𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐘 𝐌𝐂𝐅𝐋𝐘 𝐄𝐅𝐅𝐄𝐂𝐓 ━ five hargreeves²

1│THE END IS NEAR

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❛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴀʀᴛʏ ᴍᴄғʟʏ ᴇғғᴇᴄᴛ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐎𝐍𝐄 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ ᴛʜᴇ ᴇɴᴅ ɪs ɴᴇᴀʀ ꒱　


❝ I TRUST YOU ❞

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On April the first twenty-nineteen, the earth was destroyed in a cataclysmic event. 

Billions of people were wiped out in a matter of minutes.

Ironically, the seven survivors of the apocalypse were the very siblings who brought it on.

In an unremarkable alleyway several very strange events occurred. Across the span of three years, six living siblings and one dead one dropped out of the sky due to a rift in the space-time continuum.

The first to arrive was a grown man and his ghostly counterpart. They fell, screaming from the heavens before they were stopped abruptly by the hard concrete of the alleyway floor. As they recovered, the man spoke first: ". . .that was—"

"Exhilarating," the ghost finished for him. As the living man recovered, the darkly-clad one stood and looked around the off-street in confusion. "Where's Five?"

"Huh?"

They both turned their gazes to the portal that had dropped them in the place before they shouted in turn: "Five! Diego! Allison!"

There was no response from the people to whom those names belonged.

"Where is everybody?" the man in the vest asked. "Oh, they're gone. They're gone, like a fart in the wind." He let out a whimpery, crying sound. "Poof!" He sighed. "It's just me and you again. Great."

Used to the man's complaining, the ghost-teen ignored him as he finally asked a relevant question: "so where the hell are we?"

The duo began walking down the street and they realized that, even then, where wasn't the most pressing issue. "I think the question is when are we."

In an effort to find the answer, the living man— Klaus— tried to ask a few pedestrians, all of whom ended up ignoring him. It was his tagalong that found the answer on a discarded magazine cover: February 11, 1960.

☂☂☂

May 14, 1960

Still in daylight, a portal in the sky opened again, this time spitting out a fifteen-year-old girl onto the hard concrete ground. After taking a moment to clear some of the fuzzy after effects of time travel from her head, she scrambled to her feet as she called "Five! Five! FIVE!" in progressively louder tones until the portal snapped shut above her.

Out of the corner of her eye, Alexandra saw the flash of what looked suspiciously like a camera but the overwhelming sense of panic waylaid her investigation. Shutting her eyes, she pictured in her mind the last images of her siblings from what felt like both seconds and almost a year and a half ago: how they'd stood in a circle, holding hands, as the world collapsed around them. The tug of Five's powers that felt like electricity zapping across her skin and the interference of her own, clashing together in both harmony and discord. 

Then, she opened her eyes and looked down. "Shit."

Something had happened. She was no longer a thirty-year-old woman but a fifteen-year-old girl. Around her as they attempted to save themselves, her siblings had appeared de-aged as well but something told her they hadn't stayed young. Looking back up to the sky, she tried in a futile effort to get a response. "Five! Diego! Klaus! Anyone!"