Well, that sucks.

I’m staring at the bullet frozen in time twenty inches away from my face. When I let the time flow, I’m going to die. Can’t dodge that. No shot.

I sigh ---think of a sigh to be more accurate. Like everything else, I too get frozen in time when time stops.

I got pretty good at thinking myself into doing actions that require moving. It feels really natural pretending that I move. Otherwise the whole racing-mind/frozen-body spooky quantum stringy duality thingy feels even more awkward. Let’s just call my ability --- stopping time--- for what it really is: magic. I have no idea how it works. I’m a wizard. Level twenty Chronomancer. Master of Time who just ran out of time.

So embarrassing.

I think of staring at my feet.

I shouldn’t have tried to stop the bank robbery. Should have just stayed outside and waited for the police. Of course, that was not an option. I think of turning around and glancing at Lina. The girl next door. Well, the girl next door I’ve had a crush on ever since I first saw her. She’s pretty. Like, 10/10 super cute and nice and funny… and she doesn’t even know I exist.

What was I thinking? I’m an idiot. So embarrassing. I pretended to be a superhero and ran to the bank to save a girl. God, I’m an idiot.

I think of people around me going ‘awww’. Yeah, it feels like I’m a low-budget rom-com character and this is all a joke.

Awww.

Thanks. I think of waving to Lina.

Hi Lina.

“Hi Andy,” I think of her saying.

“It’s really embarrassing, ha?”

“Yup.”

“She knows!” another voice says. “We all do.”

Odd. I did not think of that voice saying that.

“Knows what?” I think of me asking.

“We can all hear you!”

“Oh,” I gulp, glancing around. Am I losing it? Everyone is frozen. I did not let the time flow. What on earth is going on?

“I don’t know,” the voice says. It’s coming from a bank teller. “But we can hear your words and thoughts. What is going on?”

I scratch my head. “Well, now... Are you sure?”

“Yes!” the bank crowd says in unison.

“That’s really embarrassing. Lina?”

“Yes?” she asks.

“Can you hear me too?”

“Aha.”

“Oops.”

“Look, Andy, you're an okay guy. Clean, polite, nice. You have an apartment, a stable job and a dog. And, apparently, you’re some kind of a superhero, which is a big plus! A level twenty Chronomancer.”

I scratch my head. “Well, it’s a made-up title. Pun on Necromancer. It’s a D&D thing, you know. But… erm… yes, I can stop time. So, I guess, thanks---”

“Why do you always have to be so awkward?”

“Huh?”

“You dress kind of funny, and you mumble and look away whenever I say hi. Why? Make eye contact. And if you like me, why don’t you just ask me out? Like ‘Hi Lina. Do you want to grab a cup of coffee or something?’ How hard is that?”

I squint my eyes. “But what if you say no?”

“Then we won’t have a cup of coffee! Duh! How old are you?”

“Thirty-three.”

“My God! How do you even breathe? You men---”

“Well, sorry.” I shrug. “I guess I fucked up. Got it! And now it’s kind of late, right? I mean, unless you can move really fast. Then I can unfreeze time and you can do the superhero move or something.” I whistle, slicing my hand through the air in front of me.

“You are moving, you idiot! We’re all frozen and you’re the only one in the entire bank who’s casually waltzing across the room!”

“Oh--- I am?” I am. I’m standing in front of her, gazing into her beautiful eyes, far away from the stupid bullet. “How did that happen?”

“I don’t know! How do you stop time? You’re weird! Oh, and thanks for the compliment. I like when guys notice my eyes. You should do it while we’re drinking that coffee. But not now. And I'm sorry for being rude and calling you an idiot. I'm really freaking out right now.”

“Why?”

“Dude--- bank robbery.”

“Ah, right. Hold on.”

I walk across the room to the bank robber.

“Uhmm…” I say. “Hello there, Mr. Robber.” I gently open the palm of his hand and get his gun. “You won’t need this. Let’s just pretend it didn’t happen. Call it an accident, ha? A bad day. I hold no grudges against you. But you need to leave or I’ll freeze you again and tie you up or lock you up somewhere” --- I flick the tip of his nose --- “or hurt you. And I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I’ll leave,” the robber says. “I promise! Just please let me go.”

I give him two thumbs up, smiling. I walk back across the room, poking with my finger the time-frozen bullet so it aims to the ceiling, then stop in front of Lina. I fix my bowtie and smile.

Do you want to grab a cup of coffee with me?

