[✔️] 𝑇𝐻𝐼𝑁𝐾 𝐹𝐴𝑆𝑇 | 𝐃𝐈𝐄𝐆𝐎 𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐒

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍

𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐍𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐃𝐈𝐄𝐒
"𝑆𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑠, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑤𝑎𝑦 𝑡𝑜 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑖𝑡 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓."
—𝐿𝑒𝑖𝑔ℎ 𝐵𝑎𝑟𝑑𝑢𝑔𝑜

𝐈
— 𝑀𝑎𝑟𝑎 —

"𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐀, 𝐖𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐔𝐏."

Mara let out a small groan as her eyes fluttered open, and she squinted slightly to see that Luther was in front of her, his eyebrows furrowed as he shook her awake.

"What?" she sighed, nodding to tell him that she was awake before rubbing her eyes.

"Five's awake," Luther informed her as he moved backwards, sitting down in a chair that he had pulled up in front of the bed.

Mara looked over to the side to see the boy who, indeed, was now awake, an amused smile on his face as he watched her yawn.

"Don't look at me like that," she mumbled to him as she straightened up, glancing out the window to see that it was now early morning, "you're the one who drank two bottles of tequila."

She shifted over to him, a frown played on her lips as she saw his dishevelled hair and dusty face. She reached over and began to run her fingers through his hair in an attempt to fix it, and he immediately drew back, his nose wrinkled.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Fixing your hair," she answered nonchalantly as she reached over again, and once more, he drew back. "Stop it," she scolded. "Stay still."

Reluctantly, Five stopped moving away from her and allowed her to neaten his hair before she had Luther hand her a tissue and cleaned his face.

"Five," Luther sighed as Mara gave a satisfied nod and got up to throw the tissue away. "Where were you?"

"Trying to save the goddamn world," Five mumbled, running his hand through his hair once more before leaning his elbows on his knees.

"You mean from the . . . apocalypse you were talking about before?" Mara questioned hesitantly as she took her spot next to him again, her eyebrows furrowing.

Five only nodded in response, and the other two shared an uneasy look.

"When's it supposed to happen?" Luther questioned, shifting in his chair. "This . . . apocalypse."

"I can't give you the exact hour, but . . ." Five sighed as he shook his head, "from what I could gather, we have four days left."

"Why didn't you say something sooner?" Mara asked, her eyebrows furrowing as her hands clasped tightly together in her lap.

Five shook his head. "It wouldn't have mattered."

"Of course it would," Luther continued off of her, his eyebrows knitting tightly together. "We could've banded together and helped you try to stop this thing."

"For the record," Five said as his eyes flicked up towards the larger man, "you already tried."

"What do you mean?" Mara asked softly, although she had a feeling she knew exactly what he had meant, and prayed that she was wrong.

His eyes lowered to the ground as he remained silent for a few moments before he looked up towards her, the words that proceeded only confirming her dreaded suspicion, "I found all of you. Your bodies."

Luther's expression blanked for a second before concern took over. Quietly, he questioned, "We die?"

"Horribly," Five answered with a mutter. "You were together, trying to stop whoever it was that ends the world."