For all Time || five hargreeves

36. Staying up

"How can I sleep, if I don't have dreams? I just have nightmares."
-The Neighborhood

~
The Frankel Footage
~

Eight dozed off to sleep as Diego, five, and Lila watched a tape known as the 'frankel footage', analyzing it to the best of their abilities.

Once again, nightmares plagued her mind.

The scene depicted before her was dark and eerie. She was in her mission suit from the umbrella academy, standing in a old apartment building that had been abandoned.

There was a unforgiving storm outside, thunder booming and rain pounding against the ground. The apartment building was deteriorating, rain dripping from broken windows and occasional gusts of wind blowing into the building.

She couldn't control her movements as the nightmare took its course.

She briskly traveled up a back staircase, and through the hallways of the building, letting her body take her to wherever her final destination was.

She found herself outside of a closed apartment door. She knocked and backed away slightly from the door.

There was shuffling on the other side along with a string of curses.

A man opened the door, no older than 30. He was disoriented and visually frazzled. "Can I help you, kid?" He questioned looking down the hallways of the place.

Eight said nothing, unable to speak.

"Kid?" The man asked again at the lack of response. "What's your name?" He was anxious at the girls random appearance.

"Here come in kid." He gestured towards his apartment and turned his back to the girl as he walked in.

Eight smiled coyly. Never turn your back on someone.

She pulled a knife from her boot and quickly stabbed the man in the back. She used her body weight to drag it down his body. The man fell forward screaming in pain.

She walked forward and flipped him so he would be facing upwards. The ground was now pooling with crimson liquid. Eight looked at him as he lost his life, how his body seemed to just drain onto the floor.

He looked to her in shock, his lips parted slightly and his facial muscles tensed on pain. She didn't know how to feel, she felt numb in her own body. She grabbed her knife once more, and quickly stabbed it into his heart.

She kept the knife in his heart, her hands still tightly holding the weapon as blood pulled out of his chest. She stared with wide eyes at the man for what felt like hours, his eyes staring back even after they glazed over.

A tear rolled down her cheek.

A buzzing voice in her ear pulled her from her trance, "number eight status report."

She removed her bloody hands from the knife and tapped her earpiece, "status report, Mission one officially completed."

~

Eight startled awake from a loud explosion that occurred on the projectors footage. Everyone in the room tensed as five rewound the footage about 15 seconds back to watch it again.