𝐖𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 ━ five hargreeves

2│THE LAST SIX DAYS

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❛ ᴡᴀsᴛᴇʟᴀɴᴅs ᴏғ ᴛɪᴍᴇ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐓𝐖𝐎 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴀsᴛ sɪx ᴅᴀʏs ꒱


❝ MY SPIRIT IS RESTLESS ❞

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The next few days passed much the same as they always did. School was indeterminable boredom and after was a blur of time. It was nights that Lola really lived for. She wasn't sure why but the dark, mysterious blackness that covered everything was so much more intriguing than the bright daylight. It helped spur her mind into its most aggressive thinking, it sped her heart up as she made her daily route to the large, unused library and it made her eyes strain to the best of their ability to see outlines in the blackness.

Now, don't get her wrong— she was fond of the light. She needed it to write, to see distinctly, but the quiet calm that came with the night was something so few people experienced in a world of billions that it made it more special to her. She didn't think she'd ever like complete blackness, though.

The dark of night allowed her some cover as she slipped quietly into the Umbrella Academy's library, her feet soft and quiet on the wooden floor. After so many years of secret escapades she knew the layout by heart and made her way easily to the last place she'd taken books from. She zipped open her bag carefully and extracted both volumes. While they hadn't been extremely interesting, she'd liked learning from them as much as all the other books she'd borrowed from the library.

Lola quietly slid out the next two. One was a thick, bound leather book and she could feel the embossed gold on the cover as she slid it gently into her bag. The books on the shelf fell with a muted thump as the space became available and she winced— but no one came, as usual. She moved to the next one which was slimmer and a regular hardcover, its contents remaining a mystery until she could read them in the light.

After zipping her bag back up, she crept back down the stairs and made her way towards her usual escape except— she bumped into a soft-bodied figure and nearly screamed.

"Who-who's there?" a light, airy voice called out, "are you a ghost?"

Her pulse picked up and Lola's voice came out in a stutter as she said, "y-yes. O-of course," then, feeling the need to be more ghost-like she gave a fake, quiet moan, "wwoooohhh, my spirit is restless," she sang in whisper.

A hand gently hit her face and brushed up and down as if petting her, "there, there, ghostie. Don't bother me now."

She leaned away from the man's touch and scrambled for what to do next but then the man seemed to freeze, "why're you solid, ghost?"

"Uh— I'm special?" she tried, and winced at the lame answer. 

Luckily the man seemed accept this and he nodded, "okay, well, don't follow me to bed. I'm open to many things but ghost sex is stretching it," he gave an exaggerated shudder and stumbled past her, clumsily patting her on the shoulder.

Lola's face burned bright red and she was glad it was too dark to see. After he left, she hastily made her way to the open window and slipped out, breathing a sigh of relief when her feet landed on the grass. His kids must have come back for the funeral, she thought as she made her way home. He'd spoken about ghosts, so it— it must've been The Séance.

She hoped he wouldn't tell his siblings what had happened— that wouldn't bode well for her. Thankfully he hadn't seen her face and he also hadn't seemed to be completely there, so he probably wouldn't remember.

✧ ✧ ✧ 

After school on Friday found Lola walking down the main street towards her father's store. Now that it was the weekend she didn't need to be picked up and hurried home from school so she could start her homework. The local bookstore caught her eye and her father's words echoed in her ears about the Hargreeves' autobiography.

The bell jingled as she entered the shop and a female assistant made her way to the dark-haired girl to greet her, "good afternoon! Is there anything in particular you need help finding today?"

Lola gave her a smile and nodded, "yes, actually. I'm looking for an autobiography. Its, um, by someone of the last name Hargreeves."

The woman's smile flickered for a moment before it broadened, "of course, right this way! We've moved them towards the back now that they're not popular sellers. I think we still have a few copies, though."

Sure enough, in the back of the non-fiction section the name Hargreeves stood out like a sore thumb, at least in Lola's opinion. The book was titled Extra-Ordinary: My Life as Number Seven. The brunette slid a copy off the shelf and turned it over to read the summary on the back. There seemed to be a surprising amount about the woman's— Vanya's— family contained in the book.

"Will that be all?" the attendant asked.

She gave a nod, "yes, thank you."

"Alright dear, I can check you out at the counter."

Lola followed the employee to the front and made her purchase using her saved-up allowance money. Most of it was used for notebooks, writing utensils or additional book-buying so she had enough saved to purchase Vanya's book. After leaving the shop she made her way to the local diner, Griddy's.

Once there, she sat at the bar where an elderly woman came to greet her, "hello dear, what can I get for you?"

Lola eyed the treats behind the counter thoughtfully, "classic glazed please, Agnes," she added her name after reading the woman's tag.

"Of course, one moment," Agnes said cheerfully and turned to complete her order. She set the doughnut down in front of the girl, "if you need anything else just give a holler."

Lola nodded in thanks and cracked open her new book, eager to read a professional autobiography. While she had studied some for research it had been awhile since she'd seriously read one.

My name is Vanya Hargreeves and this is my story it started out and the brunette smiled slightly at the similar openings. Pulling her pencil from behind her ear, she jotted down a note in the margin before she continued.

We were never a real family. We were our father's creation, family in name, but not in fact. In the end, after our brother Ben had died, there was really nothing connecting us. We were just strangers living under the same roof, destined to be alone, starved for attention, damaged by our upbringing and haunted by what might-have-been. We all wanted to be loved by a man incapable of giving love. Our father never missed the opportunity to remind me that I was ordinary, a hard thing for a little girl to hear. If you're raised to believe that nothing about you is special, if the benchmark is extraordinary, what do you do if you're not?

Lola sat at the counter as minutes slipped passed, slowly eating her doughnut and reading Vanya's book while she occasionally scribbled between the lines as she wrote notes for herself. As she read, she realized she liked Vanya's writing style. The woman didn't write daily stories and chronicle her life as if everything was significant but she also didn't write the major events like they were items on a grocery list to be ticked off once they were written. Instead, she wrote in a way that made the objective viewer feel as if they were actually there, experiencing Vanya's life. The brunette supposed that this is why the book lost popularity; some of the moments were too raw, too painful, to want to go back and reread and live through again.

Sometime later, she looked up from the pages to take a break. The book lay before her more than half-read with its pages wrinkled and dirty from pencil smudges and sugar from her sticky fingers as she'd turned the pages; it hardly looking like a newly-bought book. Her eyes flicked over to the wall to glance at the time. Upon seeing the hour, she looking outside in surprise and realized the sun was setting.

"Shit," she breathed, and hurriedly packed up her things. Hopefully she wouldn't get too much of an earful for staying out so late.