Then I let the time flow.

Terrified, I humored myself by absentmindedly dreaming of a mishmash of beer commercial slogans: "this silver bullet is for you." Yeah. I hoped to drink a cold brew once I figured out a way out of this. Problem was that nothing came to mind. The moment I unpaused time and moved forward to the next moment, the bullet would make an impact and I would perish.

It didn't take long for me to figure out that I needed to find a way to somehow go back to the previous moments and undecide to clash with the armed police of the Faddish regime. Perhaps go back to the beginning and decide not to use my powers to meddle with political affairs at all. That was my only way out of this, and... I couldn't admit it was bleak. The only thing I had going for me was that I had all the time in the world. Literally. Which might count for something, I guess. Another problem was that I had no resources, nothing to read, no Internet, and I understood literally nothing about the source of my powers. The first time I stopped time was when I met a girl I only dated once. We were on the subway and she was this close to stepping off before I caught her gaze. Suddenly, out of nowhere, time stopped, and I had the ability to think about every step I needed to take to make sure she saw me. After that it was simple, I just asked for time to stop or start, and it did.

I wished she were here now, or anyone. Argh! How was I even to attempt this? Maybe, just maybe there was some combination of words or thoughts that would do it. I had tried in the past to go back in time and to the future, and no set of words enabled that. My power was limited to freezing and unfreezing time and that was it. Yet, now I had time to really test every single combination.

At first, I set out with rabid abandon, throwing words to and fro "back in time, go to the past, previous moment." The list of combinations was endless and I cursed how many ways there were to say the same thing. Nothing worked. It was impossible to keep track of how long I tried, as the absence of time defied such a thing. It could have been the equivalent of years or even centuries of effort before the thought crossed my mind that I wasn't going to do it, that I had no choice but to unpause time and accept that fateful bullet. Especially since whenever I had those thoughts I had to go back and keep trying, making absolutely sure that I'd exhausted all the options.

When I did unpause time the world went black, presumably from the impact. Then I saw myself from above and assumed that I was ascending into heaven or something equivalent. I really was fooled up until the point I re-emerged into the control room, where they told me I'd died on the subway from being hit in the jugular by a beer bottle thrown by the boyfriend of the woman I tried to pick up, and that everything past that point had been experimental.

r/StoriesToThinkAbout

The vision in my right eye is distorted. I think the shock wave of the bullet just inches in front of it is warping its shape.

I can feel panic rising. The bullet has past my face, heading towards the one I love. I can't react fast enough once I restart time to do anything about it. The reflex to stop time only happened when the sound triggered my ears. By that point it was already passing me.

The sharpest reflexes of a human are around 0.15 of a second. By the time the impulse to do anything reaches my muscles, the bullet will be 400 feet further away.

Well, more precisely it will be 17 feet and 6 inches away. In my husbands chest.

Even if I could catch the bullet midair, it would punch through my flesh and out the other side, still hitting him. Those things contain a lot of energy.

My point of view is fixed but my left eye's vision is crystal clear. The nearest object that might stop the bullet is probably going to have to be steel and more than a quarter inch thick. I can only see one thing that might do it. The gun that fired it. A pistol. Lots of computer games versed me in at least the vague idea of what type it is. 1911 pattern Colt. Who even has a pistol like that in Britain these days? Police? Gangmembers? Oh! There...I cant change the focus of my eye at all but I can vaguely make out the man with the gun is wearing a bullet proof vest on under his jacket. He doesn't look like a cop for sure.

Back to the problem. That apparently has no solution. Can't move fast enough to stop the bullet. It looks like its aimed to hit him in the chest. Probably near the heart. That's going to be fatal. Damn it! There's nothing I can do except let him die! I rail against my power, trying to flex it, stretch its capability. Somehow do that thing they do in movies and perform an impossible task at the last moment. Nothing happens. For what to me is days I strive to act. Do my absolute damndest to move while keeping the rest of the universe still. Nada. I'm left to my failure before he has even died. Maybe...just maybe...with my timestop ability I can get revenge on the man with the gun before he shoots me too.

I cant even cry. I cant sigh or sob. My emotions refuse to change because my body is trapped in a moment of time and emotion is based on chemistry, which isnt changing. I have to let him die. But I will kill the bastard for doing it.

Time released, muscles already primed to do each action. I freeze time every few tenths of a second to adjust, to plan every move. I shift weight, throw myself forwards, freeze time in slices while maintaining my line of sight so I can't be caught off guard. His face is frozen in startlement as I rise up and dismantle the gun in his hand with precise motions.

