On the twelfth hour of the first of October 1989, I was born.

I came into this world as a normal looking baby, healthy, weighed the average amount I should have, I even cried.

But the catch is, my mother was never pregnant. My mother was a teen who started her day out normally and ended it by giving birth to a beautiful baby girl.

That day, Reginald Hardgreeves adopted seven of the forty-three children born on the day. Oh, and by the way, forty-three children were born on that day.

Apparently, those seven, or rather six, as one of them was viewed as ordinary, had powers.

Did I have powers? Nope, unless eating and reading counts, I have absolutely no powers. But I was born on that day, and my mom was in a way special, so technically speaking, I, in a way, I may have powers…

No, I have nothing, I wish though, but I don’t.

Mom made sure I understood that clearly. I had to live with her as she finished high school, entered college and went through years of stress to understand that I was the worst, most unwanted thing that ever happened to her. For eight years, I went through the pain of being helpless and hated. Eight years of my life taught me that no matter what the stories tell you of hero’s and saviors, there will always be villains. In my eight years of living with my wicked and cruel mother, I understood that faster than most kids.

But it all changed when I turned nine.

I guess mom had enough of me, so she left me at the doorstep of the Hardgreeves mansion and carelessly walked away, or that’s what the cameras showed. A women cleaning the porch saw me. I assumed she was either the mom or the nanny of the house. She had a precise face, almost as if everything was measured out by hand. Her red lipstick had no smudges of lines out of place, her cocktail dress was clean and crisp, and her blonde shot hair was curled to perfection.

She walked towards me when she say me sitting on the steps, and the thing I last noticed about her was that the way she walked was almost mechanical. The way those robot toys do when you wing up it’s back and it starts to walk in a linear fashion.

“Where are you from sweetie?” She asked in a soft tone. I stared at her blankly and at first I was dumbfounded. It took a couple moments before I replied.

“I don’t know.” She nodded and looked around, probably looking for my guardian or someone that may have looked like me. When she found nobody that gave  a slight interest to me, she looked back down and stared at my face for a second, calculating what her next question was going to be.

“Are you here by yourself?” I heard her say, I looked up at her and her blue eye were all but intimidating. For the first time I my life, I wasn’t afraid at looking at someone’s eyes.

“Yes.” I replied simply. She nodded her head once more.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to take you back to your mom or dad. Can you tell me where you live so I can take you back?” She smiled warmly and I wanted to tell her where I lived, but… I couldn’t remember. Mom never told me the house address or even what street we lived on.

“My mo-mom dropped me off here.” I whispered in the tiniest voice. She leaned in.

“What did you say sweetie?”

“My mom dropped me off here and left.” The women, for the first time in the short conversation seemed to think for longer than a a quick moment, and then she turned her back to me and she then turned around again, ushering me inside the beautiful home.

She took me into the house, it was at night time, I remember that quite clearly. There were six children running up the stairs. One of them was engulfed in a blue light and was teleported back on the higher steps than the rest. A girl was at the top of the stairs, holding what seemed to be  stopwatch and was looking at the rest in envy. She stood next to an older man with a white pointed beard and a gold monocle on his left eye. He yelled a couple of words, but I couldn’t make any of them out.

The nice woman told me to wait where I was and she started making her ways up the staircase not caring about the running children, and up her way to the older man. She whispered something in his ear, he thought the situation through in his head, and he yelled “Stop!”

And the children obeyed.

I fidgeted with my hair and tapped my feet lightly on the ground. The tension in the room was unbearable and I could almost sense the power the man generated when he cascaded down the stairs. I began running the speech in my head.  All I wanted was a place to stay for the night so that in the morning I wouldn’t have to face the biting winds. I was left here by my mom, she didn’t love me very much. I can be useful, I’ve cleaned ever since I was three, I can wash the dishes and scrub the floor-

 “Tell me, girl. What is your name?” He said with a snap in his voice. I knew that if I stuttered, I wouldn’t be able to look strong and then therefore I wouldn’t have any where to sleep.

So, I said in the strongest voice I could muster up, I replied to his question.

“My name is Meveran Lane.” He looked at me again and thought for a second.

“How old are you, Miss Lane?”

“I am nine years old, Sir.” I heard that calling a man older than you, or a man that seems more superior Sir would gain more respect on your side.

“Do tell me when your birthday is.”

“My birthday is on the first of October. Sir.” He looked over to the women and behind them I could see the kids peeping their faces through the back wall, trying to catch a glimpse as to what was happening.

“And what year where you born in?” He asked.

“I was born in 1989. My mother said I was a rather strange bir-” He cut me off.

“Have you ever had anything strange happen to you, Miss Lane? Such as feeling of power, strength or invulnerability?” I looked at him strangely. He waited for me to go on.

“No Sir. Or at least, I don’t think so.” He seemed dissatisfied.

“To think is to know, and if you don’t know the correct answer, I’m afraid we are in a complicated situation. Do you or do you not have any unnatural powers, Miss Lane?”

“No Sir.” He nodded.

“And tell me, why in the world should I even think of letting you stay at my house?” He questioned me with cold eyes.

“I can clean sir, if needed I can help around the house. I just need somewhere to stay, just for a short amount of time. Five days at the most. My mother left me here and told me to never follow her back. I guess it wouldn’t matter because I don’t even know where my house is, or wa-” He held up a hand, telling me to stop. For what seemed like eternity, he thought about an idea, or if he should call child services and get me off of his plate.

“Grace, get her a bedroom and a warm dinner. I suspect she’s been exposed in the cold for too long. And make a time so that she can meet the rest of the Hardgreeves family,” He turned around and looked around at me again, trying to see if there was anything else he wanted to ask me, but when he made up his mind, he finally said, “Miss Meveran Hardgreeves, welcome, to The Umbrella Academy.”