Klaus is fifteen, and already his life is a mess. He spends his days either in a drug-induced haze, drunk on stolen liquor, or surrounded by the voices of the dead. His father calls him by a number, and the newspapers call him the Seance. He's been legally dead two times, ten minutes total. People ask him if he sees a light at the end of a hallway, if he speaks to someone, if winged children pat his head and tell him he's destined for something greater. Every time, Klaus tells them truthfully that he doesn't remember.
The umbrella academy has a standard, unfaltering routine. Every day except Sundays, the kids wake at six-thirty in the morning. They brush their teeth and clean up for breakfast at seven, and then they have physical training. This usually consists of conditioning, jumping jacks, and races up and down the stairs, but sometimes they spar in the courtyard. Powers are on the table, except for Ben's. Even Diego is allowed to use a special set of blunt, plastic knives, built by Pogo. Since Klaus is the only child with a power useless in a fight, he nearly always loses.
Physical training lasts until eleven o'clock, at which point the children take their studies, usually with Grace, but sometimes with nearby professors. They learn algebra, calculus, world history, French. Their dear old dad doesn't believe any of this is necessary (the quadratic formula is useless in deterring crime), but he knows social services will be on him in a minute if he deprives his wards of their education.
At precisely one-thirty, the children sit down to eat lunch. Two-fifteen to three o'clock is devoted to more studies, this time the sciences and literature.
Three-fifteen to six-thirty is when the real fun begins. Individual training has always been a divisive thing (figuratively as well as literally). Luther and Five have always loved it, Luther because he's actually eager to be a hero and Five because he's always trying to test the limits of his power. Diego, too, devotes his whole life to practicing his throwing—even during their free time, he doesn't usually sit with the others. Instead, he's set up a target in his bedroom, and all day you can hear the thunk, thunk, thunk of knives hitting canvas. He loves individual training. Allison doesn't really care either way—she's always found her powers easy, natural. And she gets plenty of practice on Mom, Pogo, even her brothers and sister.
Ben and Klaus despise individual training. Ben because he hates to be reminded of what makes him less than human ("More than, Number Six," Reginald always says, "more than human"). Klaus because he hates seeing the dead when he's sober, he hates pretending to see them when he's not, and he hates that there's always the risk of being thrown into the mausoleum.
He's only locked up once every few months, but it's—
It's enough.
After individual training, it's dinner for thirty minutes, and then the children are herded upstairs and to bed.
All meals are silent. All transitions are efficient, or there are punishments. There is no talking or using of powers in the halls between classes or meals. It's a shitty life, as Diego says. No one except Luther ever argues.
When Klaus, Five and Ben look up to see their dear dad standing in the doorway of Five's room, Klaus knows it's a mausoleum day.
"Number Four, Grace cleaned your room this morning, and what she found concerns me greatly," Reginald says after they drop off Five and Ben. There's a certain place each kid goes during individual training—Luther, Five and Allison all work in the courtyard, while Ben has a seperate room with reinforced walls. Reginald works individually with them all once a week, giving them specific tasks to have accomplished by their next meeting. It's Monday, meaning Diego should be getting his training, but it looks like he's going to have the day off. Or maybe their father will teach teenage Diego how to kill people after he's locked Klaus up.
Klaus is fifteen years old, and this is his life. His brothers kill people, his sister manipulates them, and he gets locked up in a crypt to be attacked by ghosts for hours on end. It's a hard-knock life for us, indeed.
What was it that concerned Dad greatly? Was it the drugs, the makeup, the nail polish, or the japanese schoolboy? Klaus wants to ask. Because if it's the schoolboy, it'd be wonderful if he could be escorted from the premises. His crying makes it terribly difficult to sleep. But he knows Reginald isn't expecting an answer.
"This ridiculous fear of your powers must be dealt with, Number Four. You've been blessed with extraordinary things, and it is both pointless and ridiculous to try and get rid of them." Ah. So it was the drugs. "Remember, Number Four, I am helping and guiding you all so that you can save the world when it's needed." Klaus wants to tell them that his power is pretty much useless in that respect. Klaus wants to tell him that he's a sadistic prick, a crazy old man trying to turn a bunch of children into soldiers. Klaus has a lot of things to say to Sir Reginald Hargreeves, but still he stays silent. "It's essential to this that you reach the full potential of your powers, and both you and I know you cannot do that unless you are sober. Since it seems to be impossible for you to lose this drug habit on your own, I believe it's time for more of your special training." Joy.
This is when they turn the corner, and the mausoleum comes into sight. They have one behind their house, and it wasn't, if you can believe it, originally built for Klaus's torture sessions. The Hargreeves family has owned the house for many a generation, and the crypt behind it is the only place acceptable for their dead bodies.
