Experimentation

The stillness was intoxicating. It felt like I was holding the world in my hands, bending it to my will. I was still trying to wrap my head around what had happened, what was happening to me. I could stop time. That's what it seemed like, anyway, though the details didn't add up. I wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth, though. No, I was going to milk this for all it was worth.

I practiced with my cigarette, holding it up and flicking it into the air. Focusing on that strange sensation in my mind, I tapped into the well of power I could now feel so clearly. The world stopped. I began counting in my head, slow and steady, noting every detail. One...two…three… I could see the smoke hanging around me, locked in place. But by the time I reached five, I could feel my energy bottom out. The world snapped back, and the cigarette finished its descent, bouncing off the floor.

The headache hit me almost immediately, like a vice squeezing around my skull. I gritted my teeth and made my way to the break room, where I slumped into a chair and closed my eyes. As I'd now learned, it took just about a full hour before I felt the well fill up again, that strange, fluid-like energy falling drop by drop back into my skull..

I'd spent almost a whole day at that point practicing with my new abilities. While I hadn't learned too much about it, I understood some basic principles now. For starters, it was more efficient, it seemed, to use it in bursts, stopping and starting time in small fragments so as to not get that feeling of weakness from fully using it all.

Second, it was weird. Really weird. Realistically, if I was stopping time, disregarding the fact that I was able to think, how could I move around? breathe? see? This meant that light was still refracting, and air was still active surrounding me, at the very least. Was I stopping time, or just stopping certain things?

I even tried it in combat, venturing out into the street and freezing time around a zombie mid-lunge, shattering its skulls with my crowbar as it hung in the air. While I was able to make crush its skull, the splattering remains quickly stopped mid-air. While it didn't make much sense, it was exhilarating, watching its head crack and crumble like a clay pot, suspended in that strange, still world where I was the only one who moved.

I was out hunting zombies, experimenting with my power. Most of them were easy targets, slow and lumbering, but as I turned a corner, I saw one that was different. Its movements were quick, almost fluid, a stark contrast to the clumsy staggering of the others. It twisted its head to look at me, empty eyes locking onto mine, and in that moment, I knew it had seen me. It lunged, faster than I'd expected, and I barely had time to react. I stopped time, feeling the power drain as I sidestepped, and swung the crowbar with all my strength. When time resumed, the zombie staggered, its head snapping back from the impact, but it didn't fall. I cursed, swinging again, and this time it went down, collapsing into a heap at my feet.

That's when I saw it. As the body lay still, something began to form on its chest, a faint glow pulsing just below the surface. I stepped closer, eyes narrowing as a small, black stone emerged from its flesh, falling onto the pavement with a dull clink. I crouched down, reaching out to pick it up. The moment my fingers closed around it, I felt a strange resonance, like a vibration that matched the rhythm of the well inside me. It was as if the stone was alive, humming with a power I could feel echoing in my veins.

I turned it over in my hand, examining the smooth, almost glassy surface. It felt warm, pulsing faintly, and as I focused on it, I sensed an urge, an instinct to tap into it, to activate whatever energy it held. Taking a deep breath, I allowed myself to give in, letting the energy flow from the stone into my body.

The effect was immediate. As the stone turned to liquid and soaked into my skin, which was a bit frightening at first, but quickly comfortable more than anything, I felt lighter, more agile, like a weight had been lifted from my limbs. I took a step, then another, noticing the way my body seemed to respond faster, as if the world around me had slowed down just a fraction. I wasn't moving at superhuman speeds, but there was a definite change, a heightened awareness that tingled along my skin, albeit a small one. If I could find more zombies with those stones... was there a limit? I got excited at the prospect. 

Unfortunately, after a bit more hunting and exhausting the remaining few seconds of Pause (what I'd decided to call my weird power), I saw no more special zombies. 

But the encounter with that agile zombie was a stark reminder that I still didn't understand what was going on. There were weird new powers in this world, and with that, surely greater threats as well. 

Of course, as far as the powers were concerned, it seemed I wasn't the only one. As I'd been practicing, I'd been keeping up with the constant bombardment of breaking news. 

It was still droning on in the background when I went back inside. I listened, half-interested, to the warnings blaring from my phone, the voice on the TV urging people to stay indoors, to avoid contact with the undead at all costs. It wasn't surprising that they hadn't come up with a better plan; after all, who could have predicted this? They didn't have the luxury of stopping time like I did. Maybe that's why, on some level, I felt a surge of pity for them. Not that it would stop me from using every advantage I had.

The reports were grim. Some people had managed to escape to safe zones, but the zombies were spreading faster than anyone could contain them. The military was holding its ground in major cities, but contact had been lost with half the country. Internet and phone lines were down in the affected areas, leaving millions cut off, isolated, helpless. And then there were the rumors—other people like me, using powers to fight back against the undead. I felt a thrill at that. Maybe I wasn't alone after all.

But just as I was getting comfortable, feeling the satisfaction of having an edge in a world turned upside down, the tremors started. At first, I thought it was just my imagination, some lingering effect of stopping time too often. But as the hours passed, the tremors grew stronger, the building shaking under my feet with a force that rattled the walls. I barely slept that night, half-wondering what fresh hell awaited me in the morning.