Scene 4: A hat, a cane, an umbrella
It was an ordinary Thursday at the Hargreeves house - as ordinary as a day could be there - when it knocked on Five's bedroom door and Grace's voice was heard from the other side of the door.
"Five? Can I come in?" Five looked up from his Advanced Physics textbook and sighed, "If you must." The door swung open and his mother, dressed all in pink, appeared on the doorstep. "Can you come down please? Your father would like to see you." Five grimaced. He wanted to see him? That was something completely new, he thought as he closed his book and laid it on the bed next to him. Usually the old man never had time for them, unless... It was about one of his experiments. What did the madman come up with this time?
An uneasy feeling rose in him as he stood up and stepped out into the corridor, where his siblings were already bustling about. "Does anyone know what's going on here?" Klaus asked the group, tugging nervously at the sleeve of his school uniform. "Dad wants to see us! He wants to see us!" Luther was cheerful, his whole face beaming. "I'm sure he's taken extra time out of his busy schedule to do something great with us!"
Five couldn't bring himself to wipe the hopeful smile off Luther's face. How naïve his brother was. If their father had something planned for them, it was certainly nothing to be happy about. On the contrary. Five thought back with unease to the countless trials they had had to endure. All the lessons, every single training session, every little flash of their strength was documented in detail and recorded on videotape. They didn't even have a break at night, as their sleep was recorded with electrodes attached to their heads and analyzed in the so-called monitoring room.
They were prisoners, no better off than guinea pigs, Five thought sorrowfully, and a tinge of anger mingled with his queasy gut feeling.
His gaze slid over to his siblings. There was a big question mark in their eyes in view of of their father's unexpected attention. Not, of course, in Luther's, who was still grinning broadly.
Klaus, on the other hand, seemed to be feeling rather uneasy about the fact that their father had time for them. He was still fiddling with his school uniform and fell in behind the others as they made their way towards the Great Hall.
As soon as they reached the stairs, Five pushed past his siblings to the front. Step by step, he came closer to the Hall, but when he saw what awaited them at the bottom, he froze in the middle of the landing. His right hand gripped the wooden railing so tightly that his knuckles stood out white, his green eyes were wide open and his heart began to race in panic. "Get back upstairs! Now!" he hissed to his siblings, who were coming down the stairs behind him. "Why is that? Isn't Dad here yet?" Luther asked excitedly, craning his neck curiously to look past Five.
"Don't ask, do as I say!" he gasped. His heart threatened to burst in his chest with fear. At absolutely any cost, he wanted to prevent his siblings from seeing what he had seen. Which, unfortunately, his mind had realized the second the scene unfolded before his eyes. The man with the needle.
But before they could even turn around, a sharp voice from the landing cut through the room: "Number Five! You are too late! Dilly-dallying is not tolerated in this house!" The voice cleared its throat audibly. "More precisely, you are all late! Tardiness is a theft of other people's time and is by no means acceptable. Is that clear enough?"
Footsteps of clattering heels could be heard, then Sir Reginald Hargreeves' lordly figure appeared from the left at the foot of the stairs. He was dressed as usual in an impeccable three-piece suit, his golden monocle gleaming in the light of the lamps. He had his arms crossed expectantly behind his back and looked up at them with a stern, unyielding expression. "I expect you to come at once when I call you."
Five remained frozen in the middle of the stairs while his intimidated siblings squeezed past him. He wanted to grab hold of them, to pull them back, but his body no longer seemed to be his own. He was completely paralyzed, only his thoughts were racing incessantly. How could his siblings follow their father's instructions? Did they not realize what was about to happen to them? Did they not see the stocky, bald man with the long beard and the tattoo needle that was now emitting a low, ominous whirring sound? The chair in the middle of the room? Grace was standing right next to it, now pointing to a row of chairs at one side of the room. "Sit down, children, there are enough chairs," she said to the crowd of his siblings, who were standing close together.
They reluctantly took their seats. All the whispering had stopped, an expression of uncertainty and fear had entered their faces as they stared at the strange man with panicked eyes. They had understood what was about to happen.
While on one hand his siblings shifted restlessly in their chairs, Five, on the other hand, hadn't moved an inch from his step, his body simply didn't obey him.
"Number Five, I'm waiting," Reginald now barked. Five did not move. Grace came up the stairs in triple steps and grabbed him gently but firmly by the left arm. "It'll go faster than you can see and it won't hurt at all," she said in a soft voice, then she pulled him down the stairs with gentle force and led him to the chairs, where he took a seat on the last free chair to the left of Ben.
Reginald cleared his throat audibly. "Today," he said in an authoritative tone and so full of fervor that his moustache trembled, "the day has come when you will become what you were destined to be from birth. The six of you - he cast a disdainful glance at Vanya, who was sitting on one of the steps - have been chosen to save and protect the world from disaster. This is your task, your destiny. As a token of your election, today you will receive the Academy's symbol of honor, the umbrella. This is an honor that is only bestowed on those who are special. It shows that you belong to this house and to the proud Hargreeves family. That which binds you together makes you stronger than you would ever be alone. It will arm you against the pain and misery that the world will throw at you. And believe me, life will be hard, it will be painful. But you are the spark in the darkness of the world. From now on, people will look to you, to the Umbrella Academy." The echo of his words died away in the room. A short pause followed before he spoke again. "I expect you to wear the tattoo, to wear this award with pride and dignity! It is the symbol of this institution and reserved solely for those who are destined for true greatness."
