The Limbus

Ch. 2- Chance Encounters

After finally running for what feels around a minute, and breathing a bit heavier than normal, I turn the corner and see a woman, almost looking my age, near 24 or 25, trying to hot wire a car. She acts as if nothing is wrong with it. She notices me out of the corner of her eyes, and her color drained from her face. She jumped out of the car and immediately began to explain herself.

"OK, before you judge me, this is my car OK. I don't have my keys on me for some reason and I know I had them on me but they aren't here and I didn't have my phone on me either and..." she just kept rambling on nervously. She seems embarrassed. "...and my watch doesn't show time it's just frozen and no one is-... hey, why are you the only one here, and who are you?" She cut herself off.

"To be honest, I really don't know why I'm the only one, but my name is, Alex." I had to think for a second. "All I remember is me being in a car crash a few miles out of town and I walked back to town because my car is totaled. What's your name?"

"I'm Rose. You sure you were in a crash, you don't look that beat up." She said and she looked over my body, scanning for any wounds. "You don't even have a scratch"

"What do you mean, I have-" I stopped, astounded as I looked down at myself. No more red marks. I looked perfect. Even the tears in the clothes were fixed. I hadn't noticed when, or even how. "But when I got out I looked awful, I had red marks everywhere, and my clothes looked near-shredded."

"Really, you look like you're just fine." She stopped for a moment, as if it didn't even matter to her. "Anyways, do you happen to have the time. My watch is frozen at 7:16."

"No, mine is stuck at 7:17." I look at it again to see if that hasn't changed too. It was still there. No even a single second has passed.

"Man, this is weird. Maybe one of these building have a clock. Let head in and check." She says, beginning to walk inside the nearest building. I followed her, not able to come up with a better idea myself.

We split up as we enter inside. Almost immediately she calls to me to get over to where she was. What I saw I almost couldn't explain. It was a room, completely empty, except two clocks in it. But they weren't normal. They were digital and showed hours, minutes and seconds, but were different. They counted down. They were more of a timer than anything. One had around 3 hours left on it, while the other showed nearly a whole 24 hours. Why did one have so much more time on it than the other?

"So what do these mean exactly. And why is this room empty while the other have normal things." She thought out loud, but I didn't even have an answer.

"We should keep looking for something el-" She said as she began to walk out of the room, but thunder breaks her words. The sound was deafening, as if we were right next to it. A flash of light slowly fades in, and I close my eyes. When I open my eyes again, something unexpected was in my face. Another clock! It had half an hour on it. The time ticked down, just as the other two.

"What even just happened, why is there another clock?" She yelled as she ran towards me. She had confusion and worry in her voice, I don't know what she was worried about, the clock, the flash, the thunder, or if I was OK since I was nearly right next to it at the time. When she got to me, she looked me over, checking if I was hurt. I just stood there, blushing.

"I'm fine, I don't feel hurt, honestly." She froze for a minute, and let me go quickly and put her hands to her side. She stared at the ground, embarrassed. She must have looked at me without even knowing it, subconsciously concerned. I didn't mind, but she seemed to be really shy all of a sudden.

"Sorry, I just thought you got hurt from that and wanted to check and make sure." She said, still looking towards the ground. It was cute, but I still had another thing on my mind, where did that other clock come from?