My name is Five Hargreeves. Just Five. I never cared much for the whole name thing—numbers were more useful anyway.

I was one of forty-three children born on October 1st, 1989, to women who weren’t pregnant the day before. Seven of us were adopted by Sir Reginald Hargreeves—a billionaire genius, or so he liked to call himself. He turned us into the Umbrella Academy. Not a family. A team. A project.

While the others had their tricks—super strength, rumor manipulation, summoning the dead—I could jump through space. Blink from one place to another. At least... that’s how it started. I saw the bigger picture early on. Time wasn’t fixed. It was just another dimension waiting to be cracked open.

Reginald warned me not to mess with it. Said I wasn’t ready.

I didn’t listen.

I pushed my abilities further—past space, into time. And for one brief second, I proved him wrong.

Then everything went wrong.

I got stuck in the future. No way back. No one else. Just silence... and ruins. The world had ended. Burned, broken, empty. I don’t know how long I was out there—years, decades maybe. Long enough to grow old. Long enough to forget what normal even felt like.

I survived because I had to. Ate whatever I could find. Slept wherever I didn’t freeze. Talked to a mannequin I named Dolores just to stay sane. Yeah—go ahead, laugh. You try being alone at the end of the world.

Eventually, I was found by The Commission—a group that manages time, makes sure the timeline stays... correct. They gave me a job: eliminate people who weren’t supposed to exist. Fix anomalies. Kill, basically. Turns out I was good at it.

They trained me. Sharpened me. Turned me into something precise. Efficient.

But I never forgot what I saw—the apocalypse. It wasn’t random. It was coming. And I was the only one who knew.

So I made a deal. A risky one.

I used their tech to jump back in time... but I miscalculated. Instead of arriving as the man I’d become, I landed back in my thirteen-year-old body. Same mind. Same memories. Just... stuck looking like a kid.

And right on time for Sir Reginald Hargreeves’s funeral.

That’s where everything starts.

I reunited with my so-called family—Luther Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves, Allison Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves, and Vanya Hargreeves. Ben was gone. Has been for a long time.

They thought I was crazy.

Tried to warn them anyway. The apocalypse was days away, and none of them were ready. Hell, most of them could barely stand being in the same room together.

And then the Commission sent people after me—Hazel and Cha-Cha—to stop me from interfering with the timeline.

So there I was. A kid with an old man’s mind, a deadline I couldn’t miss, assassins on my back, and a broken family I had to somehow pull together.

Because if I didn’t?

The world ends.

Again.