I'm Not A Number

Run Boy Run Part 1

17 Years Ago

Grace put a disk on the vinyl and called us to come to dine with her little bell. We came pouring in and stood behind our chairs. Dad came in lastly and sat down as soon as he said sit. We all sat and started eating, I looked at Five and he smiled. We weren't allowed to speak, but we could read and supposedly -if you were Klaus- secretly do drugs.

Five stabbed his knife into the table and turned towards Dad.
"Number Five?" Dad asked,
"I have a question," Five responded,
"Knowledge is an admirable goal, but you know the rules. No talking during mealtime, you are interrupting Herr Carlson,"
"I want to time travel,"
"No,"
"But I'm ready, I've been practicing my partial jumps, just like you said," he teleported near Reggie, "See."
"A partial jump is trivial when compared to the unknowns of time travel. One is like sliding along the ice, the other is akin to descending blindly into the depths of the freezing water," I rolled my eyes, as Reggie continued explaining stuff about ice and time travel. "And reappearing as an acorn."
"I don't get it," I said, trying to stop and save Five from getting in trouble.
"Hence the reason you both are not ready." We both looked at young Vanya, and she shook her head.
"I'm not afraid," said Five,
"Fear isn't the issue, the effects it might have on your body, even on your mind, are far too unpredictable," said the old man, banning Five from talking about it anymore. I watched, still seated, as Five walked away towards the main academy door, I quickly got up and teleported next to him and ran along with him trying to change his mind.

He wouldn't listen, so he ran out and pushed the academy gates with a creak. He looked around at the street and smiled. He summoned his powers to teleport, and I held his hand as we teleported to a time that seemed to be around the '80s.
"Not ready, my a**," He said, and I giggled. He got ready again and teleported. This time it was snowing and we looked around, we looked at each other and smiled.
"Again!" I said, and he nodded, he took a big step and ran, I held his hand and summoned some of my powers and when we jumped we found the city, burning, with buildings scattered everywhere. I stepped back and shook my head, me and him started running for the academy. When we stopped we looked and saw only a bunch of rubble and some fire. I held Five's hand and told him to teleport back. He called for our family, and we tried teleporting back. I fell to my knees, crying and gasping. I'm sure I called Five and idiot at least 12 times, but he pointed out that that was also my fault and I couldn't argue with him.

Present-Day

"We survived on scraps, canned food, cockroaches, anything we could find," said Five, looking down at his coffee,
"You know that rumor that Twinkies have an endless shelf life?" I said, "Well, it's total bulls***." Vanya couldn't even imagine what it was like to live alone, but we did whatever it took to survive, it was either that or we died. We adapted and we always found a way to overcome whatever the world threw at us. "Got anything stronger?" I asked Vanya as Five was about to talk about his precious mannequin, Dolores.

Vanya poured some scotch into 3 glasses and came back to hand us to cups. Me and Five drank the scotch until we saw Vanya's face, and I smirked,
"You think we're crazy."
"No, I-It's just... It's a lot to take in," she stammered,
"Exactly what don't you understand?" replied Five,
"Why didn't you just time travel back?"
He scoffed and sighed, sarcastically, "Gee, wish I'd thought of that," he turned back to his normal stern voice, "Time travel is a crapshoot, I went into the ice and never acorn-ed." I laughed at him, when I realized I was the only one laughing I stopped,
"We tried everything we could, to get back," I said.
"If you grew old in the apocalypse, how come you still look like a kid?" Vanya asked, confused. Five scoffed as if to say, I told you already, but I just looked at him.
"This idiot messed up the zero and the point," I said,
"Shut up, Eight," said Five, as he went an poured another cup of scotch.

"Dad used to always say that time travel could mess with your mind," Vanya suggested. She thought we were going crazy?! Her ordinary person audacity had just reached the limits.
"You think we're crazy," I said scoffing.
"This was a mistake, you're too young," Five agreed as he grabbed his jacket, and Vanya cried out his name, "too naive to understand."
"Wait!" Cried Vanya, "I haven't seen you in a long time, and I don't want to lose you again."

She sighed and asked us whether we wanted to sleep on her sofa for the day and return to the academy tomorrow after we finish our conversation in the morning. She set up some pillows and blankets and me and Five gave our goodnight to her, and she did too. I looked at Five as he sat down looking at the glass eye. I sat next to him and leaned on his shoulder. We both looked in the eye and I could tell what he was thinking, how do we save the world. I sighed, "You should have taken us back further by at least 2 years." He chuckled and pushed me away. I pushed him off the sofa and told him to go and sleep in the other one, however, he was still looking at the eye, he got up and dragged me out towards the corridor and into the street.

I'm sure that I fell asleep in the taxi because I woke up quite energized. Five nudged me off his shoulder every time I tried falling asleep, but he eventually gave up, and let me use him as a pillow. He woke me up by opening the taxi door and moving out of the way causing me to fall onto the car seat and teleport out of the taxi.