Where You're Meant To Be- Larry Stylinson

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 Prologue

“Harry, what are you talking about?” Niall’s voice shook on the other end of the phone. I could hear him breathing out of his mouth, sending staggered and uneven air through to my ear. 

“Niall, it’s four in the morning. Louis isn’t in the flat," I panicked. I was pacing all around the floor of the living room, yanking at my tangled curls and trying to find a way to calm myself down. Tapping my leg, twisting my hair, clawing the palms of my hands. I clutched the receiver as if it would squeeze out an answer or even Louis, himself. Or anything.

“Mate… are you alright?” His voice still quivered when he answered after a long silence. 

"Niall, just tell me! Have you fucking heard from Louis?!" I practically shouted at him, making an echo ring through the phone into my own ear and screech with feedback. I scratched my chin hard, feeling my nails seep into my oiled nervous skin.

EVERYTHING ALWAYS ECHOED WHEN LOUIS WAS AWAY, I heard a voice whisper. It came from my ceiling, maybe, or the floorboards or the walls.

"NIALL?" I yelled again when he didn't answer. 

I LOVE YOU. My knees buckled under me, sending me closer to the hard floor and maybe closer to the whisper.

No, it was definitely coming from the walls. It was surrounding me and consuming me a pulling at all of my limbs. Even when it was silent there was a breath, a pulse, a sense of presence. I held my body inches away from the floor with one shaking hand, holding my breath, along with the phone, in the other and waiting to hear something, anything, other than that whisper.

"Harry, listen to me," Niall's voice was broken.

LET'S ROAM THE FEILDS AND FEAR THE DARK TOGETHER. The walls were screaming now, and the ceiling was joining in. The flat spun around me, morphing it all into wet pottery or water paints or something dripping or seeping or bleeding.

"Harry, are you there?"

FALL OFF SWINGS AND BURN SPECIAL THINGS AND BOTH PLAY OUTSIDE IN BAD WEATHER. I let the receiver fall from my hand and crash onto the floor, sending the batteries rolling under the couch.

"STOP!" I yelled, slamming my palms onto the floor. My eyes ached as a sting arose from them, I couldn't tell if they were falling out or being pushed in or both at the same time.

I waited for Niall's reply, which never came because the phone had shut down when I dropped it. 

LET'S CRY LET'S SWIM LET'S EVERYTHING.

My body was frozen. My hands were clutching the sides of my head as if the bit of pressure I applied to my ears would stop the whispers that were more like screams but were still whispers. If I tried to move I couldn't. If I tried to breath, I was stabbed in the chest.

So I stayed like that, crying and throbbing and shaking until the last whisper came. Right before I blacked out and a bit before Niall and Zayn came thrashing into my flat and found me on the floor. And a long while before I woke up in a white room with white curtains and white walls and white wood work around the one tiny window on the other side. One last whisper before my mind was flooded with memory.

But Louis couldn't be gone. It wasn't possible. I could still smell him and still feel his hand in my own if I closed it the right way. The song of his voice still bounced off the walls in my head and still soothed me to sleep every night. Louis was alive, his heart had never stopped!