Umbrella Academy Untold: Number Eight, Ragna Hargreeves / "The Shift"

Number 8 / "The Shift"

She spent most of her early life locked inside of an Epsom salt tank.

-

"Number Eight, are you ready?"

She stood atop a high swing, soon to lower into the cold water below. Frail brown hands clasped onto the chains holding her up, electrodes stuck to her entire body (mostly though, her head, as it was essential for Sir Hargreeves to get a clear picture of her R.E.M. activity). Grace stood beside the girl on her high platform, a gentle but cold hand set on her small back.

"Daddy," her voice shook. She was shivering from the draft of freezing air coming from the ice water beneath her feet. Her trembles were so severe that her chains began to jingle. Sir Hargreeves felt it necessary to shackle the girl's ankles, since after the first few times she began to kick the glass in defiance. "Daddy, please don't make me do it again. I'm scared. I don't wanna see it anymore."

"Nonsense!" Grace chuckled, lightly touching Eight's face and turning it towards her. "You have done this time and time again, strong girl. You are going to do so great. And if it gets too scary, remember how we practiced waking up..." Grace shut her eyes tight and then opened them abruptly, Eight following her motions. She pat the young girl's head, smiling sweetly at her.

"I remember, mommy." Eight nodded, taking in a deep breath of air.

-

Number Eight, also known as Ragna Hargreeves, was one of the 43 children born on October 1, 1989. Subsequently, she was also the last of the eight children adopted by eccentric billionaire Reginald Hargreeves. This made her, of course, 'Number Eight' in the eyes of her 'father'.

When Grace named the children, she had chosen each with great care and deliberation. "You are Ragna" she told the gentle girl, who at the time was laid in her bed with her eyes shut tight, properly dreaming. "Ragna is a strong Nordic name. It means warrior, just like you are." With the sentiment, she wiped a thread of saliva dripping from Ragna's mouth and repositioned her heavy and relaxed skull on her pillow.

She was a fantasy to grow up with, the most delightful child anyone could think of having. Those who peeked into her crib and locked eyes with her could fall in love with her instantaneously. She never cried much and yet also barely laughed. Ragna, since infantry, had only really just...stared. Her powers were discovered earlier than many of her siblings as well - on the night of her very first bath. As her tiny, chubby body was submerged in the water it instantly went limp. The baby's heartrate slowed and her eyes rolled back to their whites. The nanny, fearing of course that Number Eight had died, shrieked for a nurse.

Ragna, of course, had not died. This was, however, her first encounter with dimensions other than what her physical body lived on - and it altered her forever. When the infant awoke from her first journey, she did so through piercing roars and big, wet tears.

...and an ungodly amount of blood.

-

When Ragna had finally learned how to control her powers, all it took was a simple subcinctus to initiate the shift.

Right before the water level engulfed her jaw, she would utter the word and all color would flush from her eyes. Anyone who dared look directly into those white spheres would be met with clear nothingness, almost as if they weren't there at all. Her mouth was almost always slightly agape and her skin (typically tanned and firm) turned to paper. It was as if once she was in the tank, Ragna's physical body would die, her soul being projected into the next realm of existence.

Despite this, her neural charts showed everything but death. Her brain activity was vicious and fast, by far more electric than what is normally possible by the standards of the human brain. Ragna wasn't traveling through time nor space, but through planes.

-

"Let me out!"

Ragna yelled, blood gushing from her nose, eyes, and ears, which appeared as red clouds in the water around her. She attempted to kick, though to no avail. Her screams could not be heard, only seen as thick bubbles of water emerging from her crying mouth, and due to her chains the girl was immobilized. She was attached to an IV dispensing oxygen into her blood. She couldn't die in the tank - only be stuck in a dreadful state of needing to breathe and being unable to for as long as Hargreeves forced her to stay in it.

"Let me out, please! I'll be good!"

As the adolescent's body thrashed and bled in the tank, Hargreeves paged through the millions of ones-and-zeros collected by her electrodes. After marinating on the thought for almost ten minutes, he finally gestured for Number Eight to be released.

Three workers turned a large crank and her body was lifted out of the saltwater. She was slumped against the swing's chain now, watery orange blood dripping over her flesh. She took shaky breaths and swallowed hard as her siblings crowded around her and draped a heavy towel over her shoulders. "It's okay," Allison shushed her sister, who was her exact same age and yet still somehow had taken on the role of a younger sibling. "It's over, it's okay." Looking down at their father who sat at his desk, Allison shook her head and shouted, "You left her in for too long this time, dad!"

Hargreeves' only response to this accusation was to look up from his paperwork and stand, giving a stern look to Ragna. She peered back weakly through her wet hair, which Klaus delicately moved away from her eyes.

"Number Eight." Hargreeves said bitterly.

"Yes, Sir?" Ragna coughed.

"What did you see?"

Ragna closed her eyes, her face contorting into absolute pain and suffering. She sniffed and her breath haltered as she began to inexplicably and abruptly cry, her back slouching over. She was bruised everywhere. Her wrists and ankles were swollen and cut, leaking the fluids that filled them.

"Everything." she sputtered. "Everything."