When Time Stopped

Prologue

My feet collide with the ground, the painful truth hit me as thunder rings around my ears. A raspy voice utters words I cannot hear as my vision turns red.

"Again!? First again!" I yell out voice echoing in an abnormal way, "Oh my-" I want to sound angry, but I couldn't hold in my laughs of disbelieve.

I could've sworn I was crouching, either way, I should've known better than to trust a potato to break my fall.

As I go to spectate, I am unable to reach the button in time as my eyes open to a clear blue sky, the red tint in my view fades. My eyes scan the area, Grian and Joel are staring down at me, laughing. I don't blame them, gone first four times in a row! What a curse to have.

I stand up, and get ready to observe the world once again, I wonder who will go next...

But I stay on the ground. Looking down I have feet, I have arms. I'm still here, unable to float around. Am I still alive? Maybe I'm not first! I look up at Skynet, they're gone. The boys are returning to The Bad Boy's Big Bread Base, I could definitely beat them there.

Not wasting anymore of the time that I somehow have, I rush down the Bad Boy's Broken Bread Bridge and up the water. Zooming into the Grain Brain I turn around in time to see Joel rocket out of the water elevator.

"I can't believe it!" Joel's voice is higher, still cracking up from that disaster. 

"Typical Tim." Grian chuckles, shaking off the water. 

"I can't believe it too, I should be dead but look at me!" I exclaim, hoping my sudden joining in on the conversation spooks them.

Not getting the response I was hoping for, Grian turns around, and looks in my general area saying nothing. His smile drops for a second.

"Wow- you really look like you've seen a ghost." I chuckle.

...

No response.

"Wow- you really-" I try retelling my amazing joke, hoping they just failed to hear me. But I get cut off by Joel finally turning around.

"What are you looking at?" He asks, looking directly at me.

There's a long pause of silence. You can hear the chaos from The Family, probably trying to get back at us for blowing them up.

"Huh? Nothing." Grian says, turning away, "I was just thinking, the world seems to be lacking some flying TNT minecarts."

The gleam in Joel's eyes fail to hide the excitement of brewing more chaos, without saying another word the two of them to the Lad's Limited Life Ladder Podcast... without me.

"Ha ha, funny joke guys. I know you two can hear me." They do this all the time, I'm sure they're just joking.

No response.

"Guys? You're joking, right?"

They start ascending.

"Grian, Joel. This isn't funny anymore. The Bad Boys won't be a trio if you keep ignoring me." I nearly yell as they continue to climb.

Getting further away, they start to talk to each other, I can't quite hear so I reach for the ladder, right hand reaching out to the wooden step. 

I stop.

Where I would normally see a spiral of numbers that would count down to what was supposed to be my doom is gone.

Now, there's a zero on the back of my hand. It shouldn't bug me, I shouldn't be worried. But... this is a life series, this shouldn't be here, not in this world. I've not seen this symbol for so long, I almost forgot...

The symbol of the Watchers circles on the back of my hand.

I am truly dead.