Attacca ─ Five Hargreeves

09. The Sinister Cycle

Five had his suspicions.

After sensing that his energy had recovered so suddenly, he directly decided for the two to take the jump into the early spring. It was too cold for both of their bodies to endure, even though that night he did feel strange, where warmth surprisingly surrounded the setting, the weather in the car became bearable, but it was only around them—a few feet away from where they were, the ferocious cold still hammered the surface, trust him, he tried to get out of the car to uphold his point to the girl.

His inklings started when Genevieve just rolled her eyes without screeching at himself to get back into the car, knowing the current temperature could cautiously kill him. That unless she knew it would not happen. But even so, he just couldn't pinpoint the evidence since he saw for himself how she was so trifled away in the sparse heat that the pile of sacks gave her. And nothing was flickering in either of her hands, meaning no power was being applied. He only found her right hand poking out of the coils of the cloth, his thoughts at that time solely deemed that she probably wanted to prove his words, yet there was a small trace of blaze that faded rather hastily when his eyes caught the sight of her hand the first second.

The next hunch was when the girl seemed more tired than usual, even resting did not make her any better. The weather had changed, kinder to their bodies, yet she still looked ill. Her skin resembled the palest thing in nature as if her blood had been entirely drained. Her pace was slow to the point where he needed to ask if she wanted to sit in the carriage instead of walking, despite her constant assurances that she was just having a rough day, it appeared like more than that to him.

Was the headache the cause? But it had been three years, and in a few months, it would be four, after she emerged from her frozen state.

It wasn't supposed to have any more corollary, wasn't it?

However, again, there were still riddles that they had not solved.

The two still did not fathom what really happened to her to the point Grace had to go ask Reginald for help. Five suspected the thirteenth of November in the journal might have something to do with her present condition.

If Genevieve did die and his father brought her back to life, would there be any lasting side effects other than her enhanced self? The girl didn't seem to have any other than those constant headaches, but she was certainly far from okay. It was like whatever was lurking within her body was just waiting for the right time to unleash its full-blown attack.

"Stop worrying," she assured after his umpteenth inquiry. "I can handle myself."

She said she was okay.

She said she just had a bad day.

She said it was a cycle.

But she couldn't even stand properly the next day without claiming her world was spinning.

At this point, Five didn't even know if she was telling the truth or not. He might be able to hark the lies gushing beneath her words, but neither could he assume there was no factuality there. The apocalypse would constantly test their lives, and it was understandable enough, but now that he saw it in person, it terrified him. It was positively scary to see her so weak because it seemed like she could, at any moment, knock on heaven's door.

Five wasn't ready to be alone again, he wasn't ready to go through this all by himself. He might be able to survive, he had indeed been alone before, but it wouldn't be the same. Because the apocalypse had depicted them both as its distinctive ikons, it was all about them now. He would remember them here, not just him alone. They were similar to scales, if one was gone, the other would only lose its equilibrium.