Graveyard Whistling _ KLAUS HARGREEVES

1. wake up and smell the dynamite

"Oh, what a time to be alive!"

"Can you just fuck off already?!" Coraline burst out.

"Excuse me?" Mr De Russo commented.

She took her apron off, threw it in the bin, all while untiying her hair and started to move towards the back room so she could grab her stuff and leave.

"What do you think you're doing?" Mr De Russo asked aggressively.

"Oh, I'm leaving. I'm tired of all this bullshit and of you exploiting your employees: I'll find someplace better where at least my boss is not a dick." she simply said.

"How dare you speak to your boss like this?! I can fire you Humphries and no one will want you. I already did you a favour by hiring you." he threatened.

"In case you haven't understood, there's no need to fire me, as I'm doing it myself." Coraline appeared in the doorway of the backroom, her coat and bag on. She opened the door of the restaurant and wished farewell to the customers and employees.

"And by the way, - she addressed to the people sitting at the tables and waiting for their meal- the fish is frozen fish. It costs three times less than the price at which Mr De Russo sells it and it's not worth it. For the same price and better quality you should go to Giacomo's at the end of the street."

Coraline Eve Humphries exited the restaurant leaving behind her a roaring applause and five months of underpaid work.
It took some time to abandon the feeling of excitement and start worrying about the fact that she had just fired herself and was now unemployed with no clues about how she could pay her rent.
She had been working part time at Frazzle Diner for some time and had soon become tired of it, mostly because her boss was a complete asshole who did nothing but insulting his employees, checking out his female clients and rambling about how everyone except for him were useless and stupid. It was about time Coraline blew a fuse.

Instead of sinking in her worried state of mind, she walked home feeling proud of herself for having faced her boss. When she made sure no one saw her in the street, she made a pirouette, then ran on the sidewalk and jumped the higher she could get.

The sun was setting on the city. Coraline stared at the horizon from her small balcony.
There was just enough space for her to stand up because the space on the balcony was all occupied by plants and glasses filled with water and brushes.
She wondered why in that city it was always cloudy... The sun was probably feeling too fabulous to show up...
She closed the window behind her and curled up under her polka dot blanket on the couch, looking for some trashy reality show on the tv.

While she waited for the new episode of Survivor to start, she decided go to empty her glasses full of coloured water in the bathroom sink and clean up her brushes.

What can I do now that I'm officially unemployed? she thought in the meantime.
-Maybe I could work as a catsitter?
-You're allergic to cats, you dumbass.

The sink was filled with tiny little rainbow water droplets and that made her want to take a picture because of how cute it was. She remembered that she wasn't narcissistic enough to be an influencer.

The girl went back to her living room, took a pot of yoghurt out of the fridge and jumped on the couch. It was time to put her brain on standby: she would have thought about finding a way to pay her rent later.

Eventually, she heard a loud sucking noise coming from the bathroom followed by a thump and things falling.
Her first reaction was to turn the tv on mute to see if she was mad or if there really was a burglar in her house. The moment she heard someone cursing, she grabbed the pair of scissors she kept in the kitchen and slowly walked to the bathroom.

"Shit, what is going on with my powers lately? This doesn't look at all like that damn department store." she heard the voice behind the bathroom door say.

Coraline suddenly opened the door and saw an unusual scene: laying on the floor, there was a kid who must have been around 13, wearing some kind of school uniform and looking very pissed.

"What are you doing in my bathroom?!" she yelled.

"Technical disfunctions. Sorry but now I have to leave. I have better things to do." he announced.

What happened next left her even more puzzled than before, given the fact that the bathroom lit up in a blueish light and the kid literally disappeared.

However, there was something glimming on the carpet, between all the fallen boxes and creams.
When Coraline took a step forward, she noticed it was a glass eye.
It must have fallen out of his pocket.

But why would a kid be carrying a glass eye with him?

Then she recalled why the uniform had looked so familiar to her: because it was The Umbrella Academy uniform.

She could have forgotten all about it and carried on watching Survivor on her tv, but Coraline wasn't that type of person.
Instead she slid the eye in her pocket and decided she would give it back to the kid. He had said something about a department store. There sure were many in town and she had no idea of which one to go to. She would have wandered from department store to department store until she saw one going up in flames. Easy enough, if you say a building burning down, you knew the Umbrella Academy was involved.

Maybe she was crazy, but she had always loved the thrill of adventure. And when adventure involved the Umbrella Academy, it was more like trouble than anything.

But yeah, she also liked trouble, so she  thought she would give it a go.

author's note:
I'm terribly late at updating but I finally managed to do it yay. I'm also sorry because this chapter is complete crap, but it's just the beginning of the story and literally nothing happens in Coraline's life.
Anyway, tell me what you think in the comments and thank you for all the votes and views already. This is WILD, I'm so happy and thankful!