Between Time

The peculiar dead silence that enveloped her, akin to the aftermath of a grenade, didn't register with her at first- as she had her head buried down in her notes in her classroom. A part-timer and a university student, she was juggling the weight of her educational expenses with the relentless demands of her coursework. But she wasn't pleased with her progress in the current semester. She was in class, along with her peers, all prepping for their final college thesis submission, scheduled for later that day. This was not her first time, but something about ‘final’ makes everybody anxious.

She had more than one reason though. She was having a particularly rough week— feeling unwell after her trip from the previous week, dealing with migraines that had been acting up again, and some unresolved issues in her relationship. The chaotic atmosphere of the classroom only made her nerves worse. As her turn approached, anxiety twisted in her stomach, making it hard to focus. One can easily hear the heavy sigh she let out, when the strange echo of silence finally hit her ears.

She didn't raise her head at first and continued with herself, assuming a faculty may have shown up. It was only when the air seemed to thicken, the loud hum of the overhead fan became louder and louder and the weight of the silence pressed against her ears, that she finally looked up. Now she was someone who doesn't easily get startled. She had juggled life through years with perseverance and has toughened her resolve. But even the most composed individuals who are rather unenthusiastic about shocking occasions, could also feel their heart skip a beat or two when they confront such a scene. Like a gazelle, she immediately sprang up from her seat. Everybody had frozen like statues, stopped in time, right in their tracks of whatever they were doing; Everybody, except her. What she saw before her was nothing short of surreal, as if she had stepped into a nightmare. The shock paralyzed her for few moments, as she was still trying to comprehend the impossible.

Instinctively, she proceeded to jolt some of her friends nearby to reanimate them up, but it was in vain. All of them were hard as rocks and immovable. Visibly flustered, she quickly rushed out of the mezzanine classroom, shouting at every single person she encountered on that level. She slapped and pinched herself a couple of times, half-convinced she was dreaming. Ultimately after two minutes of restless scurrying, she collapsed onto a bench in the large hall directly ahead of the landing. She kept bobbing her head around, searching for at least one person who hadn't been turned into moyai statues.

This is so absurd! she muttered, as she looked at a guy who was stuck smiling at his phone. Am I going crazy or is this sleep paralysis? Where am I even right now?

Some time passed and she was now questioning whether she had fallen asleep at home, trapped in a vivid dream. But everything felt too real to be a figment of her imagination. She could feel everyone’s hands and faces but noticed they weren't neither warm or cold to touch. Some were caught in mid-blink, some had stopped mid-panting, some were levitating mid-stride and some had their mouth wide open in laughter. It was an extraordinary phenomenon—a complete freeze in time where every person around her had frozen in their last moment of action. Except, she was untouched by the chronostasis— genuine and tangible, moving freely and have all the time in the world!

A person often needs time to fully grasp the ramifications of a given situation, and even in this one, after the initial hysteria, she actually felt quite powerful. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she returned to her class, took her phone out with her and decided to walk around and video the ‘Time-stop’, hoping to find some clues as to what might have triggered it. First, she took a peek out of the window of the giant hall, which overlooked a good part of the campus space from the entrance and recorded that everybody: students and faculty alike— were frozen mid-conversation, mid-laugh, mid-stride. Even the leaves of the trees, the birds, the bees on the flowers, the buzzing dragonflies, all seemed to have stopped in time.

If time had truly stopped, it would have affected everyone, including her, because even though time can flow relatively, it cannot simply stop for one person while continuing for others. Although when something isn’t moving, it doesn’t necessarily mean time is not passing for it— a radioactive nucleus at rest still continues to decay. She understood just enough that she realized that while everything around her was motionless, time might still be flowing in a different way—perhaps a concept humans were yet to discover. She could move freely, and the molecules and atoms which make her up are essentially the same for others as well.

She eventually went out and was struck by the profound silence surrounding her; even the taps of her footsteps felt startlingly loud in the stillness. Even on the quietest of the days, and without anybody on the campus, one would still the hear the trees and the wind and the birds flying by, and the water sprinklers in the garden and the flying flag. She looked around, noting the frozen figures had no pulse, not breathing nor had a heartbeat. When she knocked on one of them, the sound reverberated like a tap against a hollow wall. She recorded everything on her phone and even made notes. As she continued her exploration, an idea suddenly came to her mind.

In that moment of stillness, she took a deep breath, as if she stepped away from all the confusion. She gazed around and took yet another scoping view of the statufied populous. She then took out her phone and went online, which added a whole new weird to the situation. To her astonishment, she discovered live streams and vlogs from people around the world. It then dawned on her that the trigger had to be local, possibly within the campus itself. She waited no further and called the emergency services.

Thoughts flooder her brain as she found herself standing at the fourth level. She hadn't checked here yet and thought she might as well, while she dialed for police. As she came upon at the landing, she found the entire corridor and the breezeway empty. She slowly went past the hall and the adjoining rooms, which were mostly empty as well. Going ahead through the breezeway, she finally reached the laboratories and found some more halls and classrooms. This level was for the department of Physics. She found some students here and there, completely statufied, and in classrooms where students and professors had also stopped in time. She thought she had seen it all and turned back to check in the laboratories one last time. She approached the closed doors cautiously, pressing her ear against the surface to listen for any sound. Just as she was about to gently push the door open and peek in, a sudden movement caught her eye to the left— there I was, coming out from the adjacent lab. Startled, she turned too quickly, losing her balance and tumbled backwards. Her phone slipped out of her hands and immediately fell apart upon crashing to the ground.

