Message Failed to Send // Book Five

» Chapter 2

---- From chapter 13, Text Me Back ----

W: So
W: You play piano in your sleep
W: Good to know

----

Wally didn't believe in ghosts. He didn't. It wasn't his fault that that belief was a little less firm during witching hour in Wayne Manor. Ghosts real or not, the place was haunted.

It's fine, he quoted to himself, this is fine. I'm okay with the events that are unfolding currently.

He closed his eyes tightly, still unable to bring himself to actually sit up and prove to himself that there was a perfectly, logical, sane reason behind this. He couldn't feel Dick next to him anymore, and that was fine; he'd probably been unable to sleep and had gotten up to do some work. It's not like he had been kidnapped by ghosts.

Wally was a logical person to a fault, sure he did some stupid things sometimes, like fall in love with his best friend, but there was always a method to his madness, even if it was a dumb one. He couldn't bring himself to believe in the supernatural, but he also couldn't deny it when faced with direct evidence.

And the soft, haunting melody of Liebesleid drifting through the manor at 3-something AM was pretty damning evidence at the moment.

Alright, alright, this is fine. Just think about it logically, he urged himself. His hands were clenching the bed sheets at his sides, and his stomach gave an uncomfortable roll.

The scientific method demanded he investigates. He really didn't want to, unsure how he'd react to his entire scientifically sound belief system crumbling to the ground around him, but whatever. What's the worst that could happen?

He was probably still half-asleep, despite his heart rate being through the roof, but he moved through Dick's room and into the hall with dimmed ease. He didn't even stall by getting dressed, running his fingers nervously through his sleep-tousled hair, shirtless and in his jeans from the day before.

It was almost like his curiosity had overtaken his logical reasoning skills, and he suddenly felt the urge to take back everything he's ever said about horror-movie characters.

Who- or what- the fuck plays piano at 3am?

The flashlight on his phone illuminates his path through the royally decorated hallways as he tries to ignore the tapping on the large windows, boney shadows on the outside. He knows it's just a tree, he knows that. Wayne Manor has always been a haunted building, both in reality and the media, Wally just usually felt in the know about the inhabitants that stalked the halls. Every news broadcast, YouTube video, and article he's ever sent to Dick with mocking hilarity is speeding through his mind now, trying to figure out what's Dick fucking with guests at a Galla and what could actually be a ghost. Or a demon. Oh God, what if its a demon? Do demons play piano?

The music gets louder the closer he gets, and he nearly jumps out of his skin when the door closed to him swings open slightly with the loud groan of disturbed wood.

He stumbles back, dropping his phone, which lands with the light pointing up, tripping over his feet and falling backwards through the door on the other side of the hallway. He scrambles back blindly, his heartbeat pulsing in his hands, his throat.

His back hits something solid, and he realizes with a cold wash of fresh terror that the music is so close, he's right next to it. His hands come around his back, hoping for a wall but feeling the engraved wood of the leg of a grand piano instead.

Ideas- thoughts- ran through his head like a casino slot machine, and he childishly insists that if he doesn't look, nothing will happen. Like when a looney-toon character runs off a cliff or when you avoid telling your best friend you're in love with him.