Seven
It had been a cold day. A gray, cold day.
Vanya felt dead.
Or maybe she felt like dying.
Like she was dying?
Perhaps she didn't feel anything at all.
No, no that couldn't be right. After all, she was certain that there was something there, clogging her chest and clouding her eyes.
Oh yes, she was certainly quite capable of feeling pain.
Five had left without her.
We'll get out of this shit hole together
He'd been gone a day now.
Really?
Or maybe it had been a week?
Would I ever lie to you?
Yeah, definitely. It had to have been more than just a day. In light of recent events, father had upped her dosage. Hadn't wanted her to get too anxious from all the little things and distract the others from their training.
(It had been two month, four days, and 8.6333 hours since she had seen him last.)
Five
The sun rose.
Some corpses rotted a bit more.
Looked like it might rain today.
His socks had gotten a tear in them.
So he took them off.
Apparently a lot of bugs lived.
They're very nutritious.
He wondered how Vanya was doing.
Probably awfully.
She was all alone now.
Five had really screwed the pooch on that one.
The sun set.
Five
He had found all their bodies.
Well, mostly all. Vanya and Ben were nowhere to be found.
Had they survived?
Unlikely to impossible, even the other Umbrella Academy members hadn't made it.
He ruled them as MIA, and decided they were probably on vacation or something when it had happened.
He met someone yesterday.
Her skin was pale (Vanya's was less waxy and lifeless), and her eyes were brown (they're so empty compared to Vanya's). Her hair was brown and long as well, but it looked too much like a cheap version of Vanya's chocolate locks.
So he got rid of it.
He met a woman yesterday.
Her name is Dolores.
Seven
Klaus is high again.
It would be fine if they weren't 14 and if he weren't always so weird when he took drugs. Except they are, and he is, and really it wouldn't be fine either way because drugs.
Usually he'll just sit on Allison's bed, and look varying shades of irritated and confused.
It's okay Klaus, Vanya is confused too.
She's confused why Five never came back for her. She's confused why, oh why, she's trapped in this place all alone.
There are no other people in this house anymore, only captors and captives and sometimes someone is both.
No, they're not quite her siblings.
(At least, not the ones she used to have.)
After Five left, she can't quite find the humanity to find them as such.
She can't quite find much of anything.
(She looks at the clock before putting her dose of pills into her mouth and swallowing.)
One
After Five left Dad increased training.
It made sense, because his little tantrum the team was going to have to be even stronger if they wanted to make up for the sudden flux in overall power level. It was a shame really, if the boy had learned to listen to orders than his intelligence could've been a valuable asset to the Academy.
He was certain that Dad would agree.
Two
Dad was making all of them work twice as hard to make up for Five's shit.
It was ridiculous, and he couldn't stand that the old man was punishing all of them because Five was such an arrogant idiot.
Really, he seemed to think he was so much smarter than all of them, then he'd gone and gotten all pissy at dinner. Diego couldn't even have one meal in this house without the others doing something stupid and messing with his life too.
Three
The house became different with five gone.
The fans too, all of them were concerned.
Well, most of them. A few of her more adoring fans were glad that there was one less guy around.
Adopted siblings or not, competition is competition.
Four
Reggie really needed to cool his jets on the whole Five issue.
Lucky son of a bitch, he could just blip his way out of this hell hole. Klaus was sure he was halfway to Vancouver by now, living alone in some cabin with no one to bother him.
Knowing number Five, he wouldn't doubt that's what the guy does with his powers.
Ben was worried more than he was, but Klaus wasn't exactly all that concerned. If anything, he was more jealous.
Klaus couldn't just poof off to nowhere whenever he wanted. No, if Four wanted to escape than he had to try some entirely different methods.
Five
He almost never vomits or cries anymore.
It is a waste of food and water, a waste he cannot afford.
Still, it had taken his stomach some time to adjust to it's new kind of nourishment.
He found a library in relatively decent shape, and inside of it were some books he was going to use to help him with his equations to get home. Delores had told him he wouldn't find anything he hadn't already known. She was right of course.
Instead, he'd found something else.
Vanya.
Her picture was on the front of the book, and when he flipped it over he saw what she looked like nowadays (Tired) and realized that this was her book.
So he read about his own life (and a fair bit after that) and caught himself up on everything.
Ben was long dead already, so that solved that, but Vanya was still gone.
He was amazed at the guts it must have taken.
After this, he decides to work twice as hard to return (to make sure this doesn't happen).
He almost never cries anymore.
Six
Dad isn't happy.
Five is gone.
Vanya seems to be too half the time, despite her body's presence assuring them otherwise.
Luther is apathetic.
Ben is scared.
Seven
Misery.
Vanya does not feel much anymore, this cloudy autopilot prevents her from doing so, but there's a sort of slow sap clogging up her chest every once in a while.
She defines it as misery.
She is not sure which is better, the sorrow and pain or the nothing.
It doesn't matter, they're all she has left anymore anyways.
Ben asks her something and she nods.
There is a time, right before she takes her night pill and goes to bed, where there is perhaps almost something more.
It is when she makes sandwiches for Five.
Right there, she thinks she almost feels a spark of a something.
Something more than that awful stifling thing called misery.
She does not leave the house.
She is afraid to, what if Five comes back?
When he returns, will he find an empty house, with no life in sight.
If Seven leaves, who will make his sandwiches?
Vanya Hargreeves is fifteen, and fear has trapped her. Just as it always has.
If she had been less fearful, they might've run away by now.
Lived in some house in the woods together, far away from their Father and siblings. Ben could visit, and maybe Klaus sometimes too (knowing those two she doubted Ben could've kept it from him anyway). No loud people and screaming fans, and they could go to the small town nearby just often enough to get groceries. She would've performed her violin at festivities, and he would've done something he liked, and they would've made it.
Fear keeps her trapped in this idea, and stuck within the many halls that make up this house.
Fear is the halls that make up this house.
Long and dark, with no windows. There are no windows out, but at least there are doors.
Vanya
She leaves the house.
Not for forever, she always comes back, but for just long enough.
She creeps in at night, Diego's feet nipping at her heels.
She still makes sandwiches sometimes, on her worst nights. They aren't for him anymore. They never really were, she hadn't realized this until just now, but funerals are always for the living.
Vanya Hargreeves is sixteen, and this is the closest she will ever get to God.
At least this is her train of thought, as she is far off from her childhood home, which is surely hell.
The Prime8s though? They're really something. At least, they will be, Vanya is sure of it. They've got a gig booked soon, and she just knows it'll be her kickstart out of here. She's not sure where she'll go, but she knows that this is the moment to step on the pedal for it.
It's pure adrenaline when they play, nothing but power and rush.
And every strum is a moment, every chord a story, painted with the blood that poured from her fingertips after countless hours.
It was a rebellion, and soon enough, white wigs would fall like snow.
The moment to come will be everything she can ever hope for from herself.
A/N: This is something I found in my incomplete files titled 'Something umbrella academy', and I think I was planning a two-shot, but I'm tired.
I've been MIA for a bit, so I'll just assure you now, I'm not abandoning my stories. I've got the next chapter written for all of them, but I'm going to finish Shards first, and work from there.
I haven't been doing the best, but I swear I'm trying to get better.
-Lucas_Gilbert