Then I realise. Even as I put him down, cracking his skull with the butt of his own gun, that he isn't looking at me. The thing he fears is behind me.

​

I turn. I freeze the moment. See the bullet that hit my husband, squashed flat and pinging away from his skin as he transforms. My husband, shape twisting and stretching, becoming the villian, Blood Ogre.

I felt my body freeze and space around me contort, my body's sensations simultaneously ceasing and perpetuating themselves. Like when you sit in hot water until it feels lukewarm, the same stimulus causes your body to go numb quite quickly.

The chill breeze in the night air now still, every leaf and particle of dust motionless, suspended in the air. My sense of balance had left me long ago. I had been here for what felt both like 5 seconds and 5 hours; though, here, time is effectively meaningless. The ground beneath me at a slight angle, with me having attempted to throw myself to the ground to avoid what was so close to the bridge of my nose I had a hard time focusing on it with both eyes.

This little piece of copper, smaller than the end of my pinky, would be what removed me from this world.

Of course I decided to go for a walk tonight, and of course I had to run into a trigger-happy mugger. My wallet was already in his hand, what did killing me even do for him?

Well, I have all the time in the world, at least. I have to be able to find some way out of this, surely? I've gotten out of predicaments in the past.

In the 5th grade, I was playing soccer and slammed into another kid. In the tumble, I paused out of panic and saw that, if I continued to fall, my arm would be snapped like a twig under the other one, who easily had 50 pounds on me. I was always scrawny. I got ready to contort myself, and as soon as time unpaused, I managed to avoid the broken arm, settling instead for a sprained wrist.

In my freshman year of college I was at a party and flirting up a girl. Little did I know she had a boyfriend - and little did she know he was also there. I saw him coming in the reflection of a window, and dodged his suckerpunch, tripping him and getting the hell out of there.

My first day headed to work some day drunk ran a stop sign going 80 miles an hour down residential streets; I'd never been an exceptional driver, but I'm sure to everyone who witnessed it I looked I belonged in a Formula 1 race.

All these thoughts and memories slammed into me one by one. The saved conversations, avoided stutters, managed anger, and passed exams. I felt them come quickly, and leave just as fast. If tears could well in my eyes they would; I settled for that tightening in your throat before a sob.

There was no way out of this, I thought. Absolutely no way out. I could do a lot with time, but not everything.

Something in the depth of my soul shuttered. For a fraction of a second - a fraction of a fraction - I felt something new.

It came again. And again. Each time growing in intensity and longevity. Eventually it felt like a pulse firing so rapidly it became sustained, and I figured out exactly what it was. I was fall-

OW.

I felt my tailbone slam into the concrete sidewalk, and a spike of pain ran up my spine, and I reflexively shot a hand to the site of the impact. Not a second later though, confusion ran through me. I should've been dead before I hit the ground.

I looked up to see that bastard's face contorted in the same smug, nast grin. I saw the bullet suspended judt where it had been. The same leaves in the same places, the same specks of dust, the same car headlights off in the distance.

But, I found myself having moved. I was actively moving. Something in my body felt different, like getting a massage and that tight muscle you didn't even know was tight finally being loose.

I stood up, still wincing from the pain, but in good spirits considering the alternative. I clenched and unclenched my fists, feeling the air resist my hands in a new way. I felt the concrete push back against my steps differently; the cushioning in my shoes reacting to my steps.

Slamming my fist into the criminal's gut, I took back my wallet, threw his gun into the bushes, and gave one last finishing touch before ducking around a corner and unpausing time.

His yelp and clear fall onto the concrete was like music to my ears, complimented by his struggling to remove his underwear pulled over his head before he ran off the other direction.

With this new development in my abilities, things were about to get very interesting.

I stared at it for a couple of minutes and was absolutely baffled. I mean, I get into dangerous situations on a daily basis, being able to think faster than the speed of light and all that stuff is pretty useful for a mercenary. But, this was different. This was a split second life or death scenario.

I need to calculate this with absolute certainty that it's gonna work. If I make even the slightest move incorrectly, game over. If I time this wrong, game over. If I even miss one number, game over. So, let's think.

The bullet is about 5 or 6 inches away from my face, so if I slide my head to the right I should be able to dodge it, right. NOPE! There are three more bullets ready to hit me there, too. Maybe the left? There are four guys with their guns aiming that way, and on top of that, their guns are firing. Oh, maybe I could duck? No, there's one more asshole with a gun aiming at my torso. Well, shit. WAIT! I'll just drop! All the way to the floor, then I can get my gun. So, let's do this.

