent, and forgotten.
The landlord said no one had lived there for years.
"That's why it's peaceful," he smiled, avoiding my eyes.
The room was small—one bed, one table, one window that barely let light in. The walls were painted white, but the white felt… tired. Like it had seen too much.
The first night, I slept without dreams.
The second night, the room breathed.
I didn't hear it with my ears.
I felt it—slow, steady, like lungs expanding behind the walls.
I told myself it was stress.
On the third night, I noticed the mirror.
I was sure it hadn't been there before.
It stood beside the door, tall and thin, with a black wooden frame scratched by something sharp. I stared at my reflection. It stared back.
But a second later.
I blinked. The delay was subtle—too small to prove, too large to ignore.
That night, I dreamt of myself standing in the room, watching me sleep.
By the fifth night, the room knew my routine.
The light flickered exactly when I lay down.
The window creaked exactly when I closed my eyes.
And the mirror—
The mirror started smiling before I did.
I tried covering it with a cloth.
In the morning, the cloth was folded neatly on the table.
I tried turning the mirror toward the wall.
At night, I woke up to the sound of wood scraping.
It was facing me again.
Closer.
The sixth night was worse.
I woke at 3:17 a.m.
The room was darker than usual. The air felt thick, heavy, like it didn't want to move. My chest tightened.
Then I heard my name.
Not whispered.
Remembered.
The walls didn't speak with a voice. They spoke with memory. With familiarity.
"I know you," the room said.
I screamed.
The sound died before reaching the door.
The mirror showed something new that night.
My reflection had dark circles under its eyes.
I didn't.
My reflection's lips moved.
I didn't.
"You left me here," it said.
I didn't sleep anymore.
I stayed awake, counting cracks on the ceiling, listening to the breathing walls. Every night, the mirror moved closer to my bed.
Every night, the room felt smaller.
Hungry.
On the ninth night, I found something carved into the wall behind the mirror.
Words.
Scratched deep, angry.
"DO NOT LET IT REMEMBER YOU."
My hands shook.
That was when I remembered the accident.
The hospital.
The screams.
The fire.
And the room I survived.
The room that burned.
The memories hit me like broken glass.
I had been trapped in a room once.
A room where someone else didn't escape.
Someone who looked like me.
The mirror cracked.
My reflection stepped forward.
"You lived," it said.
"I stayed."
The walls closed in.
The door vanished.
The window sealed itself.
The room breathed faster.
I begged.
The room didn't care.
Rooms don't feel guilt.
They remember.
The mirror shattered.
Pain exploded through my body.
Then—
Silence.
I woke up standing.
In the mirror.
The room was clean again.
White.
Empty.
The door opened.
A new tenant stepped inside.
He looked tired.
Hopeful.
I smiled before he did.
The room breathed
Chapter 2: The Things the Room Kept
I wasn't alone.
The room had waited for me, and now, quietly, it was learning him too. The new tenant was careful at first, placing his bag by the bed, hesitating at the window. He ran a hand along the wall. Too smooth. Too cold. Too… alive.
I watched from the mirror. I could still move through it, unseen, feeling the weight of the walls breathing. The air had a rhythm now, slow and deliberate, almost… patient. It remembered my past, my nights of fear, my shattered sleep. And it would teach him the same.
He unpacked clothes into the closet. A shirt fell, brushing the floor. I waited. The mattress sighed under his weight—the same mattress I had slept on. The room liked that sound. It meant life. And hunger.
That night, the light flickered before he turned off the lamp. The mirror tilted ever so slightly toward him. He noticed it and frowned. A shadow passed behind him in the reflection, but when he spun around, there was nothing. He whispered to himself: "Just my imagination." The room smiled in silence.
At 2:43 a.m., he woke. I could feel the pulse of his fear, tiny but fast, like a bird trapped in a cage. The window creaked. The door moaned. The walls leaned closer, curious. And the mirror… the mirror blinked. Not his reflection. Something behind it. Watching. Waiting.
"You can't hide," it said.
He froze. I wanted to warn him. But the room remembered me first. It didn't care about mercy. Only memory.
He pulled the sheet over his head, but the walls whispered against it. He heard the scratching, soft at first, then urgent: "Do not forget. Do not escape." His heartbeat thundered, his palms sweating on the thin blanket. The mirror's frame scratched itself, slowly, deliberately, as if sharpening claws.
By the fifth night, the room had learned his routine.
Lights switched off when he closed his eyes.
The window groaned when he inhaled.
And the mirror… moved closer every time he blinked.
I remembered that feeling too well. I tried to wake him once, but the walls folded around me. My voice dissolved into the ceiling, the floor, the air itself. The room would not allow interference. It wanted him scared in its own way, just like it wanted me.
One morning, he found a note tucked under the mattress. Not written by hand, but scratched deep into the paper: "I know you. I remember."
He laughed nervously, thinking it a prank. But the air thickened. The mirror reflected not just him, but shadows of everything it had trapped before. Figures like me. Figures who hadn't left. The room hummed faintly, like a throat clearing.
That night, he dreamt of falling through walls. The mirror leaned, silently, showing him fragments of a life he didn't know existed. Faces twisted in pain. Smiles that weren't smiles. And then—my face. Watching. Waiting. I mouthed words he didn't hear, words he didn't understand: "It remembers everything."
He woke screaming at 3:17 a.m., the same time I once had. The room enjoyed symmetry. He covered his ears. I floated close in the mirror's glass, a shadow behind his reflection, pressing close. He saw my eyes. Empty. Familiar. Hungry.
"You lived," I whispered silently, and now I wait.
The mirror's surface rippled, showing him every memory the room had stolen from me. The fire, the screams, the hospital. Shadows of someone else, someone trapped in the white walls. And the walls—oh, they tightened, swallowing sound, light, hope.
He tried to leave. The door vanished. The window sealed. The air thickened. Breaths came too fast, too heavy, the room alive and aware. I remembered that panic, the desperation, the impossibility. He was mine to guide now—or to break.
By the seventh night, the room whispered his name. Not a question. Not a warning. Recognition. Familiarity. It remembered him the way it remembered me. And it waited for the moment when he would look into the mirror and see:
Not himself.
Not me.
But what the room had kept.
And I smiled.
Because the room was patient.
Hungry.
And it never forgot.