"Concentrate!!"

"I'm doing it as much as I can" 

" Look, you are new here so I'm going easy this time. I'm your mentor. You do as I say if you want to live, or you leave this room and never come back. Your choice."

He nodded. Although he hated it, he knew she was right. It was do or die. 

"Good. Now concentrate!! Focus your mind on the task at hand. Think about nothing else. Let's try again."

He did as he was told. He forgot about everything but the task at hand. After a few minutes, it seemed to work. The birds stopped flying, the leaves stopped rustling. Though it was only for a few seconds, he'd finally done it. 

He'd stopped time.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Mark was a normal kid. He thought he had the best life ever. He had everything. Loving grandparents who treated him as their own. Friends who were there for him wherever he needed. He never wished for anything more than what he had. He was happy.

All that changed when he met Claire. She was the kinda person who grows on you. She opened the path for him to a life he never knew was destined to have and he discovered that he was so much more than merely normal.

But now his secret is out and his life and the lives of those he loves are in danger. Now he has to choose between his family and his destiny and the fate of the world depends upon his choice.

Timeless Teenagers

 That was interesting. He could see that she was hesitant to tell him her name, though he couldn’t fathom why. She was beautiful though. Even in simple clothes, she stood out as beautiful and he couldn’t help but go to her. He was right in assuming that she wasn’t from there though, her demeanor said as much. The signs were subtle but the one thing he was always good at was reading body language. 


 He was still looking at her while she was talking on the phone. The way her expressions changed was fascinating. One moment she seemed relived, then concerned and then alarmed. He wanted to go to her and ask her what was going on but his eyes fell on the time. 


 His grandparents had asked him to come see them at sunset. They said they had to tell him something important. He assumed it would be something related to school. He’d wanted to pursue stunt work but they didn’t approve. I wasn’t a “career”. He’d tried endlessly to make them understand but they’d been adamant. He was hoping they’d changed their mind now and he was looking forward to it. He moved over to the first floor. 


The first floor was his grandparents’ space and the ground floor was his. Every wall upstairs was filed with their pictures, from their honeymoon to his dad’s birth, graduation, the first time they saw Mark, and all of Mark’s achievements, whether that be winning a spelling bee in grade school or winning the regional races. The interior was vintage through and through, except for the neon yellow couch in the middle of that was totally out of place. They’d told him it was his dad’s favorite thing and they couldn’t bring themselves to part with it after his death. 


The first thing he saw when he got up the stairs was his grandparents sitting on the couch and it seemed like they were arguing about something. He got closer and caught a snippet of their conversation. 


“Maybe she won’t come. We shouldn’t give him such a burden, only for her to not come and leave him in fear of her arrival all his life”, his grandma was saying. 


“You know she’ll come. How do you think he’ll feel, finding out from her instead of us?! He’ll lose all his trust for us”, his grandpa all but screamed. 


“What are you guys talking about?” he asked, making his presence known. 


They turned to him and gave him resigned looks. 


“You’re here”, said his grandpa. 


“Yeah, I’m here. What is this about? I thought we were going to talk about my career”, he said, running a hand through his hair to make his frustration known. 


“What we’re going to tell you now Mark, is bigger than your career. It’ll change everything you’ve know about yourself all your life”, his grandma said in a defeated tone. 


“You’re scaring me”, he said, making his apprehensions known. 


“Mark”, his grandfather started, “first of kid, let me say how sorry we are for not telling you this sooner. We wanted you to have a normal childhood without having to carry such a burden on your shoulders all the time. In hindsight, we shouldn’t have left it to the last moment without giving you time to process. Son, your father -” 


He was cut off by the sound of a bang. They were all startled and ran to the window to see what was going on. What he saw was unbelievable. The girl he’d met earlier, Claire, was standing beside the pool with a guy who was pointing a gun at her head.


Chapter 3: The Secret