HOLY FUCK, IT WORKED! Ok, now I just need to off these bastards, and get my money. Alright, aim -FREEZE- fire. Aim -FREEZE- fire. And aim -FREEZE- fire. Ok, they're all dead. Haha... never again.

Death always got his due.

For years, ever since I'd accidentally frozen time for... well, a frankly depressingly long period in between bites of my cereal before I'd learned how to resume, I'd always thought that phrase applied to other people.

I'd avoided death more times than I can count. My line of work, you end up developing a pretty flirtatious relationship with that suave son of a gun. He beckons me into his embrace on a daily basis, and each time I coyly say nah, I've got other plans today. My ability to stop time let me keep him a good arm's length away.

You see, people often don't realize just how much thought, either conscious or subconscious, goes into your actions. Moving your arm is an entire lightshow of neurons firing in your brain, carrying signals down the nervous system to twitch and pull muscle fibers in dozens of simultaneous and differing directions. Even flipping someone off is a delightful exercise in body control.

When you have literal eternity to really study how these signals travel through your nervous system, how conscious and subconscious thought interact with every organ, tissue, cell in your body, you learn a few neat tricks.

For instance, visualization of action. You ever fantasize about getting into a fight? Pulling off all of the cool action movie moves in real life? It all goes perfectly in your mind, but ever get into an actual fight and you learn pretty quick that your body just doesn't work that way. One punch to the face, and your arms start flailing as pain flashes through each receptor in your poor little noggin.

Key phrase there, your body doesn't work that way. But with an eternity to learn, it can.

Whatever I envision my body doing, within its limitations, my body does perfectly. No fight ever went how I didn't imagine it going, no bullet missed its mark, no play in football I couldn't make work, hell sometimes I just used it to make sure none of my pee got on the toilet seat.

Again, I'd avoided death more times than I can count. My ability came in pretty handy with my work as a mercenary.

I just don't know how I'm going to avoid it this time.

There's a bullet just a good few inches away from the bridge of my nose, blurred by its proximity to my eyes. And the worst part is, I'm not even working today. This is just your regular, run of the mill bad luck.

I don't know why I'd frozen time. Maybe it was pure instinct, maybe I'd known something was wrong. Whatever it was, I was now forced to try to think clearly through the eternal burn on the roof of my mouth from my too-hot breakfast egg sandwich. I couldn't have just blown on it a bit before taking this bite? No, my impatient ass had to stuff my face without waiting for it to cool down.

Alright, whatever. Think clearly. I can't move my eyes, so I'm limited to what I can see being directly ahead of me and some slight peripheral. My mouth burns. I can't smell anything, no air to pull into my lungs. My mouth burns.... oh, you learn to get used to that, by the way, the whole no breathing thing and my mouth still. Fucking. Burns.

I see someone frozen in the middle of falling back, the window of a black car rolled down as people wearing masks shoot him. Assholes, not professional at all. There's like five other people on the sidewalk here, and you're shooting down it into the direction of pedestrians? No wonder I was in this predicament, they were fucking amateurs*.* And who guns people down in the morning, anyway? Some of us here are just trying to enjoy our egg sandwiches. Still burns by the way.

No matter how hard I think though, despite my annoyance with amateur mobsters, I don't see a way to dodge the crossfire. I'd grown intimately familiar with what my body could and couldn't do, and ducking or dodging a bullet just a few inches away from my precious brain meat isn't one of them.

Ah well. I guess death always got his due. Alright death, you suave son of a gun, come whisper your sweet nothings into my ear. There better be egg sandwhiches in the after life, because you owe me one.

I resume tim-

Hello there, I am a detective probably one of the best in the world.

Not cause I am brilliant in any capacity on the contrary, I am actually a little slow.

But being able to stop time and think about clues or theories really helps with that reputation. A clue that would take the best detective hours takes me days standing still to decipher. But for people around me it looks like I took seconds.

This has made me a highly sought after detective, but also made me some enemies.

Which brings me to todays events, it looked like it was going to be a normal day for me with a new case to dive into. When the trail of clues lead me to unexpected situations. Hotel room full of boovie traps, old enemies released from prison and at the height of it all a bullet a few inches in front of my face.

