To Stray Too Far From Home (Wally X Reader)

Beautiful Dreamer

Your black boots clacked loudly against the hardwood flooring of your mother's old home, echoing through the building. You didn't know why you were here, but something wasn't right. This place felt off as though something were amiss.

The walls of the Victorian house were covered in old fashioned wallpaper- thankfully not the harsh neon pink kind that you were still finding littered throughout your home, yet still rather ugly in your opinion.

The soothing chorus of a piano descended from the winding staircase, reminding you of why you were here in the first place. Something was calling you and you needed to see what it wanted. This felt significantly vital, the mere thought of turning around and leaving sending tremors down your spine.

With the confident strides of one who knew this place like the back of your hand, you trudged up the stairs, following the melody that drew you in like a moth to flame. You didn't know what would await you once you found the instrument, but it had to be important, you could tell by the very way your soul was tethered to it.

Reaching the top steps you were met with the straight corridor of your childhood home. Phantoms of you and your siblings roughhousing in the hall and getting yelled at by your parents as they accused you of damaging their home played through your mind- it was one dent, okay!

Cautiously, you opened every door within the hall, searching for the fated piano and yet finding nothing. However, you did notice that your's and your sibling's bedrooms were all in the same state they had been in over ten years ago. It was like looking through the lens of time, an eerie sense of nostalgia putting you on edge.

The piano's never ending song began to crescendo as you stood before the final door at the very end of the hall; the entry to the attic. Long ago your mother had ordered you and your siblings to never go up there no matter what- even if the priest she had hired said it was fine, and to further enforce this rule, she bolted the door shut with a lock only she had the key for.

Though looking at it now, there was no keyhole, only the gold plated door knob that enticed you with its sweet promises of unveiling all the secrets of your childhood. And like a naive child realising their parents left the cookie jar out, you took the bait, creaking open the solid rosewood door.

A steep staircase loomed over you threateningly as though it were trying to warn you to turn back now, but curiosity is such a dreadful thing, and the piano chords were chiming such a gentle tune now.

Stumbling up the stairs like a sailor caught in a siren's spell, you finally make it to the top, the rosewood roof overhead, protecting the plentiful amount of cardboard boxes within from the cruelty of mother nature. However, yet again, there was no piano- but it was here! In this room! You could hear it- feel it in your veins as if it were your very blood!

The soothing decrescendo of the instrument assisted you in finding its location over by two boxes separated from the rest right in the centre of the room, illuminated by the small circular window that shone sunlight down onto it.

This scene felt familiar.

Tripping over to the middle of the room, your feet suddenly heavy as though they were stuck in cement, you reached the cardboard boxes the melody was emitting from, your mind too unbelievably fogged up to question how a piano could fit inside something so small.

Subconsciously bringing your hand down to open the flaps of the box, the world was struck with a multitude of colours that blazed in your retinas before swirling and distorting. The sickening dizziness associated with falling disorienting you even more than you already were. Until your palm wrapped around- not the cardboard box- but the colourful, rainbow striped fabric of someone's pants.