MY ROOM MATE BY ITORO ISAAC

THE NOTEBOOK

Chapter Three: The Notebook

I. The Pages That Shouldn’t Exist

The following morning, I awoke to the sound of pages turning. Not the crisp flutter of new paper, but the leathery drag of old sheets that had grown brittle with time. It was a sound that belonged to libraries, archives, or places where dust lay thick and knowledge had been forgotten.

Blinking against the pale light filtering through the blinds, I lifted my head from the pillow. Elias was awake. He sat cross-legged on his bed, back straight, the crimson notebook spread open across his knees. His hair hung forward like a curtain, hiding most of his face, but his pale fingers traced the words with an almost reverent care.

For a moment, I thought he was whispering again, but when I strained my ears, I realized his lips were still. The whispers were not coming from him. They were coming from the book.

I rubbed my face, forcing myself to speak if only to cut through the unnatural quiet.

“Morning.”

His head snapped up. Too fast. Too sharp. It wasn’t the natural reflex of someone distracted by reading—it was as though a string had been yanked. His gray eyes locked on mine.

“You were awake,” he said softly.

The words weren’t a question.

“I just woke up,” I lied, sitting up in bed. My heart was already thudding. “Couldn’t help hearing the pages.”

He stared a moment longer, then closed the book slowly, like lowering the lid on something dangerous. He slid it under his pillow and laid both hands flat on top of the bedspread, as if to keep it contained.

“This is not yours to hear,” he said at last. His voice was calm, but it carried a weight, a warning that settled heavily in my chest. “Not yours to see.”

A chill crept through me, but I forced a laugh. “Relax, man. I wasn’t planning on stealing your diary.”

Elias tilted his head the slightest fraction, as though he were listening to something only he could hear. Then he turned away, ending the conversation without another word.

---

II. Temptation

The rest of the morning passed in strained silence. Elias didn’t leave the room. He sat for hours at his desk, occasionally opening the drawer to retrieve the notebook, writing furiously for a time, then snapping it shut as though caught in a crime. I busied myself with errands—anything to get away.

I lingered at the café down the street, nursed two cups of coffee I didn’t even want, wandered aisles in the grocery store without buying much. Each time I thought of returning, a knot tightened in my stomach. But eventually, I had to go back.

When I stepped into our room that evening, Elias wasn’t there. His bed was perfectly made, his boots neatly aligned beneath it, as though he had vanished without a trace. Relief washed over me.

But then I noticed the drawer.

It was open just a crack.

My chest tightened. Every instinct screamed at me to ignore it, to let it be. But curiosity gnawed at me like acid. That book had my name in it—I was sure of it. I needed to know why.

I crossed the room, each step heavier than the last, and pulled the drawer open.

The notebook lay inside. The leather cover looked darker than before, glistening faintly in the dim light. My hand hovered above it, trembling. Finally, against every shred of reason, I picked it up.

The instant my fingers touched the cover, the air changed. It grew heavier, colder, as though the room itself had stopped breathing.

I opened the book.

The first pages were filled with scrawls that looked nothing like Elias’s careful handwriting. Jagged letters tore across the paper, words written in overlapping layers, in languages I didn’t recognize. Some I could make out:

“She calls in the night.”

“The window must never open.”

“They will come for what is theirs.”

My throat tightened. I turned more pages. Sketches of faces—warped, distorted, eyes too wide, mouths stretched into silent screams. Some drawings were scratched so hard into the paper that the pen had torn through.

Then I froze.

An entire page filled with my name.

Alex. Written over and over, in neat lines at first, then increasingly frantic, letters slashed into the paper until the page was nearly shredded.

The room tilted around me. My pulse thundered in my ears. I snapped the notebook shut and shoved it back in the drawer.

That’s when I heard the door click.

---

III. Confrontation

Elias stood in the doorway, his gray eyes fixed on me. His face was blank, but his voice carried a quiet, razor-sharp edge.

“You touched it.”

“I—” My mouth was dry. “I was just—”

“You shouldn’t have touched it.”

He stepped forward. I instinctively backed away until my legs hit the bedframe. His eyes glimmered in the low light, sharp as steel blades.

“I told you,” he murmured, “it isn’t yours to see.”

I stammered, “What is it? What’s in there?”

For a long, unbearable moment, he just stared. Then he moved past me, retrieved the notebook, and pressed it to his chest like a child clutching a toy.

When he finally spoke again, his voice was softer, almost… fond.

“You’ll see soon enough.”

Then he smiled.

It wasn’t warm. It wasn’t human. It was the kind of smile that made my skin crawl, the kind of smile you might imagine on a corpse that had just learned how to move its lips.

---

IV. The Night of Whispers

That night, I couldn’t bear to sleep near him. I locked myself in the bathroom, sitting on the cold tiles with my knees drawn to my chest, just to get a few feet of distance. From there, I could still hear him through the thin wall.

At first, it was only the steady scratch of his pen. Hours of writing, relentless and rhythmic.

But sometime past midnight, the sound changed.

It wasn’t writing anymore.

It was whispering.

Dozens of voices. Some low and guttural, others sharp and hissing. All overlapping, all speaking in a language I couldn’t understand. The sound rose and fell like chanting, growing louder until I covered my ears.

But even with my ears covered, I heard them. Inside my head.

I slammed my palm against the floor, desperate to drown it out. And just when I thought I’d break, the whispers stopped.

Silence.

And then a single, crystal-clear voice—right outside the bathroom door.

“Alex.”

I froze, breath shallow.

“Open the door.”

It was Elias’s voice.

But something in it was wrong. The cadence was off, stretched, like his words were being pulled through water.

“Open the door, Alex. It’s time to see.”

I clamped a hand over my mouth, fighting the urge to scream.

The knob rattled once. Then twice.

Then silence.

I stayed there until dawn, my body shaking, my eyes burning from exhaustion. Only when the pale light of morning slipped beneath the door did I finally dare to unlock it.

The bedroom was empty. Elias was gone.

But his bed was unmade for the first time since I’d known him. And on the pillow, laid neatly in the center, was the crimson notebook.

Waiting for me.