The bullet one was most interesting. It looked like it was a bullet that was fired from a old musket that was kept very clean since the bullet had barely any dirt or burn marks from left over gunpowder on it.

The other notable thing about this bullet was it had initials engraved on it. The initials letters where A.M.M.H.

I haven't figured out yet who those initials belong to but I will discover who they are from soon enough.

After a few hours of analyzing the bullet. Looking over every detail to see if I missed any that could give me a clue about the profile of who it belongs to.

I realized something awful. While most small clues like bullets, hairpins, even shoot marks betray the character of who used it. This bullet had only the clues I talked about on it and nothing else. Generally speaking I would find out if the person was a man or a woman, from small extra clues but with this bullet I just couldn't tell. Like it was planned for me to find this elaborate trap, getting me stuck in this place. Luckily I realized from the fact that it's an elaborate trap the person who intended to trap me here most have the same power as me. Meaning that while he wanted me stuck here, I do have a clue now to why that person wanted to trap me specifically and his reasoning to do so.

I unpaused time and look to my right at Watson.

And sir what do you think about this bullet that was left on display here?

It is a trap Watson the person that put the bullet here for us to find, has the same power as me. It was meant for me to get stuck into a pauze thinking forever about it with a lack of clues, but the lack of clues is what gave me a clue.

Whoever A.M.M.H is he has worlds best detective Sherlock Holmes after him now.

‐-------------

Well, shit.

I knew I heard something down here. My wife probably went back to sleep by now, but she'll be awake in a second or two. All I know is I won't.

He's a kid too. Just needed some money, now he's just shot someone. I can't even be mad at him. Probably just took his daddy's 22 and went out for some money.

I'm trying to reflect on my life. 42 years of, well, life. I was born, went through school, got a job, got married. Just an average working class man, not much to reflect on.

Well then, I guess that's it. I can't just stay frozen forever.

The bullet and I eye each other for a moment. But, unlike the bullet, I do care about that moment. Because it's my last one. It's also the bullet's last moment, if you think about it. But the bullet doesn't think about it. Lucky bullet...

Stopping time is my thing. I do it for fun, to have all the time admiring that girl or a crashing wave or anything else fugitive or triffering my timidity. Today, fir the first tume ever, I stopped time out if necessity. And juuust in time, it seems.

Or just a bit too early, you idiot. Whenever you will let time flow again, you die, you idiot. What are some thoughts worth, compared with your now inevitable death?

I know I'm right. I'm toast. But then... what forces me to let time flow again? I can keep it stuck for as long as I want, after all. For eternity, if I want. I don't need to eat or drink, I don't need to breathe... I have Eternal Life before me!

Eternal life, followed by death. Oh my, this is too funny. My catholic Mother would raise her eyes up to the Lord if she'd hear me now. Eternal life, and then, death...

They say Eternity is rather long, especially towards the end. Let's find out.

I was fifteen when the powers first manifested. Of all things, I was trying to get up the nerve to talk to Susie Grolsch after chemistry class when something clicked in my brain and the world stopped. It caught me off guard and terrified me. The world went black, light stopped moving, stopped bouncing off the receptors in my eyes, stopped sending signals to my brain. I couldn't move a muscle, couldn't breathe, my heart wasn't beating. The only thing in the universe that seemed to be functioning was my brain. I spent what felt like ages alone in my head before I calmed down enough to find this new muscle in my brain and unclench it. When I did the world picked up like nothing had happened. I don't remember what I said to Susie when I came back to myself, but it didn't win her over.

I stood, remembering, as a bullet was frozen in time a few inches from my nose. A pair of bank robbers had fled in this direction and I had seen the guns, the masks, the bags of money, almost a cliche. I happened to be in their way when this wiry prick panics and shoots me. I stop time as the muzzle flashes, and I actually think I'm shot and dead for a minute until I realize I'm still thinking.

I can't move, can't stop the bullet. I didn't manifest telekinetic powers. I can't actually do anything but think when I stop the world. When I was younger I would use my powers to meditate or think through problems at length. The fact that I was blind and without sensation while the world was stopped made the powers less exciting than they might have been.

Slipstream had appeared when I was twenty-three. He had been looking for me for years, since the first time I froze the world and left him the only man who could still move. He was blind when he stood still, but would collect the photons frozen in the air as he moved and had a sort of sight. I couldn't imagine what it actually looked like for him. He said things were distorted and not always accurate. He had showed me how powerful we could be together.

