illicit | five hargreeves - EDITING

twenty five

chapter twenty five: the winter moon
& the summer sun 

Five Hargreeves had spent over a decade of his life in the ruins of the apocalypse. It was a living hell, and he would never forget the hopeless sinking feeling that he felt in the pit of his stomach every single day of his life. Whenever he went to sleep at night he would just hope that he would wake up and it would all somehow have just been a dream, a terrible nightmare, and he could go back to his normal life at the Academy with his siblings, and that it would all be a distant memory within minutes.

But that was when he was just a kid, barely a teenager at the age of thirteen, too naive and too innocent to know. As he got older he soon realized that what he was going through was very much real,
and the chances of him ever getting out were minimal, and he accepted that he would be stuck there for eternity, it at least for the rest of his eternity.

Number Five never really actually expected to get back, so eventually just abandoned all hope and turned to alcohol to get himself through the endless days, weeks, months, years and eventually decades, entirely alone. Well, there was Delores. God he had almost completely forgotten about her, but he wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to remember her. She held too many dark memories, and just the thought of her name nearly brought him back there.

Some days he had genuinely considered giving up and ending everything; his life, his pain, his suffering, his demons. To just allow himself to rest peacefully with his siblings, wherever they had ended up. He never did though, because the thought of death was a fear that had stuck with him since he was a child, too scared to know what happens next.

Then the Handler came and offered him a job, and he was so desperate that he took it. Working there wasn't easy, but at least it gave him the tiniest bit of hope that he would eventually return to his siblings, save them all and live the rest of his life with them the way he had always intended and yearned for.

However as time passed he still felt the same hopeless sinking falling feeling in his stomach almost every day, because the chances of him figuring out a way to get back seemed to feel further away as the days went by quickly and the night went by slowly.

Eventually he got back.

And now he had stopped it. The apocalypse.

But it seemed like such an impossible task, and it was so time consuming that Number Five had never even thought that about what would happen on the day that came after. When the sun would set and the moon would rise, and the sun would rise again, which would signify the day after. The day that Five had chased his whole life, and the day that should've made him relieved. When summer would come and then the autumn leaves would fall in place, and then the first fall of snows would fall once again, until the flowers would grow again in spring and then summer would return once again. The days, weeks, months, heard and decades would go by again, this time without just Five Hargreeves around to see and experience it.

The thoughts should've made him relived. It didn't.

The thought terrified him.

He didn't know where he fit into the world now, because he had spent so long away. There was such a disconnect between Five and his siblings, because he had missed out on everything important that he had ever happened to them. He didn't belong anywhere, but he never really did.

Number Five didn't really have anyone. Sure, he technically had his siblings, but he was sure that once the apocalypse had been stopped that they would leave and go back to however they had spent their lives before he had come back and interrupted them. Maybe one or two of them might stay, but even that seemed like a reach.