A deafening silence fell over the room. "Mr. Vargas, if you would please begin." The bearded bald man nodded and let the needle buzz. "Number Three, you are first," Reginald ordered. Five saw Allison rising from the farthest chair, her knees trembling, but she didn't let go of Luther's hand. He squeezed her hand affectionately in encouragement. She looked nervously back at him as Grace led her to the single chair in the center of the room and motioned for her to sit down. "Stretch out your left arm!" the tattoo artist grumbled. Allison hesitantly handed him her forearm, which the man turned around so that the inside was facing upwards. Then he pinned it to the armrest. "Hold still now!" The buzzing needle descended onto Allison's forearm and an ugly dull sound rang out as it penetrated her skin, stabbing again and again as the man guided the needle over her inner arm. Allison whimpered.
Five had to close his eyes, he felt so nauseous from the noise and Allison's pain-filled whimpering, which swelled and subsided incessantly. His sister was in agony and there was nothing he could do about it. All he could do was sit there and clasp his hands around the seat. "Stop it, make it stop!" he pleaded inwardly. He could hardly bear it any longer.
Finally, the whirring stopped and Five opened his eyes. In that second, Allison jumped up from the chair, her face streaked with tears. She carefully touched the wound on her left arm, then scurried to a far corner of the room, where she hid behind a pillar so that Five could no longer see her.
She was followed by Klaus and Diego, who made absolutely no sound as the needle worked its way through their skin. Their faces grim, their jaws clenched, they endured the agonizing pain of the stitches. Diego didn't even allow Grace to put a caring hand on his shoulder as he winced in pain.
"Number Five!" When Five's name was finally called, his numb body rose as if of its own accord. He walked slowly towards the chair, his gaze fixed on the hand and the needle, while all contours blurred in his outer field of vision. The blood rushed in his ears. Without really noticing it, he sat down on the chair, stretched out his left forearm and watched the needle began to draw shapes on his skin as if he was in a trance. First it drew a large black arc that closed into a circle. Then the singing needle drew the outline of an umbrella, black with a red handle, into the circle. Again and again, the pointed metal glided over the same spot, filling in the contours of the umbrella, coloring it black. Tiny drops of his blood oozed from the puncture wounds. Five saw what was happening to his inner arm, but he felt strangely detached from his body, the noise in his ears increasing, rolling in like a roaring wave of noise, the kind you could sometimes hear at rush hour on the busy city streets.
"Five! Five! Can you hear me? It's over, Five! It's over!" A voice that sounded strangely familiar reached his ears from far away, breaking through the static in it. The voice slowly pulled Five out of his trance-like state, the feeling in his limbs returned and the outlines at the edge of his vision became sharper again. He turned his head to the right, saw Klaus standing at his side and at the same time felt a hand - Klaus' hand - stroking his back. "Please, please, stop screaming, you're scaring me and the others," he pleaded, looking at him urgently. "You've never...I mean...please, Five!
Five swallowed hard, his parched throat unable to produce a sound. He had screamed? He had screamed and not even realized it? His siblings had to listen to the screams coming from his throat? No, no. NO! That could not, that was not possible...
As if stung by a tarantula, he jumped up from the torture chair and ran up the stairs to the second floor. Tears clouded his vision as he stormed into his room and slammed the door loudly behind him. Choked sobs escaped from his chest, making his slender body tremble. He threw himself onto his bed and pulled his left arm close to his body.
He didn't want to see this tattoo, didn't want to see the sore, bruised skin from which small drops of blood were still oozing. Hot tears of rage and pain kept pouring from his eyes and running down his cheeks. The skin on the inside of his arm burned as if he had been scorched with a red-hot iron. Searing waves of pain radiated from the wound throughout his body. He buried his head in his pillow, screaming all his pain into it. Not only had he been marked like a lab rat, numbered for identification, but his siblings had to witness his cries of pain. He had been weak, he had frightened them. Yet it was his job to protect them. He had the mind, not the others. But his mind had been powerless against the disaster that had befallen them today. He had not been able to save them. Five sobbed even louder into his pillow.
He didn't even notice when his door swung open quietly and a lanky figure sat down next to him on the bed. It was only when he felt a warm hand on his body that he lifted his tear-stained face and caught sight of Klaus, whose hand was running up and down his uninjured arm reassuringly.
"Shhhh, it's okay, Five, it's going to be okay. The pain will subside. I promise you that. Believe me, I know a lot about pain, you know?" Klaus whispered. "Every time Dad left me in that miserable cemetery, I wanted to die. But I'm still here and so are you. We'll get through this together. For the others, okay?" Five didn't resist when Klaus wrapped his arms tightly around him and pulled him close. He whispered: "For the others!"