These amateurs didn't know that we were heading to the same bank ourselves just now. Slipstream was approaching the bank from the east while I approached from the north. He would have seen this situation developing. I would give him a few more minutes, just thinking about the beginning.

We had been amateurs ourselves at the start. Small time. We would go to a mall, even just a little strip mall, and I would freeze the world. I would sit and ponder the meaning of life for twenty minutes then unfreeze the world and head back to my car. Slipstream would be waiting with a duffel bag full of all the cash from all the stores in the mall. We traveled and partied and had a ton of fun.

It was only later that we became famous. We started taking more precautions, planning out our heists. We robbed banks, casinos, card rooms, one time we even stole a bunch of paintings from a museum and put them up in McDonald's around the country. We had been investing our money for years now, trying to generate enough passive income that we would be set for life.

If we could get to that point then we could start using our powers for truly important work: Pranks. Imagine drawing a mustache on the President in the middle of a nationally televised speech with a Sharpie. Imagine replacing the football with a greased pig right after a fumble in the Superbowl. This was the important work I was destined to do. So we set off to rob this bank today, make our final score.

It had been about twenty minutes, so I let the world start moving again. I wasn't immediately killed, so Slipstream had been able to stop the bullet. The man with the gun was laying on the ground trussed up like a pig. The other bank robber, the one who hadn't shot me, was also tied up, but looked to have been better treated. People were running and screaming. The robbers looked confused.

In the commotion I just walked away and headed for my car. Slipstream was waiting there by the trunk, all smiles.

"Those guys didn't do half bad. There's at least two hundred thousand in the duffel bags they had." Slipstream patted the trunk, looking satisfied with himself.

"They saved you a bunch of work in the bank. Let's get lunch on them." I slipped into the driver's side of the car and waited while Slipstream got in.

"It will take a couple of months to launder all this money and invest it, but then we really ought to be set. After that, it's Operation Mustache and we move into the big leagues, make a real name for ourselves." Slipstream was all in on our plan to become the world's greatest pranksters.

"I can't fucking wait." I couldn't.

I tried to rhyme it.
I'm standing here, frozen in place,

With a bullet right in front of my face,

I've got the ability to pause time,

But all I can do is think and rewind.

I wonder how I ended up in this predicament,

Did I make a mistake or was it just an accident?

The seconds tick by, but they feel like hours,

As I stand here, caught in these powers.

I try to remember what led me here,

But my mind is a blur, filled with fear,

I close my eyes and take a deep breath,

Hoping that when I open them, I'll be free from this death.

But when I open my eyes, the bullet is still there,

Hanging suspended in the air,

I know I can't stay here forever,

I have to find a way to move on and sever.

The ties that bind me to this moment in time,

I have to find the strength and the will to climb,

Out of this frozen state and into the light,

Where I can live my life and do what's right.

I don't want to die.

That's what I told myself before pausing time. That's what I had told myself most times I used this power. Of course, it was usually less immediately dire. 'I don't want our relationship to die,' 'I'm going to die if I have to take this exam right now,' 'I don't want to die knowing I could've won this game of trivial pursuit with more time.' Those things all seemed important in the moment, I think. Perhaps they were.

I don't want to die.

And yet how long has it been that I've stared you in the face, my silver-toothed friend? How long have you waited to end the stupidly fast spiral of my thoughts? How can I remember only the immediacies of our struggle together: the way the light of some window glints at a 45 degree angle on your surface, how my arms are slightly pulled backward because I was unable to even pretend to defend myself. How-

I cannot look away. I believe I knew we would be in this still dance when I paused time. There are moments, blurry in the back of my mind, where I thought of solutions in a similar state. There was...must have been some sort of will in my bones, one that could make my mind's analytical ramblings true if it just tried hard enough. My bones, my body, myself.

It's funny, really. I can't even remember what I was wearing. I can't even remember my own name. I only really know you.

I didn't want to die.

I should be able to un-pause time whenever I desire, my friend. Perhaps it will be soon, perhaps we will stand here, in a disjointed and distanced embrace till the end of time. I don't know.

Because I cannot seem to desire. I have no idea what it means to live nor die, nor even the peace of closing my eyes. Would I miss this? Would I miss you?

For I cannot fathom what your imposed fear once felt like, and I'm sorry for that.

I'm sorry because all I do know is that we're here.