They'd always been a stuck-up family.
Klaus has managed to stay calm during the walk, but now goosebumps erupt all over his skin. He whips around to his father. "Please, sir, I'll—"
"Silence!" Something in Reginald's voice makes Klaus stop short, He's the only person in the world with that effect on Klaus, always has been. "If I hear another word from you in protest, you will have to spend the night."
So Klaus steps into the mausoleum, even though his legs feel like rubber and his feet feel like lead. At the last second, he spins to try and plead out, but Reginald holds up a hand.
"Remember, Number Four, that I wouldn't be forced to do this if you could take control of yourself."
The words send a jolt of shame through Klaus, and he ducks his head just long enough for the heavy stone door to grind shut.
Despite the summer heat outside, the inside of the mausoleum is cold as a grave (ha.) Only a fraction of the dazzling sun makes its way in, and it's through a small, stained window high above Klaus's head. Everything at ground level is cast in a deep, bluish shadow.
In the two hours before the drugs wear off, Klaus is alright. Well, not alright in the way most people say it—he's cold, and the ground is hard, and the dust in the air isn't doing wonders for his uniform, although to be fair, he doesn't care that much about the uniform anyway (if he'd been wearing one of Allison's scarves, things would have been different)—but he knows that this part is easy compared to what's to come.
In the time it takes him to chip the nail polish entirely off his left hand, the first ghost arrives. It's a little girl. South Asian—Indian or Indonesian, or something. There's no blood on her, but her down jacket is torn, and her skin is sallow and stretched over her bones. "Hello," she says. She speaks english with an accent, but he can't tell which.
"Hi, little girl," he says, trying on an uncertain grin and looking up. There's still a faint, pleasant buzz in his head, and that's the only reason he speaks. "What's your name?"
"My name is Nadia," she says. She's more polite than most of them, but knowing Klaus's luck, that's probably a temporary thing. "Do you know where my mama is? I lost her on the mountain."
"Oh, no," Klaus says, wishing already that he hadn't said anything to her at all, "no, no, I'm sorry, I—I can't find your mother. But—but do you want a candy? See," he reaches into the pocket on the inside of his coat. There'd been a mission the other day, and a little girl not unlike this one had given him a peppermint afterwards in thanks. When he was younger, free candy would have been like Christmas come early (one of the Christmases from storybooks, because the Christmases they had were less like peppermints and more like cold oatmeal), but ever since he'd decided to keep the ghosts at bay, appetite hadn't really been at the forefront of his mind. He'd intended to give it to Vanya, but had forgotten, so in his jacket pocket it'd stayed. "I've got a, a nice little mint for you. Here," he says, and places it on the ground with trembling hands.
She steps forward and tries to pick it up. "I can't touch it," she says, and her face crumples up.
"Ah, shit," Klaus mutters, rubbing his face with his hands. "Yeah, I'm sorry, but look at how pretty it is. See?" He reaches for it, keeping his body as far away from the little girl as possible. The final whispers of his high are wearing off, and that's when the ghosts turn vicious.
He flips the mint off his thumb, hoping to make her smile, but she just starts to sob. "Why did you lie to me? Why did you say I could eat it?"
"Well, I mean, in all. . .fairness to me, I didn't exactly say—" he cuts himself off, because this is probably the worst thing to say to a child. The girls starts crying harder.
"I just want my mama! Where is she? Why don't you know?" And now she's coming closer, looking angry instead of terrified.
Shit.
Shit.
It only takes a half hour more before the buzz disappears altogether. That's when the furious, the hungry, the devastated ghosts come, and that's when Klaus can't take it anymore. The thicker the darkness gets, the more desperate the dead become. "Help us, please," they wail, grabbing at him with mangled, formless hands. Klaus has always been the best of the siblings at coming up with scary stories, even better than Five, and it's because of this. All the victims he's seen, the little girls suffocated by starving mothers, the people beaten over the head by best friends gone mad, the people out on the street all night, alone, but not quite as alone as they might have thought, have at least blessed him with an imagination for the ages.
Klaus lives in a world of victims, and they all want help he can't give them. They want revenge, they want another life, they want more time. And once they know he can't give them these things, they hate him for it. They claw at him, bite at him, and when all that fails they just sit there and wail, scream, sob. The noise is too much.
As awful as it is to have empty accusations flung at him, the ones Klaus knows are worse. Or not the ones Klaus knows, but the ones that know him. And him being the Seance, that's more people than Klaus likes.
They've all got something to say. "You're the little shit from the bank that killed me," or "You're supposed to be a fucking hero, seance, so why the hell couldn't you save us," or "my family is dead because you and your superhero siblings were too slow to help them."
