The Quiet Between Us
By Olivia Salter
Assembled from the diary of Nia Calloway, Whitmore Hall, Room 2B.
Entry 1: August 3, 2024 – 10:17 p.m.
Dear Journal,
Day one at Whitmore College. My side of Room 2B is already cluttered. Books. Polaroids. My lucky throw blanket.
The other bed is made but untouched. Just one thing: a yellow Post-it on the closet door.
“Hi. I’m Ava. Don’t mind the quiet.”
Not sure if that’s a joke. Or a warning.
- Nia
Entry 2: August 4, 2024 – 11:40 p.m.
Ava arrived.
She’s… different. Think 90s-grunge poetry major in a sea of business majors. Talks softly, like sound bothers her.
She told me she’s studying “the resonance of silence.” I laughed. She didn’t. Then she said:
“Silence isn’t the absence of sound. It’s the sound you don’t survive.”
I nodded like I understood. I didn’t.
- Nia
Entry 3: August 7, 2024 – 1:13 a.m.
Woke up to the sound of frantic scribbling. Ava was hunched over her journal—writing so fast her hand blurred. Whispering under her breath.
When I called her name, she froze. Didn’t look up. Just turned off her desk lamp.
In the dark, I swear I heard her say:
“They’re listening now.”
- Nia
Entry 4: August 8, 2024 – 7:26 p.m.
She writes constantly. I asked what it’s about. She said, “I’m mapping the silence.”
She has a mirror on her desk—framed in brass, old, heavy-looking. She stares into it when she’s not writing.
“Where’d you get it?” I asked.
“It was left here,” she said. “Room 2B always keeps it.”
That night, the mirror was facing my bed. I turned it.
Next morning, it was facing me again.
- Nia
Entry 5: August 10, 2024 – 12:45 a.m.
I read a page of Ava’s journal.
I shouldn’t have. But I did.
The handwriting looked like mine. Same loops, same uneven “a.” The text:
“Don’t let the mirror see you sleep.”
“Nia will break before she bends.”
“The last girl didn’t listen either.”
Who was the last girl?
I confronted her. She only said:
“The mirror chooses who it keeps.”
- Nia
Entry 6: August 11, 2024 – 3:07 a.m.
I saw someone in the mirror tonight.
Not Ava. Not me. Someone else.
A girl with a burn scar down her neck, staring back at me like she was waiting for permission.
When I turned around, the room was empty. But the mirror?
Still had her in it.
- Nia
Entry 7: August 12, 2024 – 5:31 p.m.
Tried to talk to our RA, Jordan. Told her weird stuff was happening in 2B.
She sighed. “You’re not the first to say that.”
Then, softer: “Two semesters ago, Ava’s roommate went home mid-term. Never said why. Just vanished. Some say she never made it back.”
I asked Ava about it. She said:
“Some people don’t belong on this side of silence.”
- Nia
Entry 8: August 13, 2024 – 9:52 p.m.
I covered the mirror with a sheet. Ava didn’t say a word.
Next morning, the sheet was folded neatly at the foot of my bed. A note rested on top:
“Closer.”
- Nia
Entry 9: August 14, 2024 – 11:59 p.m.
I dreamed I was inside the mirror.
The hallway stretched forever. Doorless. Flickering lights. Ava walked ahead of me, backward, smiling.
Whispers echoed around me: closer, closer, closer.
I woke up with the word carved—yes, carved—into the side of my wooden desk.
“CLOSER.”
- Nia
Entry 10: August 16, 2024 – 2:11 a.m.
Tonight, I watched Ava write again. This time, she cried while doing it.
I whispered, “Ava, are you okay?”
She didn’t look up. Just said:
“You’re almost through.”
Then she reached into the mirror.
Her hand vanished up to the wrist. She pulled it back a second later, wet. Like she touched a pond no one else could see.
She smiled.
I didn’t.
- Nia
Entry 11: August 17, 2024 – 7:02 p.m.
She’s gone.
All her stuff remains—clothes, books, even her toothbrush. But her journal is gone.
I asked the RA. “Ava?” she said. “We haven’t had anyone named Ava in that room this semester.”
I showed her the Post-it. The RA’s face changed. “That’s… that’s from two years ago.”
- Nia
Entry 12: August 18, 2024 – 1:41 a.m.
I found a note taped behind the mirror. Faded ink. Same handwriting as Ava’s journal.
“Once you see them, they see you.”
“The mirror isn’t a reflection. It’s a window.”
“And they’re always watching.”
I wanted to scream. But I didn’t.
Because I saw movement in the mirror again. Not a face. A hand.
Waving.
- Nia
Entry 13: August 20, 2024 – 4:33 a.m.
The mirror hums at night.
Not audibly. I feel it. In my bones. Like bass with no sound.
I tried sleeping in the common room. The mirror was there. On the couch.
I don’t know how it followed me. But it did.
- Nia
Entry 14: August 22, 2024 – 3:03 a.m.
I gave in.
I wrote in the blank journal. The one Ava left.
I don’t remember what I wrote. My hand moved without me. But when I came to, there were pages and pages of text.
One line repeated over and over:
“We live where silence breaks.”
- Nia
Entry 15: August 23, 2024 – 11:11 p.m.
Ava returned.
She stepped through the mirror like it was a curtain. Her eyes were gray. Blank. Like dust-covered glass.
She said, “It’s your turn.”
I nodded.
I don’t know why.
- Nia
Final Entry: No Date
If you're reading this, I’ve already crossed over.
There is no time here. No sound. Only presence.
You’ll feel it too. That weight behind your eyes. That feeling you’re not alone when you know you are.
That’s the mirror calling. It remembers everyone who looks too long.
It remembers you.
Room 2B is waiting.
- Nia