I hope you can be content in the silence.

my eyes closed and opened again to see everything including the asshole who tried to rob me with his gun stopped. I know I shouldn't take this route as a shortcut. His teeth are so yellow , didn't this guy hear about toothbrushes? what is that i murmured inside my mind moving focusing towards his empty gun
And my eyes became shocked when i saw the bullet began to leave the barrel of his gun sonofabitch had filled his gun and fired it at me.

Well, Fuckkk

I shouted inside my head, that would be like a mashed potato if I didn't think of something shit.

think think i murmured inside my head again not able to think of something remembering how i was thought this day is my lucky day or that's how i convinced my self before this guy showed up in it, the way he stuttered and his weak fiscal expression had made me sure that he will never shout a bullet or never hold loaded one in the first place. I thought i will never be wrong with my ability to analyze people or things when the time frozen or slowed down to less than second's. i didn't had this since birth i wish i had i could turn my life upside down from now, my nickname was jack the golden tongue that's my what some called me since i had it because i was able to convince people anything sell anything when any bet

of course i wasn't always my real name is Jackson Charlie born a family of shitty parents who obsessed of my little sister we was only two that they have and they couldn't even love the two of us together, must been one who the think him as mistake failure doesn't deserve anything from them this how i felt from there treatment until i left when i was 18 dropped high school worked at small shop low salary for two years until the cheap bastard had fired me for stealing hundred pucks had cut it from my salary originally for something stupid i didn't remember.

Then i worked in small bar for three years until one night i heard people putting huge bet in football tames, and i got excited so i joined the bet and lucky me i won the bet winning a thousand dollars felling i won the lottery but one of them go couldn't handle it when was on my to my small apartment he beat the livingshit of me leaving me near death weaken in a hospital after three months i couldn't feel my body i thought i was paralyzed until i saw the frozen nurse like a statue but I saw his face slowly plinking. The time was slowing. I felt I was staring at her for hours.
I was able to notice her finger it looked she was wearing ring but she didn't wear any more his eyeballs looks down like it was sad her face was color less like she was still crying and having no sleep i was able to analyze people fast not people things around making me able to manipulating them easy so i left my job and going to different bar's betting in high risk winning until lucky day by that a boss in large sail's company give me his card and jack the golden tongue began from after year of working i diced to quit the work and Start company of my own but this.

Motherfucker

i shouted in my head seeing the bullet becoming closer to me i could move i was just plinking watching my death becoming closer my eyes moved staring at the bullet that looks like spaceship launched to land between my eyes a fly was on it way maybe it will change it way

shit i murmured when saw the fly becoming small part flying everywhere around the accelerating bullet i closed my eyes trying to think of something but nothing was in my mind maybe i should except it no no this not my end this not how i die i'm still fucking virgin if you didn't count the hospital nurse and some random girls in different bars no that's doesn't count!

my eyes opened to see the pullet slightly pushed i will not able to notice it but i guess i have to thank the spirit part of the dead fly to notice that i closed again trying to think of anything thing anything could be the reason for that i couldn't find a clue i opened it again to see it slightly pushed again What it could be i asked while i saw my memory of my life feeling my life is going to end soon but remembering all my life how i wanted to go home when i left. how i went after five year to watch my parents from a window celebrating my sister graduation forgetting me as the never had a second child. And a random vivid image in my mind appears , broken fan in the shop of the cheap basterd how the fan with so slow it couldn't generate air and he let it work anyway

that's it!

i murmured in my mind blinking so fast until i felt my eyelids hurting but i continue until the bullet stopped and began falling to the ground my blinking saved my life i was able to generate enough air because everything moving when the time slowed near stopping could able to generate dangerous amount of power the time got normal again

The yellow teeth baster was going to shout again but I was fast enough to prevent him and beat him up.

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I am not much of an expert on guns, but I know a bullet when I see one. Its rounded head was staring me right in the face. I had not even thought to pause time, but it seemed like my ability had activated unconsciously.

I looked past the bullet and the gun smoke and clearly saw that it was Peter. I did not know Peter all that well, all I knew was that he was my wife Eliza’s ex. I did not need to know anything more. He got jealous and snapped and my forehead was about to get a shell full of that jealousy.

Anxiety coursed through my thoughts because none of my body was moving, not even my heart. I could not move any part of my body while the ability was activated, and if I deactivated it my body would not have enough time to move. The plus side was that I had all the time in the world to think because my body felt no soreness or even pain while in that state. The downside was that I could not think of any solution to get out of this.

It was a choice of death or staying like this forever.

