Prophecy | The Umbrella Academy |

Chapter Twenty Three- The Day That Wasn't

Deja vu

1996

Cassandra woke up in a cold sweat, shivering from heat to toe. It was that dream again. That same, blood curdling dream that made Cassandra's heart stop. There was nothing she loved more than her family, even if they were a bit, you know, dysfunctional. The thought of them all lying dead in the rubble of their family home made Cassandra's heart break.

She slowly got out of bed, trying to make a sound as her bare feet tingled against the dusty floorboards. Her heart hammered in her chest making every tiny creak of the floorboards ring in her ears, sounding ten times louder than they really were. She couldn't make a sound or dad would hear. And she would never make it past her bedroom door.

Klaus' room was at the other end of the corridor. She would need to tip toe past the foot of the stairs in order to reach it. Realistically, she shouldn't be worried about getting caught. Why would dad be lingering on the stairs? But her heart pounded anyway. She knew she wasn't supposed to be out of bed after hours.

Cassandra froze. There was a light on upstairs and she could see two shadows on the stairs. She flattened herself against the wall and tried to slow her breathing so no one would hear her.

"She needs a stronger dosage," a familiar, unfriendly voice announced, ringing crisply in the still of the night. Cassandra watched the shadow, one of a man, extend his hand and drop something into the hand of the other shadow.

"Her powers are still too strong and she poses a risk to the others. Even if her visions are true, I won't let her nightmares scare the other children into dropping from the programme."

That was dad's voice.

"I understand," A second voice said lowly. It was Pogo.

"You understand what needs to be done? She can't be around the children any longer." Her father's chilling voice rang in Cassandra's ears. Pogo nodded. Cassandra's head spun. She would never make it to Klaus' room that night.

Pogo descended the stairs and found her where he knew she would be, cowering in the shadows in the hallway. Her father didn't grace her with his presence and slunk off back upstairs, no doubt back to his office.

Cassandra could only just feel Pogo's grip on her arm as he lead her away. She was slipping into another vision and could only half see what was happening. Her vision blurred and her body went limp as Pogo dragged her. They went down. Down under the house. Into some room her father had had specially made. Away from all the others, they went. Cassandra didn't know when she would return.

"Pogo!" Cassandra weeped as her body fell to the floor. Everywhere was white and she could hear the scraping of a heavy door closing. She saw Pogo's face, but only just and called out to him again but the sound didn't reach her ears. Maybe it never left her throat but she knew this: Pogo could see her. He knew what he had done.

*

"Pogo!" Cassandra shouted as she stormed down the hallway, calling out to Pogo. He stopped walking and stood still in the middle of the corridor but didn't turn around, "Pogo!" Cassandra screamed again, her voice was filled with rage. Slowly Pogo turned to face her.

"Miss Cassandra, how are you feeling today-"
"Don't bullshit me, Pogo!" Cassandra spat, walking right up to him and peering over the top of his head, looking down on him in disgust.

"Miss Cassandra, your language it-"
"I don't give a shit about my language." She snapped, peering into his deceiving face, "You've been lying to me my entire life! I think I'm entitled to use some bad fucking language!"

"Miss Cassandra, I'm sure, I don't know what you mean." Pogo protested, shuffling backwards away from her and taking off his glasses to clean them with the cuff of his shirt sleeve.

"Cut the crap Pogo. I remembered." She hissed. He froze, his eyes wide and for a moment glazed over in fear, "I heard you talking to Dad. About those pills you had me take every damned day. How they suppressed my powers. Do you have any idea what that did to me? What those pills actually did to me?" Cassandra barked.

"Sir Hargreeves did tell me it would make your visions seem less real but I-"
"Everything looked like a fucking dream. I could never tell if I was awake or not because everything looked clouded and hazy like I was living in a fucking dream world." Cassandra snapped, leaning into Pogo's face, "I didn't know what was happening to me. And neither did you. You didn't know a damned thing but you forced me to take them anyway."
"Miss Cassandra, I-"
"Don't. Just don't because I'm not done." She asserted, "Everyday night since I was five, I had what I thought was a dream about the end of the fucking world. Turns out that was all true. I could have said something but thanks to you I thought I was going crazy. Especially after what Dad did. Did he tell you what he did? I bet you knew about that too."

"He did tell me that he-"
"He locked me up. In a padded fucking room. Like you put crazy people in. I thought I was mad. I was seven! I didn't come out again until I was twenty. And everyone else had left home but I was stuck here because I thought those pills were helping me and you were the only one who helped me remember to take them. I could have left! I could have escaped years ago but I was kept here, like a prisoner, for years because, of, you!"

"Miss Cassandra, please!"
"No, Pogo. You don't get to say anything to me now. You had your chance, 17 years ago!"

Cassandra stormed past him and carried on down the corridor. She had no idea where she was going to go but she needed to get out. Maybe she just needed some fresh air. Something to make the world stop spinning. But it wasn't spinning like one of her visions. She felt giddy with her own sense of clarity. For the first time in her life, she felt normal. Cassandra carried on walking, just walking. Walking and walking and walking until-

She found herself in the sitting room, everyone was there. Diego, Klaus, Alison, the whole gang was there. Except for Vanya. And Ben of course but sometimes Cass felt as if he'd never really left. Then she'd remember. She'd have those sort of...feelings a lot thought. So she didn't think the overwhelming sense of deja vu was anything unusual. She vaguely remembered talking to Pogo about something but...she just couldn't remember what. Perhaps he was reminding her to take her pills again.