Dreamscape

Magic and superpowers have a complex history and a million different iterations. Children in literature are both blessed and cursed left, right, and center. The idea that a gift can be both isn't lost on the lexicon either, but sometimes its simply neither. The ability to stop and think and a moments notice lies solidly in this category, or at least it does for him.

A young boy barely in middle school found himself with the unique ability to stop and think whenever it suited him. Surely everyone knows how to do such a thing, and every attempt from him to explain it had his peers shooting him bewildered looks. Yes, of course, they all said they know how to think even in a crowded room but he knew he wasn't quite explaining himself properly. See, the week before in his history test on the civil war he was sweating bullets since he'd missed a couple key days of notes and honestly didn't have a clue what he was looking at.

Before long he took his teachers advice for test anxiety. With plenty of time on the clock he simply slid the paper forward on the desk and set his head down, trying to breathe a bit more evenly before returning to the test. He didn't catch the glances from everyone as the usually rather studious young boy seemed to be shredding to bits at an easy test. Apparently the difference between an A+ and a D for Mr Genius was a couple doctors appointments.

With his head down against the desk the world began to quiet and still around him. The deafening clock was drowned out by his breaths, paper on pencil muffled by his arms around his ears, eventually he was ready to return to reality and was certain it had been at least ten minutes, but looked to the clock to see it hadn't hardly been a minute. The confusion only mounted as the entire room held stillness. Not a student moved a muscle even to breathe. At first he only glanced around but as he noticed the stillness he got more brave and began to look around, turning in his chair to see them all looking like statues. The clock was broken, sure, but was everyone pulling some kind of prank on him?

"H-Hello?" he pitched the question to the room, hesitant on if he would be shushed given there was supposed to be a test happening. No one moved. Rising slowly to his feet his eyes were fixed on his teacher, who's eyes for the moment were still trained on whatever papers she had on her desk. No one moved. A bolt of bravery hit him as he moved to the teacher's desk, still watching the rule maker with a laser focus as he broke every rule he knew. No one moved. The papers she wasn't willing to look away from was the first finished students test alongside the answer sheet, and he took a long look. No one moved. Within a moment his own test sat beside the teachers rubric and he copied down what he didn't know, before sitting back down. Not a soul churned but his.

"I'm so dead" he again gave the room, the only noise in a barren soundscape. He put his head back down, moving his now completed test to where it had been before the world stopped for him. All at once movement returned, the clock ticked another second and pencils continued to move. He perked up as a startled animal, looking around with wide eyes and mouth agape. Surely he'd be expelled on the spot, he took it too far, why was that his first instinct anyway? Everyone bustled around, a couple students finishing up their tests and handing them in, but no one seemed to care they'd all been sitting there as he stole the answers right out from the teachers nose.

That was the easiest yet most stressful test he ever took, but he wrote it off as some kind of fever dream. Over the next few weeks though he noticed these minor pauses in his world again and again, usually in stressful times but eventually he learned to pause and play his life like one would a movie. Surely the most boring movie anyone has ever witness, but he was okay with that. When he needed the test answers cause he forgot to study he could have them without an issue. When he wanted a moment alone to think about a difficult choice, or even just wanted time to think of a good comeback he had it. His insult battles were unmatched across the school, and he only realized then how valuable being 'quick'-witted really was.

Notably there wasn't to be any movement of things during think time. Think time was only for thinking, and everything had to be back where it started before he could come back to reality. Because of this he tried his best not to move things, since his science class seemed to last almost five hours once when he couldn't figure out what moved before putting a pencil back on a desk across the room that just so happened to fall.

One dreadful evening the stars were out and the moon was full. He'd had about enough of arguing with mom and the world stilled as he sat on his bed. The stars stopped glimmering and instead shone in their stillness. The moon above hung in all its glory but the middle schooler was out of the house in a second. Running around the streets was a pretty dangerous game given how he couldn't move things without moving them back but the view and the safety of it was well worth the risk. Maybe he gets trapped in this moment forever, but that's fine by him so long as he doesn't have to hear another word of the conversation on pause back home.

The city usually screams and streams past him as he walks down the street, people usually pass him by and glance at him trying to determine if he is as peaceful as he looks but not a soul was out at the moment, and the moment would last as long as he wanted.

There was no destination, no goal, no test to cheat on our witty comeback to be inspired with, but he was still wandering the streets. He decided why not explore the neighborhood a bit, see the parts he was scared of, go wherever he feels like going while there wasn't a soul who could even know his whereabouts, much less stop him.

What felt like seconds turns to what feels like hours, and exhaustion and hunger leave him untouched. The sun cannot stop his beautiful night, and time cannot restrict him anymore. Most of all he doesn't have to stay home, to be burdened by his stale old room and the same tired speech again. Alleyways and highways are the same when people are irrelevant. That was until he ducked into a little alleyway to see where it goes. The taste of stomach acid shocked his tongue before he choked it back down and surveyed the scene a bit better. Two men, one knife, and a losing battle. Blood. So much blood. More than a life worth of blood. His instincts screamed to scream, to run, to find help but if he wanted to get help for this he'd have to go home, to explain to his mother that he knew a man a mile away was dying and needed help in time to call someone, then explain to them that he just so happens to know this is happening.

Hours multiplied as he stood here, blinking and desperately searching his own being for some kind of answers. As someone who had never had to call the police and only spoke to them when they visited his school yearly.

"I'm sorry..." feet hit pavement again and the noise was deafening when nothing else was. Maybe it was time to go home now.