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❛ ᴡᴀsᴛᴇʟᴀɴᴅs ᴏғ ᴛɪᴍᴇ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐓𝐄𝐍 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ sᴇᴠᴇɴ ᴅᴀʏs ᴡɪᴛʜᴏᴜᴛ
ᴄᴏᴍᴘᴀɴɪᴏɴsʜɪᴘ. . . ꒱


❝ WHERE'S THE SUN? ❞

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Lola was right: reading had made her feel better as she'd known it would. The familiarity of the words had helped calm her down and clear her head, subduing the panic and grief that had threatened to overwhelm her. She stood and stumbled on her first step, stiff from sitting in the same position for so long. Night was coming and there was something too eerily uncomfortable about sleeping on top of her old home that forced her to move. The brunette paused at what was once the front door and turned to look at the only home she'd ever known. 

There was an empty, deep ache in her chest from the death of her family— she hadn't even gotten to say goodbye— but that was expected. She had decided that she really wouldn't rather see the bodies of her family and had chosen to leave them buried in the rubble, no matter how much they deserved a proper burial and resting place.

She took a breath and spoke aloud: "I have to go now. I'm sorry I wasn't a better daughter. I'm sorry I didn't listen when I was supposed to. I'm sorry for never inviting you to read what I was writing. I'm sorry that I didn't ask you to come down to the basement with me that night. I'm sorry for leaving you here. We all know I'm not a survivor. I enjoy the— the comforts of life too much to do well where they're absent, but I'll try. I'll try, for your sake. There's little hope that I can somehow save you but if there's a way, I'll make it happen. So, until there's a final answer for that I'll keep looking for one, which means that I have to try to survive." Lola paused, wishing more than ever that she had invited her family to the basement the fateful night. But there was no time for that, so she instead she finished simply: "goodbye."

The girl turned and made her way deeper into the old downtown, wanting to put as much distance between herself and the house as possible. For the first time ever, Lola wished there was school. There would be no more learning in the apocalypse; most of the books hadn't made it or weren't important enough to keep. She missed the constant, benign chatter of her classmates and the repetitive days that she'd taken for granted. There was so much that she'd taken for granted.

She missed staying up late and reading under the covers while hearing her parent's muted laughter from the downstairs, she missed her uncle calling her 'Sequins' as much as she hated that nickname, she missed the way his eyes would twinkle and he'd always be the first to make a situation lighter or crack a joke. She even missed her mother telling her what to do and scolding her for not doing it. She missed being in summer and wishing it was fall, she missed being in fall and wishing it was summer. Lola tilted her head up to look at the grey, grey sky, the falling ash hitting and dirtying her goggles.

She wished she could throw something. A heavy object, preferably, right up to that vast, grey expanse. She pictured it cracking as it was hit, fragments and spider-web fissures showing in the smooth, glassy surface. The shards falling around her in a rain, dangerous and sharp. Then, in the aftermath, the familiar blue sky would appear and warm sun would hit her face and fluffy white clouds would drift across as if they'd always been there, hidden under a heavy blanket. Anger spiked within her. 

"WHERE'S THE SUN?" she cried up at the sky, "WHAT DID YOU DO WITH IT? I WANT IT BACK!"

Her voice echoed in the empty space.

There was no natural light, just brighter in the day and pitch-black at night. They had to make fires to see, to provide their own warmth. The girl bent and picked up a rock and threw it with all her might farther down the street. Even the thump was muted. She gave a little sob, wishing, wishing, for some sort of temperature. Since she'd come out, there'd been no warmth, no chill (although that was becoming more noticeable now), the temperature just was and she was sick of it.

Despite her frustration, the sky gave no answer and the ash continued to fall. Lola had never been an outside person and now she was regretting it. How many colors there had been in what she was now calling the old world and she'd never noticed them! Now it was beige, tan, black and grey for miles. She'd never been a painter; she was a wordsmith if anything and had taken colors at face value, but now she longed for any sort of vibrance at all.

Her bitterness at the never-changing sky persisted. There was nothing to think about, nothing to do, nothing at all. She'd never thought much about the end of the world, always subconsciously imagining that it would be in the billion years scientists predicted. She'd watched some survivor shows and had wondered what it would be like to live like that— she'd always given herself more credit towards her survival skills than what was true— but the true end of the world was nothing like what it had been portrayed as.

✧✧✧

Lola had never seriously considered what would happen if she died. She'd thought about it— about what it would feel like, who would miss her, her lost opportunity to make her mark on the world— but she'd never actually considered it; what she liked to call the Hamlet Question. Still, that hadn't stopped her from practice-writing her own Will.

