"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

She went to bed with a lot on her mind. She’d anticipated that but that didn’t make it any less annoying. Using her powers was like having a boost of caffeine in her system, sometimes it made her crash and other times, it kept her wide awake and her thoughts spiraling. 


 The day had been unexpectedly adventurous and even the conversation with Mark had been draining. She’d imagined it going all kinds of ways, but never one where he didn’t know and she’d have to be the one to tell him. It was too daunting of a prospect to even consider and yet, it’d come to pass. 


 She knew none of it was her fault and the burden was one she’d taken on willingly but that didn’t make her feel any less agitated with the whole situation. He hadn’t seemed even remotely convinced to go with her and that made her task more difficult. Her thoughts travelled to her mother, as they often did these days. 


She loved her mother, of course she did. If it weren’t for her mother’s courage and bravery, she would’ve been stuck in that hellhole with her father forever. But sometimes, she felt hatred for her mother for putting her in this situation. It made her angry and irritated. 


She knew that it wasn’t the way her mother expected things to go when she saved her from her father. She’d always loved Mark and despite never having met him before, Claire had inherited her mother’s love for him. Sometimes she wondered what it would be like if he really considered her his sister, the way she saw him as her brother, regardless of their blood. 


After today’s conversation, that possibility seemed even more distant. He’d made it abundantly clear that he didn’t appreciate her barging into his life and changing the course of it so drastically. Regardless of her intentions, he saw her as the intruder and the cause of all this chaos. 


She just wanted to protect and help him but it would be hard to make him see that she was coming from a place of caring and love, especially when the other side would tell him the same thing. 


As her thoughts drifted to how she’d fit into his hangout with his friends the next day, her eyes started dropping and eventually, she feel into a slumber. It wasn’t a peaceful one, as was the usual with her but it was short and she got the necessary rest. She was blissfully unaware of how much she’d need it the next day.


Chapter 6: Remembering