Shadows of Another World (Book 1 in the Until the Last Star series)

Chapter One

One day at the Umbrella Academy, Five Hargreeves learned he could jump through time. As excited as he was, his father warned him that he wasn't ready yet, and if he wasn't careful, he could end up trapped in space-time. Five, however, didn't listen much to his father. Moreover, he wanted to prove his father wrong, and later that same night, he did just that.

Everything seemed to have worked, but the front of the building that would be the academy looked different, older than normal, and without the insignia. The first thing that came to his mind was that he had traveled way too far in the future. Something was wrong. How could it be that he had traveled so much in the future, but things were still the same?

He was so distracted that he didn't notice a person coming towards him. They both ended up colliding and falling to the ground. They got up without saying anything. Five saw that it was a girl, apparently around his age, with a uniform similar to his own, which confused him a little. Before either of them could say anything, what seemed to be the girl's mother appeared, taking her by the hand and pulling her away from him. The girl looked back one last time, at that boy with green eyes she had never seen before.

The boy who was left behind came out of his trance and walked again until he reached a park, where he sat down on one of the benches to think about what he would do, since getting back home was impossible at the moment. He chose to think it was because he used too much energy to get to the "future." With the daylight fading into night, came the cold breeze from the end of the winter. He had to go looking for a place where he could spend the night. The academy was out of the option since it was locked, and he couldn't teleport inside. So he decided to walk further, hoping to find a place to lay down for the night.

As dusk progressed, he arrived at a closed neighborhood. Before he could turn around to keep looking, he saw that one of the houses had an open window. After thinking about it for a few minutes, Five remained hidden until the lights turned off so he could enter the house. A few minutes had passed when it happened. After checking that the guard wasn't around, he took off running to that house. Because of the cold and tiredness, he didn't look inside first before going in, meeting the same girl from that morning again. Just that now she looked much more intimidating in her fighting stance.

"Who are you? Why did you follow me?" The girl asked without even stuttering.

"I didn't follow you" Five replied seriously.

"Of course you did, it was you that collided with me earlier," She said, not moving from her stance. "Now tell me who you are and what you are doing here, or else..." She got a little closer to him, to intimidate him, but Five was already used to things worse than this.

"Or else what?"

Five teased her while smiling sideways. But he was taken by surprise when she managed to grab his arm and put it behind his back, causing him to fall to his knees and have to bite his lower lip to keep from making a sound.

"For a ten-year-old girl, you are quite strong." Moving quickly, he gets out of that hold and has her underneath him while he has both of her hands pinned above her head, without putting too much pressure.

"I'm fourteen," she threw his body to the side with all the strength she had, causing him to lose his balance for a moment as he wasn't applying all his strength, and she kneed him in the side of the ribs, making him fall to the side.

"And you, for a ten-year-old boy, are pretty brave to enter strangers' houses." This time she didn't stand in her stance, but was still being careful with the guy in front of her.

"I'm fourteen," Five said, standing up and holding where she had hit.

"So, you still won't tell me who you are?" The girl said while crossing her arms, the boy rolled his eyes to her.

"What if I don't want to answer?"

"Then I would scream"

"But I could stop before I did"

"But there's a high probability that I'll be able to scream before you shut me up, that would make my parents wake up and the guards nearby would come here, not giving you time to escape".

Five closed his eyes and took a deep breath. If that happened, he wouldn't be able to escape without his powers, and besides, he knew he was on the wrong side at this moment. Entering a stranger's house and having a fight with them, was something he was quite used to doing, just not in the situation where those strangers weren't criminals.

"Ok, look, I'm not someone who wants to do anything bad to you or your family, I just need a place for the night and I'll leave early tomorrow".

The girl didn't want to believe that guy and just turn him in for housebreaking but her "sixth sense" was always right and at that moment she just knew he was being honest. But still, she didn't want to make it obvious that she trusted him.

"Why should I believe you?"

"Because if I really wanted to do something with you I would have done it already".

"You did just hit me"

"Because you hit me first. I was just defending myself".

They held each other's gaze for a few seconds, he felt as if she was analyzing him thoroughly which made him shiver a little and break eye contact.

"Okay, I'm wrong anyway for entering someone else's house, I'm already leaving": Just as he was about to climb out the window, he heard the girl calling for him.

"Wait..."

She sighed deeply and squeezed her eyes shut for a few seconds while still fighting with herself for what she was about to do.

"You can stay," The girl said, averting her gaze and going to her closet "The extra mattress we have is in the other room so you can use this duvet as a mattress and this one as a blanket".

After handing the things to him, she just went to sit on her bed while still keeping an eye out for him, who had finally come out of the first shock and began to make what would be his bed for the night, leaving a considerable space between her bed and where he would sleep. A few minutes into it they were soon lying down still awake and looking at the ceiling without saying a word.

"Don't you have parents or a home?" She asked curiously.

"Of course I have!" He responded quickly.

"So what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be with your family?" Five thought for a few seconds about what he could answer without having to give much explanation.

"I messed up and I need time to fix this and go back".

The girl heard the shuffling of the covers and out of curiosity, she looked to the side seeing that his back was turned to her, probably to go to sleep. Even if she was curious to know his name she decided it was best to try to sleep. After all the deal was that he would leave in the morning, so they would never meet each other again, there was no use for them to know their names.

Right?

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I hope you guys have enjoyed this first chapter❤️