Cranial Misfire [ON HOLD]

Trapped in Time - The First Misfire

Rose had no idea how long she'd been running; she just knew she had to keep going. So she kept pushing herself forward, trying to ignore her dying feet and the pain emanating from her calves. As she ran, she listened to the footsteps following her, trying to gauge how far behind her the person chasing her was. It was as she turned, to look back over her shoulder, that she tripped. She winced, clenching her jaw, as pain shot through her right ankle.

Shit! I hope it's not sprained... she thought to herself as she tried to keep going.

But now, she was hobbling, barely making it down the street. There was a corner coming up and she doubted she was going to be able to turn it. She looked back over her shoulder to see how close the person chasing her had gotten. Her eyes widened and she began to panic; it was a guy, and he was going incredibly fast, almost superhuman fast, and he was coming right at her! She put a hand to her jaw and began to start the chewing motion, trying to focus her mind on the task at hand, not the guy chasing her.

Please work! She screamed in her mind as she turned her head, terrified of what she might see.

When her eyes landed on the figure behind her, she felt like doing a victory dance; it had worked, they were frozen in a running position.
As happy as she was though, Rose knew that now was not the time for celebration. So she immediately looked forward, focusing on finding a route home; she knew that it wouldn't hold forever.
But the entire time she hobbled, she had a massive smirk on her face. She couldn't believe that it worked!

What had just happened, that was turning into a daily occurrence for Rose; any time she found herself in any sort of trouble, she just used her special... power to save herself. For you see, Rose had the ability to stop time.

She learned of this ability by accident. One day, she was sitting by herself in the student union at school when she saw, out of the corner of her eye, her worst enemy, Ally Jordan, coming her way. Ally made school absolutely miserable for Rose; she never let a day go by that she didn't pick on Rose for something. Whether it be her hair (which she was always doing something new with) or her wardrobe (which mostly consisted of anything black, from skinny jeans to sweaters) or anything else Ally could think of. Every day, like clockwork, whenever the two of them had break, what usually started as a simple study session or a catch up on a favorite book turned into an estrogen war between the two. With Ally always coming out on top or Rose just stomping off, rolling her eyes at the latest pathetic excuse for a rude remark that Ally threw her way.

This particular day though, Rose was not in the mood for a sass battle. No, this was the day after her latest doctor's appointment. In which, the doctor basically told her what she already knew; her medication wasn't working and the seizures were getting worse and occurring more often.

The days after doctor's appointments were the days that Rose was her least social, usually because whatever the doctor had to say was never good and made her feel depressed and insecure. So when Ally came stomping over with a sadistic grin on her face and body language that spelled trouble, Rose knew she had to find a way out. Fast.

She started to gather her things and stand up, but decided against it, knowing that if she tried to walk away, Ally would call her out for being a coward. She looked around for her headphones, thinking of using them as a way to block out Ally's annoying voice, but she knew that wouldn't work either; Ally would just pull them out and start yelling in her ear. Rose was running out of options; it was starting to look like she was going to have to go through the motions of a sass battle with Ally, yet again. She sighed and slumped in her seat, ready to give in. But then, thoughts of yesterday's appointment flooded her mind, making her angry. It was then that she made her decision; she was absolutely not going to put up with any crap from the queen bee of divas. So she went with the only remaining option, and probably her best; feign a seizure.

Rose knew that everyone was terrified of her seizures, even though 95% of the time, they weren't even the scary, shaking, foaming at the mouth kind. No, the "norm" for Rose was petit mal aka. absence seizures. She had been told that throughout the seizure she just looked a bit spacey and looked like she was chewing on gum or something, even though she was never actually chewing on anything. Because nothing extremely bad ever happened when she had that type of seizure, Rose couldn't really understand why people got so scared when she had them. None the less, she was going to use that fear to her advantage; scare Ally into leaving her alone.

So, as Ally got closer, Rose began to make that chewing motion with her jaw and stared off into nowhere, focusing her eyes on on the garbage can across the room as she did her best to keep her face completely blank.

It was while she was doing her best to try and block out the angry clacking of Ally's heels on the linoleum floor as Ally got closer, that she heard it; silence. The entire student union had gone completely silent, the only noise being the low hum of the computers. This was weird; just seconds ago everyone had been talking, laughing, typing and more, the union was filled with noise. Rose slowly tore her gaze away from the garbage bin and looked around, wondering what was going on.

No one was moving, almost as if they were all frozen. At first Rose began to question whether or not this was another flash mob stunt being pulled by the drama club (they had done something similar in the library the previous month). But when nobody moved an inch, not even to blink, Rose began to realize that something wasn't right.

She looked over to where she had last seen Ally, only to see her frozen in an odd stance; looking as though she was mid step of an aggressive strut. Rose wandered over to Ally and waved her hand in front of the annoying brunette's face, waiting for the girl to swat her hand away and begin insulting her for something minor. But she got no response. Ally's eyes weren't even moving. This was weird and it was beginning to creep Rose out.

Finally, unable to stay in that room with all the human statues, Rose grabbed her bag and headed to the doors.

It was once she passed through them, before they completely closed behind her, that she heard the annoying voice of Ally Jordan screech out "Where did you go, you emo freak?!" The loud noise cutting through the silence made Rose jump. But it also made her curious. So, Rose peeked through one of the windows to see Ally standing in front of where Rose had just been sitting, staring at the empty chair, looking a little confused. Rose didn't understand; just a few seconds ago, Ally hadn't been moving, but now she was stomping about all over the student union, throwing a temper tantrum. Rose looking to the other people in the union; they were all moving too, doing what they had just been doing before everyone froze.

Rose felt chills run up her back. None of this made any sense; everyone was acting like nothing was wrong, like nothing had happened, like they had never been frozen. She couldn't understand it, how could they all act so casual when they had all been statues just a few seconds ago? And why was Ally acting so weird, had she not seen Rose leave? Rose had literally been inches away from Ally's face, but Ally was acting like that never happened. It had been at least a minute since everyone froze, but they were acting as though they hadn't missed a second.

An unsettling feeling came over her as she thought about the events unfolding in front of her: becoming unfrozen, no sense of time, no ability to recount past events, confusion. That all sounded like Ally was coming out of a seizure.
Rose's eyes widened and she began to chew on her thumb nail as she tried to comprehend the scene in front of her.

What had she just done?