BETWEEN ME AND YOU

THE SILENCE

Banjo sat at the edge of the bed, his shirt clinging to his skin, his mind replaying the night like a broken reel.

Kristine was still asleep. Her breathing had steadied sometime before dawn, shallow but rhythmic, the kind that keeps a man tethered to hope.

Banjo Gomez hadn’t moved from her side all night. He couldn’t. The compass, shattered and dim, rested on the nightstand like the remains of something sacred and dangerous.

When the first gray light crept across the floorboards, Kristine woke up, and she stirred. Banjo leaned forward instantly "Kristine?”

Her eyes fluttered open... slowly, like a curtain being pulled back on a long-forgotten stage. There was warmth there, sure, but it wasn’t the kind that Banjo was familiar with. It felt older, heavier, like a warmth that belonged to the past rather than the present.

Then she smiled. “Banjo,” she said softly. “My love.”

The voice...he knew that voice.

But it wasn’t hers. It came from deeper inside her, worn and rough with sorrow. The timbre, the rhythm, the way the word "love" curled at the edges, he’d heard it once before, in the chapel by the lake, from a man who no longer breathed.

Rico’s voice.

Banjo froze, his pulse stuttering. “Kristine…” He tilted her head, but still smiled faintly.

“You waited for me.” His stomach turned. “Stop. That’s not you talking. it's not you...”

Kristine expression faltered, just slightly, but the eyes that met his weren’t frightened. They were tender. Knowing.

“I’ve missed you,” she whispered. “I tried to reach you so many times. Through her dreams, through the storm, through...”

“Stop it!” Banjo’s voice cracked. He stood so suddenly from the chair. "I am not your "Rico". He’s gone.”

Kristine flinched as if the words had struck her. “Why are you shouting at me?” she asked in a trembling whisper. “You said you’d never let me go.”

Her words cut through him like thin glass. He took a step back, shaking his head. “No. I said I’d help her remember you, not become you.”

But the air between them was already changing. A faint vibration rippled through the room, like the hum before thunder. The curtains stirred without wind. The mirror on the far wall trembled in its frame. Kristine’s pupils dilated, swallowing the color of her eyes.

When she spoke again, it was both of them...two voices layered together, one echoing the other.

“She’s tired, Banjo. She doesn’t want to fight anymore. Let her rest.”

He backed toward the door. “Get out of her.” A soft laugh slipped from her lips..not cruel, but heartbreakingly familiar.

“Out of her? You bound us, remember? Forever binds..."

The compass on the nightstand gave a faint tick. Banjo’s gaze darted to it. Though broken, one half of the needle trembled faintly, as if trying to rise.

Kristine or whatever looked out through her eyes, followed his stare. “You tried to destroy the bridge,” she murmured. “But the bridge isn’t metal or glass. It’s a promise. And promises don’t die.”

Banjo Gomez swallowed hard, voice low. “If you can hear me, Kristine… I’m going to fix this.”

Her lips parted, and for just a moment, he thought he saw her again—his wife, looking frightened and desperate. “Banjo, don’t let him...”

Then her body convulsed. She gasped once, twice, her hands clawing at her throat as if choking on air, and too heavy to breathe.

Banjo rushed forward, grabbing her shoulders. “Kristine! Stay with me!”

Her eyes rolled back, and from deep inside came that voice again, fainter this time, soaked in grief:

“She called me back. But she opened something else.”

Banjo shook his head, panic clawing up his throat. “Then tell me how to close it!”

The lights flickered. The compass cracked further, a single shard of glass sliding off and striking the floor like a drop of rain.

Kristine’s head fell forward. When she looked up again, her face was streaked with tears...but her eyes were empty.

“Banjo,” she whispered, in her own voice this time, small and terrified. “He’s not alone.” The room went utterly still.

Then, from somewhere deep inside the house, beneath the floorboards, or perhaps behind the walls, came the unmistakable sound of footsteps. Slow, we and heavy...

Banjo turned toward the sound, but his legs refused to move. The silence between each step felt like a held breath, and in that silence, he realized the worst thing of all: They weren’t footsteps moving toward the bedroom.

They were pacing.

Waiting. Then the footsteps didn’t fade.

They moved in slow, careful circles, almost as if they were taking the house's measure, counting its breaths, and memorizing its edges. Banjo stood in the doorway, listening intently. The air felt heavy, as if the house itself was holding onto a secret.

Kristine lay motionless on the bed behind him. She didn’t dare to look back, afraid of what she might see in her eyes, or what she might not.

Another sound joined the footsteps. A faint scratching. From the walls.

He moved into the hall, barefoot on cold wood, the floor creaking under his weight. Every light he passed flickered as though reluctant to stay awake.

“Rico?” he whispered, hating the tremor in his voice. “If it’s you… stop this.”

But the house answered with silence. Then a door creaked open at the far end of the corridor, just slightly, enough for a sliver of black to show. He reached for the nearest object, a candlestick from the hall table, and advanced. The closer he came, the colder the air grew. When he pushed the door open, the darkness inside felt thick enough to touch.

It was the old study room. Dust had gathered like fog across every surface. And there, in the far corner, the wallpaper bulged outward, as though something were pressing from the other side. A single thump echoed through the wall. Then another. A heartbeat, slow and deliberate.

Inside the house. Kristine was standing in a field of white. Not snow, but in a mist. It coiled around her legs, soft and warm as breath. Voices murmured somewhere close, but when she turned, there was no one.

“Banjo?” Her voice barely made a sound. It was swallowed instantly by the haze.

Then a hand brushed her shoulder. She spun, and saw him. "Rico..."

He looked younger than she remembered, like the day they first met. His smile trembled with sadness.

“You shouldn’t have brought him here,” Rico said gently.

Kristine’s chest ached. “I didn’t. You...”

“You called me,” he interrupted, eyes filled with something like pity. “You kept calling, even after I was gone. Every prayer, every dream. That’s how the door opened.”

Kristine shook her head, tears made her throat burned. “I just wanted to say goodbye...”

Rico stepped closer. “And now you’ve trapped yourself between two worlds.”

The mist pulsed...something moving beneath it and circling. Kristine slowly raised her hand, to reach for his hand. “Then help me to close it.”

Rico hesitated. “I can’t. It’s stronger than us now. But he can.”