“OH MY GOD! WHAT THE HELL!?!” She screamed.

“What are you— I’m sorry! Are you okay?" I replied, very confused at the sudden shriek.

"What is going on?" She asked, with her eyes wide with confusion and fear.

"What do you mean? I didn't mean to scare you like that. I was just coming out of that room and—”

“DO NOT TOUCH ME!” she yelled again sharply.

She screamed again as I extended my hand to help her up. She picked up herself, panting and visibly agitated. I took a step back and bent down to collect her phone and offered it back to her. I was perplexed by her frantic yelling and her shocked state. We had known each other for three years, and I was getting increasingly uncomfortable with the scene she was creating in front of everybody.

“TELL ME YOU SAW ALL OF THAT?” she said in a demanding voice.

“Jeez, don't yell like that in here." I said now, a bit loudly as well. "I was just coming out of that lab and... Why were you sneaking like that?”

“What do you mean? Don't you see? I’m talking about all these people—” she began, but her voice trailed off as she wildly gestured around.

She looked around and her eyes darted from one person to another, who, according to her, were all statufied just moments ago, but were now all staring at us. She frantically looked over to the classrooms behind her and then down to the third and second levels and found everyone had returned to their normal states—moving, talking, walking. I could see her pupils dilate in utmost confusion. She feebly sank onto the bench beside her, completely whitened out like she saw a ghost. I thought even if I suddenly appeared in front of her, that's still quite a reaction to shock.

What is she doing on this level, sneaking like that? I wondered. I again went towards her and put my hand on her shoulder gently. “Are you okay? What’s going on?” I then asked worryingly, looking at her state.

She didn’t respond, her breaths coming in quick gasps, lost in some deep thoughts. After a while, though, she regained some composure. She glanced at her watch, then looked back at the crowd, who remained blissfully unaware of the incident. To them, no time had passed, and everything seemed perfectly ordinary. Her shocked state drew a few people closer, all wondering what's going on with her. Two of my friends also approached and attempted to talk to her as well, but she remained silent. I then went back in and brought a bottle of water and gave it to her. As she took a sip, some color slowly returned to her face.

I then asked her again “Do you want to come to the nurse? Are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah… No, I’m alright” She replied hesitatingly, taking another sip. “I’m sorry for earlier. I got extremely spooked.”

“By me?”

“Yeah. No. I mean you are okay. I’m sorry-”

“Okay, I think you should rest in the nurse's rooms for now. You don’t seem alright. Did you had something to eat?” I said softly.

“No, it's alright.” She said in an exhausted tone. “I’ll just get some rest… yeah… before my presentation. What’s the time again? My watch is all funny right now.”

"It should be just past 12:45”

“Really?” she asked immediately.

“Yes." I said, noting her surprise. "Why?”

“Ah nothing. Thanks… and sorry once more everybody.” She got up and hurriedly walked towards the exit stairs.

“I’ll see you later.” she said as she disappeared below the stairs.

“Sure, cya.” I replied, remaining very skeptical.

Our interactions lately had been quite like this. We along with the rest of our friends, used to hang out all the time not too long ago. But lately, things have been getting increasingly uncomfortable for me, ever since that one day that turned out to be both the best and the worst day in our friendship. We were still friends though, managing to hang out once in a while, but something about the sudden shift in our dynamic since that day had made it increasingly difficult for me. Staying on the high moral ground sometimes means descending from the ladder of your heart’s desires. But are humans truly strong enough to bear that weight on their backs? I don’t see many who can manage it, yet here I was. Maybe I was the fool- being so emotionally invested in a stupid one time thing. I shook my head, trying to dispel the thoughts. I turned away and walked towards the lab to get back to my work. Nikel, who was working with me for this project soon came in.

“Hey sorry I’m here. It was wild…” he said, as he put on his coat.

I smirked and said, “Yeah I would think so. Took you long enough.”

“C'mon man, I told you to give me 10" He said irritably. "Here I am now, let's get into it.”

He then proceeded to set the probes and configuring time and voltage scales on the oscilloscope.

“You know what... sure take your time, I can totally understand having relationship problems.” I said, standing up to face him. “But you can’t expect me to be all good when you come up after 45 minutes while I am nearly done with our work. Whatever, I guess. Also you don’t need to do that, like I said I’m nearly all done.”

“45 minutes? Dude you high? I literally came back in 5 minutes." He shot back. "I’m aware how we are being given a second chance here, even I’m not that ungrateful and casual!”

“Care to take a look at the clock over there then?” I replied in an confident tone.

He took a quick look over his back and was very surprised to find out the time was 12:45. He then exclaimed. "WHAT?! How could it be?" He turned around and faced me. "I swear I hurried here to complete this!"

"Yeah sure... Time flies, bud." I replied sarcastically.