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, no no no no no," he whimpers from the cold, shadowed corner. It's so dark he can't even see them coming. And thy come from all directions. He curls up, covering his eyes, covering his ears, but they aren't real, and they crawl through his shields; their screams pierce through his fingers.
He's pathetic, curled into himself like this. Klaus has been in the newspapers, on the cover of comic books. Little kids dress up as him for halloween. "So be. . .a hero," he says to himself. The ghosts roar in reply.
"It's essential that your each the full extent of your powers," Reginald had said. Always said. "You can accomplish great things, Number Four, if only you got over this pointless fear." "Just concentrate, Number Four," "I expected more from you." "You can do better."
"Asshole," Klaus mutters. But he knows there's an element of truth to everything his father says. Maybe he can push the ghosts away. Maybe that's how he can be a hero. Hell, he's a hero already. It's him, him and his brothers and sister, that the world worships. And sure, he's a mess, and sure, he isn't half as powerful as Allison, or Five, or Ben. But maybe he can be that hero, in here, in the Mausoleum, as well as out on the streets. Maybe if he just tries, Klaus can be exactly what the world sees him to be.
So Klaus stands up slowly, using one hand to steady himself against the wall and one hand to keep his eyes covered—he knows he'll lose his nerve if he looks at the ghosts too soon. He leans heavily on the stone as he stands, trying to keep his body as far from the ghosts as possible. "Don't be pathetic, Klaus," he says, but his voice is tiny and it shakes. "Come on, come on. You can do this." And without letting himself stop to think, he pushes himself wildly off the wall and into the ghosts' midst.
Even before Klaus opens his eyes, he can feel that horrible, cold itch that he always gets whenever the ghosts come into contact with him. He makes himself ignore it, though. You just have to make them go away. This is why you're here. This is why you're in the news, in the comic books. Because you can do this. And, with much more force than should be necessary, Klaus opens his eyes.
And, shit.
He's never really ventured from his corner before, not with the ghosts there. So he's never been surrounded, truly surrounded. The victims of murder, suffocating, disease (how come he never gets a sweet old lady? How come he never gets someone that was ready for death?) crowd around him, screaming at him to give them form, give them life, give them peace, screaming at him to do everything he can't do. Too late, Klaus is very aware that he has no plan.
"Go away!" Klaus yells, voice cracking from hours of tears. "Leave me alone!" He remembers training with Reginald—there was a certain feeling in his hands, in his fingers, every time he'd purposely conjured someone. Maybe if he found that feeling again, he could control the ghosts. Make them leave. "Maybe that's what the old man wanted, every time he put me in here," Klaus mumbles. He takes a deep breath, then clenches his fists and looks up. "Go away!" Klaus roars, with more strength than he's ever put into, well, anything. "Go away!" He opens and closes his fists desperately, trying to channel his power.
"Help me, boy."
"You're useless!"
"Bring me back!"
"Show me my son!"
The ghosts are crowding, now, and Klaus swears he can actually feel them touching him. "Go away!" he yells, but there's no strength in it this time. "Please," he whimpers, "go away, please."
Because now Klaus realizes what an idiot he is. That there's a reason he's never been able to be the hero everyone sees. Because what they're seeing isn't him. They're seeing the Seance, not Klaus. Not hopeless, pathetic, tired, scared Klaus, that can't even summon a ghost.
Klaus is fifteen, and already he knows he's never going to become what he believed himself destined to be.
Klaus spins. There's only so long that he can hold off the fear, the panic, and he can feel it seeping in now. Or not seeping, rushing in, pouring, like water breaking through a dam. Because shit, they're everywhere, literally everywhere, and there's a man with an axe, shot in the head, coming for him, and a little girl with a gash through her neck, and a woman with her eyes torn out. And Klaus is backing up and his heart is seizing and Reginald is right, he is a disappointment, and why did he ever think he could do this? He wants his brothers, his sisters, he wants to be back at home. He wants to get out get out get out but there's a statue of a boy on the ground and the tears and the ghosts fill Klaus's eyes so that he can't see where he's stepping but he scrambles forward, reaching blindly out, and somehow he finds the wall. Somehow, he leans into it, crumpling slowly to the ground, curling into the stone like it'll swallow him.
It's less than an hour of lying, sobbing quietly on the mausoleum floor, before the stone door grinds open, letting in a dusky light. Less than an hour of tears. He can't even tell if he's crying anymore, can't tell if the stone below him is cold or not.
"Because of your antics," he means the drugs, Klaus thinks, "you have missed dinner, Number Four. I expect you to go straight to your room. Tell your siblings that you retired there early."
And Klaus isn't even brave enough to argue.