1962, Texas;
Elliot scratched the back of his neck as Five stared at a blurred picture of a woman in a leather jacket lying on the floor.
"I was asleep when she arrived. The lights from the ambulance woke me up."
"Ambulance?" His eyebrows furrowed.
"All she kept repeating was a number, over and over, calling it out. She had some kind of medical event and got confused, I guess."
"Shit..." he muttered.
He went on to check every hospital within a fifty mile radius. He did so, knowing that after every blink, he could collapse at any time from the energy it was taking out of his already exhausted body.
He had gone from one giant time jump to another, no semblance of rest or time to breathe, just knowing that he had to find his family and more importantly, his sister.
When he didn't find her, he felt like he had fucked things up once again.
●•●•●
1961, 7 months before:
Zero was conscious of the feeling of falling before she hit the ground hard, the breath leaving her lungs. The thing was a complete blur, her heart feeling shallow in her chest as she blinked around at her unfamiliar surroundings.
She had attempted to drag herself to a stand using the wall, but it was as though the surface fell away from her in a wave and concrete scrapes into her palms.
"Five?" She called out, or tried to, voice weak. She glanced up through her choppy fringe, blinking hard to clear her vision. "Five!" She yelled, her voice cracking.
She couldn't see anyone.
And she felt this dread in her stomach as a familiar, dreaded feeling overtook her body and mind.
"Bolt?" She tried, the name slurring from her lips. "Oh no..."
A shaky breath escaped her. She couldn't hear the patter of his feet, couldn't feel his soft fur against her skin, the pressure of him nudging her. Couldn't hear his bark.
She focused on her breathing and attempted to get back up using the wall, but everything was fuzzy.
"Five!" She couldn't help but yell, fear crawling at her throat. Her knee hit the floor and her body shuddered. She must have blacked out for a second and didn't remember hitting the floor, but could feel herself trembling. Horribly.
Unable to control it, she felt her body tense up and spasms shoot down the back of her neck like electrical shocks.
All she saw after that were blurred blue flashes of lights out of the corner of her vision, and the name kept falling off of her lips even after she fell into a dreamlike, black out state.
●•●
When Zero awoke, she was in a hospital.
And the first words out of a nurses lips she heard were, "so how much did you have to drink last night?"
YOU ARE READING
THE THING WITH SORROW - The Umbrella Academy
Fanfiction"She was a genius of sadness, immersing herself in it, separating its numerous strands, appreciating its subtle nuances. She was a prism through which sadness could be divided into its infinite spectrum." - Everything is Illuminated Zero Hargreeves;...