She'd always been a writer; even when she was little she had created her own benign version of her after-life giveaway. She hadn't owned much but her clothes would go to her mother, the only other girl she'd been close to. Her books and toys would go to her uncle who had always seemed like an overgrown kid. Her room would go to her father who'd liked messing around with parts of the house and improving them, and that was the end of the list. Still, she'd liked looking up the big words and using 'legal speech' that she'd found on the internet to make it seem more official. She'd never once thought that she'd have nothing when she died.

From ash to ash and dust to dust had never seemed more fitting now as she walked through the falling white flakes, her thoughts as dark and angry as the landscape. It had been three days since she'd left Five and her mood hadn't improved since she'd left her house behind. There wasn't anything to be happy about at all, so why should she try?

Everything was dead except for her and the boy— who knew if he was even still here? Their paths hadn't crossed in the short amount of time they'd been separated. He might've kept his word, found a way to time travel back home and left her behind without a second thought. (Of course, this is far from the truth but there was no way for her to know that. Perhaps if she had, her outlook would have improved exponentially.)

Lola hadn't found much in the way of food the last few days either which was probably adding to what was swirling through her mind right now. She still refused to eat bugs and hadn't had any luck catching rats— although she'd tried, much to her disgust. She figured if she cooked up the rodent it might, at least, taste like chicken. There was no way bugs could do that with all of their legs, even if rats could carry disease. She'd take her chances with the vermin, thank you very much.

She'd thought of more things that she missed while she walked. She missed taking showers whenever she wanted and being clean. She missed the hum of the air conditioning window unit in her room and the whir of the fan. She missed the scratchy feeling of wool and the smoother feeling of her cotton sheets. She missed the sun streaming through her windows of her nearly-useless curtains that would always wake her up in the early hours of the morning unless her eyes were covered.

A part of her wanted to use the remainder of her precious paper and make a list of all the things she'd lost but Lola knew it would surpass the remaining blank space she had. There were too many things she'd never noticed and now longed for to write down. From time to time, she'd speak out loud to herself and verbalize this list as her words dissolved, unheard, into the empty air. A few times she'd sung some of her parent's favorite songs to try and cheer herself up but by the end of each, her mood had almost been worse. The pressing quiet alone was nearly enough to make someone go insane.

Without a companion, there was no reason for her to debate anything or show magic tricks. She'd tried a few games of Solitaire with her cards but had realized that watching someone play didn't equate to knowing how to play.

At night, she sat by her fire and huddled in on herself. She kept her eyes focused on the flames in an effort to ignore the creeping dark. If she did sleep, the bright spots, geometric shapes and juggling monkey would return, causing her eyes to snap open in panic. The dying orange embers of her fire would remind her that no, she wasn't still trapped in her basement.

Sometimes she re-read her books in an effort to forget the pangs of hunger and her exhaustion. This worked for the duration of the book but never lasted. (How was she supposed to spend the rest of her life like this? To think that she'd wanted to live a long and fruitful one!)

Lola had even gone through all of her times tables up until twelve, a sure sign of her never-ceasing boredom if she had to turn to math. She'd even tried to recite every counted number that had stuck in her head and recall what it went to.

✧✧✧

The fifth day found her digging through another pile of rubble. She wasn't sure what this one had been, but the if the vast expanse of same-colored structure was anything to go by, it had been a huge building. Some of the piles reached high above her head and she had no hope of moving them. Lola picked up a much smoother piece of fallen building curiously and brushed off the caked-on grime. It was cool to the touch and the pattern was distinctly not concrete or usual building material. She suspected it was marble or something, clueing her in on the fact that this building had once been ornate. It clearly wasn't the Umbrella Academy house but downtown had had some rather grand buildings, the bank and the theater being two of them.

The brunette had been to the bank many times with her father to deposit the weeks' accumulation from the store. It had also been the location of the Umbrella Academy's debut to the world, although neither she nor her father had been there that day. Researching Reginald Hargreeves' speech seemed like a lifetime ago now when in reality, it had only been three months.

She'd never been in the theater building although her parents had attended several performances. They'd spent the night out on the town while her uncle had stayed behind and took care of her; the two of them often got up to mischief and broke most of her mom's rules— especially the one about bedtime. Then, when she'd gotten old enough, they let her stay home alone and had taken her uncle with them. She'd still broken her mom's rules but had done so by herself in the basement which wasn't nearly as much fun.

If this lot was either of the two places, it was unlikely that she would find anything useful and probably should move on. Still, something drove her to keep shifting the pieces of structure to see what lay beneath. She dropped a few of them very quickly depending on what she found. The smell of dead bodies was nearly unnoticeable now that she'd gotten used to it but seeing them— especially after three months— gave her the creeps and she tried to stay as far away as possible.

