Press Play (Currently being edited)

Chapter 9 - Sky

Sky stared in horror at her own face as she watched the scene play out in front of her. In her panic, she let go of the control she held over the clocks; the second hand started to tick again. It was obvious to her now how stupid she had been in that lesson, pausing time to cheat off of someone’s test, but she didn’t dare about changing it; she was still reeling from the shock that Zinnie could time travel.

“We need to move.” Sky whispered to Zinnie, realising that time was moving again, who too was fixated with her past self. Sky didn’t want to raise her voice, especially not when time was still moving, and she could only imagine what would happen if someone saw two of her in the same place.

“What?” Zinnie replied in a tone that told Sky she hadn’t heard a word that came out of her mouth.

“We need to go, Zinnie.” Sky told the brunette, shaking her arm lightly to get her attention.

“Why?” Zinnie frowned, turning to look down at Sky.

“You’re going to be sent out of the class in a minute, and I don’t think it would help if you met yourself.” Sky said and the look on Zinnie’s face was one of realisation, almost as if she realised now the seriousness of what she’d managed to do.

“Why can’t you pause time? Why did you let it run again?” Zinnie asked the smaller girl, a frown starting to appear on her face. Sky grabbed a lock of her crimson hair and wrapped it gently around her finger, her thoughts occupied with time and the past before she replied.

“It was an accident, but I think I can do it now... I think the past me can only move when she pauses it, otherwise I would have noticed when we did the test... It’s almost like we’re at completely different places, but we’re not...” Sky mused, her words trailing off at the end as she lost the message she was trying to convey. Zinnie looked lost, confused as to what Sky had just told her.

“Umm, what?” Zinnie asked, but Sky’s eyes were back on herself. The tingling sensation ran rapidly from her gut to her fingertips as time stopped and she saw herself freeze, something that wasn’t normal for her.

Zinnie opened the door to the history class, her hand on the door handle shaking slightly as she stared at her frozen self, stood up in the middle of the class staring angrily at Sky as Mr Wool had his mouth open, obviously scolding Zinnie for disrupting the test.

Sky tentatively entered the room, her eyes running over everyone in the class before stopping on herself. She found it so weird that she was able to watch herself go about normal life whilst she was there, and even weirder that she was able to pause time and actually freeze like everyone else did. She remembered so vividly what was going through her mind at the point in time that had been stopped and she started to play with her hair again, like a coping mechanism for all the strange things that were happening at once.

Sky was just about to ask Zinnie how they had time travelled in the first place when everything around her changed. It was like she was falling, falling into blackness before a bright light blinded her and she found herself lying on a patch of grass outside. She remained motionless for a few seconds, waiting for her breath to catch up with her before she sat up.

“Ugh, why did I do that?” Zinnie grumbled as she slowly but steadily brought herself to her feet. Sky looked around her, realising almost immediately where they were; outside the netball courts. She remained on the grass as she twisted her body to see who was on the courts, and all she could see was a flash of red hair. Her eyes widened and she instinctively paused time, her hand going to her eyes as she rubbed them to get rid of the slightly blurry vision she had.

“Did you make us time travel again?” Sky asked Zinnie who was looking around the green area at the people who were now frozen in position.

“I think so. I don’t know where we are though.” Zinnie told Sky who shakily stood up before wandering over to the netball courts, Zinnie trailing behind her. She entered the courts and was met with her PE class all frozen as they played netball. It was fascinating, for Sky at least, to see how everyone had stopped in the middle of running or jumping, and the unnatural way that their hair stayed up in the air. It defied the laws of physics, but Sky herself did that.

“Is this the lesson you got me into trouble?” Zinnie asked once she’d entered the enclosed space and realised that she could see herself stood in the position of goalkeeper, her arms up in the air as she shouted to the other members of her team to play better. Sky remembered this pretty clearly, given that it was only earlier that day and that it was Sky that Zinnie was directing for the majority of the game.

“If you mean the one this morning, then yeah.” Sky said, not accepting that she was to blame for Avalon running on to the courts. Sky turned around before leaving the netball courts, only to spot Mrs Kingscote and Avalon who had broken free from his leash and was in the process of running towards the netball courts.

“Can you play time again?” Zinnie asked, and Sky did it without question, trusting Zinnie not to do anything stupid. Basically, she was wrong.

Avalon changed his course as he spotted Sky and ran straight towards her, head butting her legs with such force that she toppled over backwards, only so the puppy could clamber on top of her and proceed to lick her face. Zinnie was in hysterics, and Mrs Kingscote came over to apologise to Sky for the behaviour of Avalon.

“Oh my! I’m so sorry my dear! He doesn’t usually like strangers... Oh, hi Zinnie dear. Is this your friend?” The old lady asked, not making an attempt at moving the dog away from Sky, but turning the conversation away from her as it was obvious she wasn’t going to be replying any time soon.

“Yeah, this is Sky.” Zinnie said, her laughter subsiding a little as she had to talk to the woman.

“Sky... What a lovely name.” Mrs Kingscote mused as Sky managed to sit up, the puppy standing on her lap as he wagged his tail and barked at her. Sky reached out and stroked the puppy on his head, and she could tell that the dog was content.

“Well, I’m sorry girls, but I have to take Avalon back home again. I’ve been walking him for far too long now, and I could do with a good sit down and a cup of rosy lea.” Mrs Kingscote said goodbye to the two girls as she attached the leash to Avalon and walked off.

It took Sky a moment to realise what they had just done.

“Why did you ask me to do that? You just changed the future! We shouldn’t have done that!” Sky exclaimed, glaring at Zinnie as time stopped yet again. Sky should have been paying more attention to her health rather that to her acquaintance, but she was so caught up in the fact they had changed the future that she didn’t realise how heavily pausing and playing time in the past took out of her energy. She already felt drained but as Zinnie replied, she forgot all about how weak she was currently feeling.

“Relax, we only changed it a little bit. And besides, now you didn’t get me into trouble.” Zinnie said, with a hard edge to her voice.

“I didn’t get you into trouble in the first place!” Sky pointed out, but she recieved silence in return.

“Shall we go home?” Zinnie asked Sky after a minute of awkward silence, a cold tone still present in her voice. Sky merely nodded before she felt the familiar feeling of falling, although this time, her eyes closed and didn’t open when she hit the grass of the park.