While cleaning out the attic of my parents, I found a box. It was labeled Grandfather. It was full of old junk; scarves, paintings, a pocket watch. At the very bottom I found a CD.It was simple written Trouble.
I was curious what it was, but if there's anything I know about Gramps, it's that he had the best, most amazing stories he used to tell me all the time. His old and gravelly voice would somehow manage to bend into different character voices.
When he got too old to tell them, he wrote them everywhere. Spare napkins, stray sheets of paper, even a piece of wood.
I still end up finding pieces of stories that he wrote somewhere, but left the the rest somewhere else.
I popped the CD into the slot on my laptop and hit the 'read' button.
It whirls for a few seconds. The loading screen pops up.
10 minutes until finish...
Woah. Gramps must have put all of his stories in this CD for it to take this long.
I keep going through the box as I wait for it to load. I don't find anything else interesting outside of another two by four covered in sharpie.
The computer pings as it finishes and starts to pull up the document.
I gasp at the sheer number of pages. Over 2000 and still loading more.
I start scanning the first couple of pages.
"Usually it isn't this hard." It starts.
"I have this weird thing that happens a lot, where when someone is about to die, time freezes. Most of the time it's really easy to tell who it is- a grandma in the middle of the street, a kid about to chase a ball into the forest full of demons- those kind of things.
"This time is different though. Instead of someone near me in obvious danger, I haven't seen anything out of the ordinary.
"I've moved everyone at least four times, I've changed out drivers and stopped cars. I've even put everyone back in their houses, but nothings changed. I've even moved out of the area. No one was moving anywhere. It doesn't change anything either. When ever I come back to this spot, it's always already frozen, and it won't unfreeze."
I stop reading. And look up.
Do my parents know about this?
If they don't know about it, then I guess I should be twinkle-toeing around the edge of the question.
Wait, how did gramps die? Didn't mom say he was in a car crash or something? So when did this happen?
I skip down a couple pages.
"It's been almost a month now, and still no change. I've even tried to evacuate everyone in case a bomb is falling from the sky and is about to kill everyone. That didn't work either. I checked every single person within a mile radius for diseases; cancer, heart attack, cardiac arrest, anything. The only thing I found was a kid was going to experience a cold in a few days.
So if everyone is healthy, why won't time start again?
What else can people die from?"
"Month two," The next entry solemnly states. "and I'm starting to accept this might be my reality.
"Because nothing moves except me, it means I have an infinite (almost) food supply. Nothing will spoil, so I'm not to worried about it. Not that I'm even hungry, of course. I never need to sleep because my body doesn't move any faster than everyone else's. The only difference between us is I know what's going on and I caused this.
"Anyways, I've already tried to save literally everyone. They can't be more than a mile away from me in any direction, giving city life a huge positive for saving people's lives. It gets hard when this happens though, because there are so many nooks and crannies that I have to search through. I've found all of them though. I guess you could say I know the city in and out now. Anyways, I've looked in every ally, in everyone's homes, closets, bedrooms, under beds, everything. Still nothing. No run- away killer waiting to stab someone, no suicide bomber, not even a single old person feeling unwell.
"I forgot to mention earlier that the freeze means I can peer into peoples bodies. That sounds really creepy now that I said it. You probably think I'm insane now. But something about freezing time means that I can save anyone, even if they're sick. I can tell if they're about to break their neck on the monkey bar, or they're infected with TB."
