The Burden of Knowledge (An Umbrella Academy/Number Five Fan-Fiction)

Chapter Two: Five

After a few more minutes of groans and rapid gun fire, all the noise stopped, and I was positive that ever last person in that donut shop was dead.

"Mary?" The kid's voice said. I shook my head, standing up and jumping over the counter. He grabbed my shoulders. "Are you ok? Were you hurt-"

"Don't touch me, you psycho!' I shouted, pushing his arms off of me and heading for the door. He appeared in front of the door out of thin air, just like he had done before.

"You have a tracker in your arm. "He said. "If you leave now, they'll be able to find you, and probably kill you, within the next twenty-four hours."

"This has nothing to do with me!" I shouted. "I don't know those guys, I don't know you and I don't have a freaking clue what's going on. I just want to go home."

"Five," He said, "Like the number." I stopped, furrowing my eyebrows.

"Wh...what? What did you just say?"

"You recognized it, didn't you?" He asked. "If I had to guess, I'd say you had a vision of when we first met, exactly eight days from now." I shook my head.

"No! No, this is not happening, I'm not dealing with this."

"We have to get the tracker-"

"You can shove your tracker, stalker boy. I'm going home." He grabbed my wrist, but I turned around, punching him right in the mouth. He stumbled back a few steps and I took that as my opportunity to run out of the shop and down the street to my apartment. When I got there, I locked the door, breathing heavily. This isn't happening. It just isn't'. Because if my dream last night was actually a vision, that means we have a little over a week until the apocalypse. I slid my back down the door until I was sitting on the floor in front of it.

Even if it is true...even if the apocalypse is in eight days...how am I supposed to know if I should trust this Five person? I don't even know where to look when it would come to triggering a vision of him. Besides that, i just sat there and listened to him kill five people, which certainly doesn't seem like the most trustworthy behavior in the world. I jumped as my phone went off. I grabbed it from my pocket, looking at it.

Marlene

Delores did great today. But whatever plague you got, you have somehow passed on to me, so I need you to open up and close tomorrow, if you're up for it.

I nodded. At least I wouldn't have that to deal with.

Can do. I'll be there bright and early.

I curiously looked down at my arm, wondering about what Five said...about me having a tracker in my arm. I rolled up my shirt sleeve exposing my arm and began to press down on the inside of my left arm. There's probably nothing. He's nuts after all-

My skeptical thoughts were cut off as I felt something small and oblong burried deep in the tissue of my arm. It can't be...

All of a sudden, an image flashed in my head of Five sitting at the counter at the Donut shop, blood running down his arm and he dug his fingers into his open wound. He pulled out a small device, similar to what the thing in my arm felt like. There was a blinking green light on it. I stood up, rushing over to the kitchen and grabbing a knife.

"This is going to suck, so bad." I muttered, feeling for the tracker again before slicing my arm horizontally. I grabbed a towel, holding it underneath my bleeding arm as I rushed to the bathroom and grabbed a pair of tweezers. I groaned as I pressed them lightly into the wound, painfully probing until I could feel it. I grabbed it, pulling it out and sure enough seeing the device from my vision. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me." I threw it on the ground, crushing it with the heel of my shoe before grabbing the first aid kit and beginning to stitch up my wound.

Unfortunately for me, tending to my own injuries was something that I had grown rather accustomed to. My parents both died the day I was born, and being an age-fluid freak didn't exactly bode well for me in foster homes, so as soon as I was old enough to function on my own, I lived on the streets of New York, which meant that I had my fair share of injuries from sharp edges of pipes in the alleyways I would sleep in, or fights with other hobos.

As soon as I turned eighteen, I got a job at Gimbles Brothers and have been working there ever since. Even managed to buy my own crappy, studio apartment, and alas, here I am...cutting a freaking tracking device out of my arm because the kid I had a dream about told me to.

Well...at least I can say that my life isn't boring.

~~~Five~~~

I sat in the dark at Vanya's apartment, waiting for her to get home while blood soaked through the sleeve of my stupid Umbrella Academy blazer. I have to find Mary. She still has her tracker, she could be in danger, and she hasn't lived through the apocalypse yet. She hasn't learned to defend herself from the Commission guys yet.

Seeing her in that Donut shop...kind of sucked. I spent the better part of thirty years with this woman, and in that moment she didn't even recognize me. She called me a 'psycho'. Its been less than a day but...I miss her. I miss her sarcastic, snide comments and her soft snores as she slept with her head on my chest. That's the only upside to this whole thing. If I fail, at least I'll still get to grow old with Mary Burke.

The door opened and Vanya came in, so I turned the lamp on, causing her to jump.

"Gosh!" She said.

"You should have locks on your windows." I told her simply.

"I live on the second floor."

"Rapists can climb."

"You are so weird." She said, shutting the door and sitting down on the couch. "Is that blood?"

"Its nothing." I answered. If Mary were here, she would've had that stitched up and dressed in no time. She's incredible at suturing. 

"Why are you here?"

"I've decided you're the only one I can trust."

"Why me?" She questioned.

"Because you're ordinary," I answered, "Because you'll listen."

"Ok." She got up, going back further into the apartment and coming back with medical supplies. I pushed up my sleeve and she started to clean it.

"When I jumped forward and got stuck in the future...do you know what I found?"

"No."

"Nothing," I said, "Absolutely nothing. As far as I could tell, I was the last person left alive. I never figured out what killed the human race, but...I did find something else. The date it happens. The world ends in eight days and I have no idea how to stop it." She stared at me for a moment, taking it all in.

"I'll put on a pot of coffee."