"Dude this is so trippy!" He exclaimed, while frantically scrolling through his phone, checking his watch and the clock on the wall.

“Is the clock reminding you of your previous reincarnation dude? May I remind you this right here is completely illegal, and Prof Maini is only allowing this just because of our conduct… Hello, are you listening to me?”

He continued to argue, insisting he could swear on his life that it was not more than 5 minutes. I would have lost patience and shouted at him, but just then, we heard a commotion outside. People had gathered in the corridor and the breezeway, in this level and all the levels below, in the cafeteria and in the open space below. Nikel and I moved to the edge of the crowd, and I learned that everyone was very confused, trying to make sense of how 40 to 45 minutes of their lives had seemingly passed in a flash! Nikel promptly let me know that he was indeed not lying and all this seemed very trippy to him. Everybody, including the professors, the staffs and the students were shouting and giggling in complete confusion. People were all asking and gesturing each other about the same experience they all just had and only when the loud bell rang to mark the end of the period hour, that the crowd started to disperse. Still, the entire day was chaotic as the buzz of conversation lingered till the end of the day.

For everybody, it was an inexplicable sense of missing out about 45 minutes of their entire day! Except me. For I was pretty sure that I was working all those minutes, alone in the laboratory, waiting on Nikel to finish his 'only 10 minutes' of conversation with his girlfriend down in the cafeteria. I was absolutely certain that I had spent those 45 minutes setting up, noting the measurements and formulating the results and not that they had simply vanished in a flash as everyone was suggesting. My notebook corroborated, as it still contained all the the scribbles and the calculations that I had been doing.

But of course this time slippage wasn't without explanation to me. All this sense of 'missing out' isn't unfamiliar. I knew, personally, when people feel this way. You see I have a certain method that when triggered, can stop time for any biological entity, for 2-3 minutes on my end, in a defined space of about 25 square meters, or about the size of an average living room. Within this brief time period, I can exist in a suspended moment, while the world around me stands still. Everybody including humans, birds, trees— anything biological will suspend in Time, completely unaware of what has transpired out of their time. This would affect only biological creatures though, as physical and inanimate objects, such as cars, buses, flowing water, wind, clothes, paper, furniture, electronic devices, glass, food and even chemical reactions remain unaffected during a 'Timestop'. One could imagine the disaster it can cause, if it is accidentally triggered in public spaces or near moving vehicles.

However, anything longer than 2-3 minutes, resulted in vertigo and excruciating nosebleeds. And yet here I’m, looking at 45 minutes tops, of Timestop and a radius which has knocked off everybody in the entire campus?! I glanced at my watch again, the seconds ticking away.

"Was it possible that I had triggered it much longer this time?" I thought to myself.

I didn't know if I'd tapped into a new power. Except there was yet another problem. It doesn't happen spontaneously, it does require my conscious intention to trigger it. I'm the trigger and it isn't involuntary. And even though I had been feeling disturbed for a while now— particularly displeased during those moments in that room— I knew I hadn’t consciously chosen to stop time. But what if I did? The first couple of times it happened, I clearly co-related it with emotional distress. I thought I had it under control. But even back then it never was longer than 2 minutes, so what happened during this time? With some intense willpower, I'd managed to stop time for 4 minutes and 35 seconds that one time, and averaging at 3 minutes now, I'm sure holding a Timestop for more than 5 minutes is certainly physically impossible! That one time, I bled out extensively and fell unconscious for good 30 minutes or so. On the other hand, if it wasn't me, is there someone else at play here? I was pretty confident that I was the only one with this miraculous power. The Timestop was a tool I had learned to wield with caution, always aware of the potential fallout. But this time, it felt different. I didn't even so much as feel weakness or even a nosebleed.

With these thoughts looming over my head the entire day, at almost half past 5, I finished for the day. I asked Nikel to go ahead without me, as I wanted to check in with her momentarily. As I was descending the stairs, I suddenly had an epiphany, which explained at least part of the mystery that occured in the morning. Like a lightning, it sent a chill down my spine. I decided to turn back and walk towards the edge of the breezeway which overlooked the entire downstairs plus the levels below. The wind was blowing smoothly and I could hear some distant noise of fans running in one of the rooms below. A butterfly flew past me and sat on the edge of the railing, on which I was also leaning. I was staring at it, fluttering its wings slowly up and down as it kept walking away from me. And then it stopped fluttering. Normally I would turn my head away, as I wouldn't bother with the insect- but the way it stopped fluttering caught my eye. The two wings had not folded vertically up as a normal butterfly would when it’s resting, but stopped at random angles. I turned around, half expecting her to be there but there was no one. Then I saw the butterfly fly past me again.

Days pass by and I still didn't confront her about the incident from the other day. I hated that we don’t talk anymore lately like we used to. She was not entirely to blame but I resented her attitude towards our friendship. She always has been the type to move on from details and incidents pretty quickly, I guess even for ones, which break the universe. I had my share of responsibility in this silence, but it didn’t lessen my disappointment. I had always forgiven her the moment she stood in front of me, and perhaps I would do so again this time. Life continued for both of us, until one day it stopped once again.