Her next surprise was when she came across a scratched, solid black surface. A large boulder sat in the middle of the object but after clearing the edges, she immediately recognized the shape of a squashed piano. Some of the keys were even still intact on the keyboard, not that she could play it— clearly this was the theater. Lola wondered if there had been a performance the night the world ended. Which would explain the bodies, she thought suddenly. The girl closed her eyes for a second as the nausea returned before she swallowed it back. She shook her head and resumed her search, being even more careful about where she stepped and what she lifted.

Her final find came in the form of the only completely-intact, unharmed instrument on what used to be the stage. The brunette stopped and stared with wide eyes at the completely white violin that was sitting innocently in the middle of the destruction. How was it not broken? Nothing else had survived the complete demolition while still remaining whole.

The girl approached it as cautiously as if it might explode and dent over to inspect it before she even thought about touching it. It was completely pristine with no ash or grime and the paint hadn't faded in the months of exposure. Her hands hovered over it and she almost yanked them back; there was an energy there.

Lola didn't know how to describe it or even if what she was feeling was real, but the area immediately around the violin felt as if there was some sort of resistance protecting it, as if it had once been a source of great power. But that's not possible, right? The only people with powers was the Umbrella Academy as far as she knew, and none of them had any sort of relationship with music— except Vanya, but she was ordinary.

The brunette picked up the instrument carefully and the violin was practically humming with residual power. She didn't think it was dangerous, though. It was more of a ghostlike imprint from its last use. She'd been a musician as much as she'd been an artist— meaning she wasn't talented at either— but she knew that this wasn't normal. There was a familiar, inkling feeling that this instrument was a part of a much larger puzzle to which she had no picture, just a piece. Instead of looking at the top view, she was looking at it from the narrow side where nothing completely made sense.

She frowned thoughtfully down at the object in her hands. While she liked riddles and was good at solving them, she preferred to at least know the question as most people did. Here, she had what was probably part of the answer— what else could it be, when everything else was destroyed and the violin was simply resonating with power?— and not even all of that. Lola had never thought much about the cause of the apocalypse as she'd been too concerned with her current situation and trying to survive in it to care about what happened in the past, but now the curiosity sparked within her. A riddle would definitely be a good way to occupy her mind even if there was only ever going to be one clue.

After months of nothing, even something as frustrating as this was a relief. The girl sat on the ground with her legs folded crisscross as she stared unblinkingly at the instrument. The thoughts in her mind became lighter, caused by the source of her distraction. It was nearly impossible to figure out anything but just holding something that appeared to not have been touched by the disaster around her was a marvel in itself. Now more than ever she wished she had been born on October first with the other special kids; the gift of psychometry would be infinitely helpful right now.

Her ordinary touch was nothing, yet she still turned the instrument over in her hands and studied it as if her life depended on it. There were hardly any scratches at all on the wood and the strings were perfectly intact. From her limited music knowledge, Lola knew that, depending on how long and intense the concert was, the strings should at least be frayed or look used. There were stronger forces at work here if the violin still looked brand-new (if the humming of old power was anything to go by, at least.) The musician had probably owned the instrument for far longer than just the one night so it should have looked more used than it did. Had the powers glossed over the use of the instrument?

A part of her doubted that it was someone's powers, but what else could it possibly be? She wanted to say magic, but she could already here Five's voice in the back of her head scoffing at the idea so the only reasonable conclusion was that it had to be one of the miracle babies born on the first. Were there more than seven? Why would one of them want to end the world? Maybe it had been an accident? (A pretty major one but still, the intention might not have been malevolent. Superpowers could always get out of control if superhero movies were anything to go by.) What sort of power resonated with music and was destructive? Sound?

Lola frowned at that. Sound waves maybe, but they'd have to be amplified to an unimaginable amount to destroy the world. And what about the person that had been the cause? Was their body still here or did their powers destroy them? What if the violin was just a coincidence and it was something else entirely?

The brunette sighed and stood before she made her way over to where she'd put her books down to search. Picking up her notebook and pulling out the pen tucked into its spiral, she flipped to a clean page. At the top, she labeled it The Apocalypse. Immediately underneath, she wrote Clues. Under that with a bullet, she described the violin and the condition she found it in. On the back of the same page, she wrote Possible Causes and under that, powers? with an added bullet of sound waves as a subitem.

✧✧✧

The next two days passed uneventfully after that and were filled with her mostly trying to scavenge for food. Lola hadn't paid attention to the path she was making and had unintentionally— or intentionally in her subconscious— made a complete circle: her feet had taken her back to where she'd last seen Five. She recognized the layout of the school immediately and groaned. It was going to be so awkward if she saw him. Unless he'd left. She shook her head, not wanting to give him another thought.

The brunette girl sat down on one of the concrete blocks nearby to rest her feet. She'd gotten used to walking almost all day but her hunger was making her tired. Maybe slightly-moldy sandwiches and old Twinkies weren't so bad after all.

Just as she was contemplating the thought, a voice filled with surprise spoke from behind her: "you're still alive?"