Time Out (BxB)

Someone like me

1 week had passed since the school begun. 1 week since my powers emerged. 1 week since I realized my life would never be the same.

Well actually at that time my life wasn't all that different from the usual. I still had to go to my classes and I still had to graduate. But one thing definitely changed. Now I had more time to do my school work so there was no point in rushing. All the problems I had about managing my sleeping and school schedules practically disappeared. I could do my homework whenever I wanted. I could even do it in class or even 1 second before the teacher asked for it. And if I didn't feel like it, I could just as easily take a nap as long as I wanted.

All of this sounded perfect didn't it? I suppose it did but for some reason I still had this bad feeling in the back of my mind that something horrible was about to happen. Just like the quiet, peaceful period that would only last for a short time, I was enjoying the moment in the calm before the storm. But something was telling me that wasn't going to last forever, whatever it's called – intuition, sixth sense, gut? It was warning me to not become too comfortable because soon everything would change. So I decided to listen to it and be cautious.

As I walked down the school's hallway distractedly I started playing with the safety pin that was on my shirt. Having something to play with in my fingers usually helped me concentrate but it also sometimes made me unaware of my surroundings. This was unfortunately one of those times.

I failed to notice that there was someone getting closer to me from the opposite direction who was just as absentminded. Before I was able to realize what was happening we bumped into each other and I basically collapsed on top of him. My preoccupied mind quickly returned to reality as I felt how my safety pin pierced through that person's skin. I slowly stood up as some of the students that were chuckling on the sidelines begun taking pictures with their phones. Once I took out my safety pin that was stuck in his palm I helped the poor boy get up.

"I'm so sorry, Lucas." I apologized to my classmate that was unfortunate enough to become a victim of my befuddlement. He glared angrily before tapping onto his clothes in order to remove the dust. "I have a Band-Aid in my bag, hold on a second."

"I don't need a Band-Aid, what are you talking about?" He brushed it off casually.

"Maybe you didn't feel it but your hand was cut." I gently grabbed his wounded hand to turn it around but once I looked at his palm there was no sign of an injury. "Wait how is that possible? It was so deep into your skin."

Lucas quickly slipped his wrist out of my grasp and hid it behind his body to prevent me from looking at it. "I wasn't injured, just leave me alone."

Once he basically shoved me away from his way and ran I couldn't help but wonder if I was perhaps losing my mind since I was beginning to imagine things that weren't there. I clearly saw how my safety pin went through his skin with my own two eyes. The wound was definitely severe enough to cause bleeding, yet when I glanced at his palm it was perfectly normal.

I lightly hit my hands onto my cheeks in order to wake myself up from overthinking about this mystery but as I did that I looked down and a familiar red liquid captured my attention. I leaned down swiftly to get closer and there was no doubt about it.

I observed my body to make sure it wasn't me who had left this trail but there was nothing that would indicate I had cut myself. This blood definitely belonged to Lucas but he was also not injured just like me or at least that's what I saw and that's what he claimed.

Come to think of it he was acting pretty strange when I suggested he got impaled by my safety pin. Once I mentioned he might have been wounded he quickly dismissed the idea denying even the possibility.

Maybe he was trying to hide something. Maybe he was really injured but somehow healed himself. Or maybe he's like me and he reversed time to go back in the moment where he wasn't stabbed and that's how his injury disappeared.

Wait a damn minute. That is an intriguing theory but there is just one thing that makes no sense. If he teleported back in time and avoided getting his skin pierced through how come there was still blood on the floor?

Okay if that's not the case then how else could this happen? Is he perhaps similar to me somehow? Maybe our skills are slightly different but we're the same...

Why did I assume that I was the only one with this power? How come the thought that there could be others with the same exact ability didn't even cross my mind up until this point?

I was so preoccupied with finding ways to take advantage of my time control powers that I completely neglected the possibility it may not have been exclusive to me. How did I even receive these powers? Was I born with them? Or was it something that was given to me by someone?

There was so much I still didn't know about and in that moment I realized I needed to be a lot more careful because if someone were to find out what I could do there was no telling what sort of chaos would unleash into this world. I had no intention of becoming a lab rat for scientific experiments. I just wished that I wasn't too late and somebody hadn't already discovered my potential because if that were the case I would most likely have to flee from my home and being a fugitive was definitely not a part of my plans for the future.

In the meantime, I also needed to find balance managing my everyday life and not getting caught. Which had proven itself to be quite a challenge. Until now I had become too cocky, believing there was nothing I couldn't do, but soon I recognized that might not have been true.

Usually I preferred taking short naps during classes even before I was able to pause time but back then I was a light sleeper and could easily tell when someone was approaching me. However, last week during my English lesson where we had to give the teacher our essays I had somehow fallen into such deep sleep I was unable to do that and our English teacher was a complete dictator who would make people read their assignments out loud if they missed a deadline. I had unfortunately fallen victim of her wrath many times before but ever since receiving my powers I felt at ease, thinking there was no way I'd mess such a simple task up anymore because now I could literally snap my fingers and write that stupid essay in class but boy was I wrong. Now I had to read this stupid thing aloud. Ugh, how could I have been so careless?!