I thought of all the good times I had with Eliza. Sure the big vacations were fun, but I could not help but think of the little things. Our spontaneous night walks that we used to go on. Her laughter after I showed her a stupid internet meme. The way she would run her fingers through my hair and tell me I could do anything. All of these things I took for granted and as normal when in reality they were so much more special to me.

If I stayed the way I was, I could live those memories forever. Joy flowed through me as I laughed in my mind about the situation.

“You thought you could get me, Peter, but you never will because I’m going to keep time frozen forever. There will be no more pain or suffering in the world, just me. Maybe it’s selfish, but you just helped me save humanity,” I thought.

If I could have grinned I would have. I was now a god in a frozen masterpiece. I had saved humanity from itself, even if it was for entirely selfish reasons. I replayed scenes from my life over and over again. No more work, all I had was my memories.

It had been months of research and undercover work in the making. This newfound ability to pause time had helped me slowly assist in rooting out the group of underground assassins, although not without some fatalities. Several other agents and some civilians had been injured or killed, but since the next international summit was next week, we agreed that a loss of 8 agents was a small price to pay.

I had been told that the main trainer of the league was now targeting my family. I had called Interpol, and I was to meet my contact for lunch at the Mall of the Americas, where he and his team was to take my wife and children to a safe house. The escort of three Humvees met us in the parking garage, and I left them with the agents as I met the contact.

I kept alert for tails or familiar faces as I entered the restaurant and met Tom, the contact's alias. He waved me over to the table, and as I shook his hand, I caught a glimpse of a laser dot on the back of his head! I paused time, and was able to examine the angle of the laser, coming from the next level up and across the courtyard. I realized that anyone shooting from there would not be able to escape, unless very well disguised!

Since I could only pause time, I knew falling to the ground was the only way to survive the split second following the shot. I pushed play, and fell over backward, while Tom was on the floor next to me, dead. I radioed the agents to lock down the mall, and I rolled over to the door, spotting the assassin running on the next level toward the street exit.

The assassin disappeared into a storage room, and I knew this led to a tunnel, that could go to either the garage or the street. I gave the codeword "green" to the convoy, and they left with my family for the safehouse. I gave chase, and guessed to head toward the garage. My guess was correct.

I tracked the assassin to the bottom level, thinking either they were heading for a trap, or I was. I hid behind a column, listening and waiting for some movement from the closed-off section. I looked in time to notice that several FBI agents were approaching from all the other exits, so in a matter of seconds, we had the area sealed off.

I signaled to the agents to let me warn the assassin, and I yelled, "Shooter, you are surrounded! Put your weapon down, and get on your knees with your hands behind your head!" The voice came from a darkened section of the garage, saying "You think I'm stupid enough to come here without help?"

Four Cadillac Escalades came screaming down the ramp, all with automatic weapons pointing out the windows. I paused, and as I looked at each vehicle, I saw they were all international plates. I knew that one phone call might end this, so as I pushed play, I signaled the other agents to cover me.

I dialed the secure number, and gave the country plate IDs to the dispatcher. My guess was right, and just before the Escalades reached our level, they all shut down. They were all rentals with fake plates. The rental company used GPS to disconnect the main fuse.

With nowhere to go, the men inside the Escalades came out and right into the handcuffs of our agents, I yelled at the gunman, "Your help doesn't seem to be available! Give it up!" I heard a new clip inserted, and told the agents to hit the lights on the Humvees. I paused just as the lights came on, and the gunman was aiming for the fire system.

I realized our only way to shut him down was to pin him down and disable the alarm system. I hit play, and fired a double tap over his head, right at the power box. The lights and fire system in the garage went out, and the gunman laid down his weapon.

At the debriefing, all the responding agents received commendations, and the international summit went off without incident. I was reunited with my family one week later, and only used my pause power when I absolutely had to!

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That's a good one. This reminds me of a story I wrote once about a character who was never honest with himself and always acted out of impulse, saying the first thing that came to mind, agreeing and disagreeing with others for the sake of being part of the conversation, never looking deeply inside himself to find the truth. One day he was asked a very important question, one that he had always asked himself deep down and he decided to find the truth. He closed his eyes and thought about it, ignoring all the voices in his head that tried to answer for him until he found a voice that he couldn’t ignore. Without saying a word he thought This must be the truth. When he opened his eyes he saw his sisters face, the same girl who had asked the question smiling at him and said “that’s right”. That was the day he learned the truth. She could read his mind. In fact, everybody could. From that day forward he never lied ever again.