The Memories Within the Walls [Discontinued]

It Sits

"Tommy?"

"Yeah?"

"You didn't happen to bring a guitar with you, right?"

"No? I'm pretty sure I didn't? Any particular reason why?"

"Uh," Tubbo stared at the instrument leaning at the end of his bed, mind racing with questions. "N-no reason!" He called back with a cheerful laugh. Below, he could smell the warm wafting aroma of breakfast. Pancakes, or their third attempt of it that day. "Just thought maybe we could use some music, that's all."

He approached it cautiously, eyebrows knit in confusion. He could've sworn the house was empty of anything except the things they brought in their packs.

"We can listen to music once you find my phone, Tubbo!" Tommy called from downstairs, but the boy didn't hear him. His eyes only continued to stare down this strange wooden instrument.

What would happen if he touched it, he wondered as his fingers hovered over the strings. Would it suddenly disappear? Would his hand pass through it? Or maybe he'll get an electric shock and wake up, and learn it was all just a dream.

Of course, none of that actually happened when his hand got too close, when his fingers extended too far and brushed lightly on the strings with an awful twang.

Tubbo suppressed the bubble of laughter that built up inside him, the fantasy gone. Of course it would be terribly out of tune. All string instruments — mysterious and magical or not — all seem to be out of tune whenever you find them.

With the hunt for the phone left forgotten, he sits down at the end of his bed, twisting the knobs and strumming the metal strings, listening to the cracks as they stretched for the first time in... who knows how long?

With the final string perfected to the best of his ability, Tubbo finally let his thumb graze over the six wires, hearing the jumble of notes organize into a semblance of a chord, as the instrument made its first noise, its first cry out into the world since... Who knows how long?

Those first notes sounded like a sigh. But he didn't notice.

Instead, his fingers began to strum the strings absentmindedly, his other hand tapping the instrument with no discernable pattern in sight.

He played with no rhythm in particular, and yet a rhythm formed anyways. A melody, solemn and sad. Romantic, yet distant. Like a song that was once made for somebody, but that story was faded and lost to time.

"I didn't know you listened to Wilbur Soot!"

Tubbo looked up, startled to see Tommy at the doorway.

"Who?"

"Wilbur Soot! You don't know Wilbur Soot? I thought I couldn't love anymore, Turns out I can't, but not for the same reasons as before." He sang, off-tune but clearly recognizable as the missing words to go with the song. "Nothing?" He asked incredulously. "Seriously?"

"Is that like a new pop star or something?"

"No, he's like... I saw his stuff on my recommended once. He's like, this indie singer, but his songs got millions of views, and they're also really good."

"Yeah," Tubbo shook his head. "That... I don't remember anything like that. And you've never told me about him before."

"Oh, 'Cause it's been years." Tommy said as if it were obvious. "Kinda forgot about him, actually. Oh! Here," He walked over to the bed beside, and unplugged the phone that had been left charging there. "I think I finished the pancakes? Come down and I'll show you some of his other songs."

"Alright!" He replied, watching his friend walk out and back down the stairs. Except Tubbo didn't attempt to get up, instead feeling this familiar yet mysterious object in his hands, this object that he used to play a song that he's never heard before. In the back of his mind, something felt off about it, about the situation. But logic dictated it a coincidence, happenstance, a pure occasion of chance, and so that was the story the boy believed, as he studied the room around him.

And then... he saw it.

A figure in the corner. A yellow jumper, the colour of summer and sunflowers. A grey beanie like cities and asphalt sitting atop of its head. A tuft of hair covering its eyes and its face.

His eyes and his brain couldn't seem to agree. Logic and reality clashed into shock, as Tubbo sat, wide eyed and frozen in place.

It was only when the figure lifted its head an inch, and took a step forward that the boy had the foresight to scream, the guitar dropping from his hands and onto the ground with a hard

thud.