Once I entered the cursed classroom where I'd have to experience total and utter humiliation very soon I gulped nervously and sat on my chair. A few minutes later Mrs. Thompson arrived and asked me to stand up. Deep down I was hoping she'd have forgotten about my essay and I'd just give it to her at the end when all of my classmates had left but she had a memory of an elephant so of course she remembered.

I took a deep breath and started narrating the stupid assignment titled how to be a good person or some dumb s**t like that.

How do you determine if someone is a good person? How would you even determine if something that you did was good or bad?

For example, let's say you were walking down the street and you saw a wallet on the ground. You are presented with multiple options of what you can do – a) you can pick up the wallet and give it back to the owner, b) you can keep the wallet for yourself, c) you can take the money that's inside the wallet and then try to give it back to the owner, d) you can just leave the wallet where it is and get on with your day.

Which of these actions would be considered the 'right thing' to do? Most would probably say option a, but why is that? Why isn't it the option d? Technically you're not obligated to do anything. I mean it would be nice of you to return the wallet back to its owner but you're under no obligation to do so. You could simply just walk away.

Does that mean that what you did was 'wrong?' One could argue that someone else would have found the wallet and given it back to the owner. One could also argue that maybe that someone would have kept the wallet for himself.

But technically speaking it is not your job to be responsible for the wallet. Its owner should be the one who's in charge of that.

What I'm trying to tell you is that there are no good or bad people. There are just people. They make decisions, those decisions cause actions and those actions have consequences. However, those consequences could affect you differently depending on who you are.

For example, if you see two people fighting each other and one of them is beating up the other but you intervene to stop that person. One of these people would probably thank you for helping them but the other one would be mad that you got involved into a business that you had no place getting involved in. Besides you didn't even know the reason those two people were fighting.

There could be a possibility that the person who was beating the other guy was just trying to defend himself or someone else. There could also be a possibility that the person who was being beaten up was a murderer and by stopping the one who was fighting him you helped a killer escape. There could also be a possibility that the person was completely innocent and they didn't do anything wrong.

But in that moment you don't have any of that information. You don't know who's at fault in this situation. So by that logic would you say that the 'right thing to do' would be to do nothing or prevent the fight from happening?

And that's not all, your decision of whomever you help (if you decide to get involved at all) might depend on which person you know better, or whichever one of them is your friend. What if the one who was being beaten was innocent but the one who was hitting him was your good friend. What would happen then? Whom would you help? The innocent person? Then you'd be betraying your friend. Do you just sit there and watch? What about that innocent guy who's being beaten up for no reason?

Your decision whether you get involved or not, whether you help one person or the other, may vary depending on the information you have at hand. Therefore, there is no right or wrong decision. There is no good or bad. There are only actions that will negatively or positively affect you depending on who you are in the given situation. So there are no 'good' or 'bad' people.

Even if you decide to do nothing that's still a decision. You made a choice and that will have a consequence. Not making a choice within itself is already a choice. If somebody threw a ball at you and you stood still, not making any movement what would happen? The ball would bounce right off of you and change the trajectory and that was because of you. Your inability to make a decision or choosing to not make one will both have some sort of a reaction. By being indecisive you're giving all the power to the person who's causing the first action (throwing the ball at you in this particular situation.) You think you're not taking sides but in reality you're siding/supporting the one who's benefiting from this action. That is why you can never be truly neutral. That sort of like saying you're just letting other people make the decision for you.

If this example's too complicated, then how about another one. What if your friend comes to you and tells you that he robbed a bank and he's hiding from the police? What is the right thing to do in this situation? Do you help your friend or do you call the police?

If you decide to help him then you're covering up a crime which is not only illegal but it could land you in jail. But on the other hand if you call the police and tell them where he's hiding then you're being a shitty friend. You also have another option. You can choose to close the door and tell your friend that you don't want to get involved in the situation but I'm sure your friend won't appreciate that. Therefore, there's no right answer here. No matter what you do somebody gets hurt. It all depends on your moral compass. Whatever you chose to do is your decision and who am I to tell you whether that decision is right or wrong. How should I, a mere human, be able to judge such a complicated predicament?

In conclusion this essay is a giant waste of time. Being good or bad is circumstantial. You can't make the right decision all the time because no matter what you decide, even if you don't do anything, that action will have a reaction and that reaction will affect people who are involved in the situation. Some people may like it some may not but at the end of the day do whatever the hell you want. Who cares? It's not like I'm your parent or anything.

"Wow... did you hear that everyone?" Mrs. Thompson spoke to the class once I was done reading. "That is how you write an essay."

"Really?" I gave her a confused stare.

"Of course not." She offered a sarcastic response. "What are you stupid or something? You'd be lucky to get a B- with that mess. Bring the paper to me and I'll grade it once I check the structure and grammar."