I felt my body freeze and space around me contort, my body's sensations simultaneously ceasing and perpetuating themselves. Like when you sit in hot water until it feels lukewarm, the same stimulus causes your body to go numb quite quickly.

The chill breeze in the night air now still, every leaf and particle of dust motionless, suspended in the air. My sense of balance had left me long ago. I had been here for what felt both like 5 seconds and 5 hours; though, here, time is effectively meaningless. The ground beneath me at a slight angle, with me having attempted to throw myself to the ground to avoid what was so close to the bridge of my nose I had a hard time focusing on it with both eyes.

This little piece of copper, smaller than the end of my pinky, would be what removed me from this world.

Of course I decided to go for a walk tonight, and of course I had to run into a trigger-happy mugger. My wallet was already in his hand, what did killing me even do for him?

Well, I have all the time in the world, at least. I have to be able to find some way out of this, surely? I've gotten out of predicaments in the past.

In the 5th grade, I was playing soccer and slammed into another kid. In the tumble, I paused out of panic and saw that, if I continued to fall, my arm would be snapped like a twig under the other one, who easily had 50 pounds on me. I was always scrawny. I got ready to contort myself, and as soon as time unpaused, I managed to avoid the broken arm, settling instead for a sprained wrist.

In my freshman year of college I was at a party and flirting up a girl. Little did I know she had a boyfriend - and little did she know he was also there. I saw him coming in the reflection of a window, and dodged his suckerpunch, tripping him and getting the hell out of there.

My first day headed to work some day drunk ran a stop sign going 80 miles an hour down residential streets; I'd never been an exceptional driver, but I'm sure to everyone who witnessed it I looked I belonged in a Formula 1 race.

All these thoughts and memories slammed into me one by one. The saved conversations, avoided stutters, managed anger, and passed exams. I felt them come quickly, and leave just as fast. If tears could well in my eyes they would; I settled for that tightening in your throat before a sob.

There was no way out of this, I thought. Absolutely no way out. I could do a lot with time, but not everything.

Something in the depth of my soul shuttered. For a fraction of a second - a fraction of a fraction - I felt something new.

It came again. And again. Each time growing in intensity and longevity. Eventually it felt like a pulse firing so rapidly it became sustained, and I figured out exactly what it was. I was fall-

OW.

I felt my tailbone slam into the concrete sidewalk, and a spike of pain ran up my spine, and I reflexively shot a hand to the site of the impact. Not a second later though, confusion ran through me. I should've been dead before I hit the ground.

I looked up to see that bastard's face contorted in the same smug, nast grin. I saw the bullet suspended judt where it had been. The same leaves in the same places, the same specks of dust, the same car headlights off in the distance.

But, I found myself having moved. I was actively moving. Something in my body felt different, like getting a massage and that tight muscle you didn't even know was tight finally being loose.

I stood up, still wincing from the pain, but in good spirits considering the alternative. I clenched and unclenched my fists, feeling the air resist my hands in a new way. I felt the concrete push back against my steps differently; the cushioning in my shoes reacting to my steps.

Slamming my fist into the criminal's gut, I took back my wallet, threw his gun into the bushes, and gave one last finishing touch before ducking around a corner and unpausing time.

His yelp and clear fall onto the concrete was like music to my ears, complimented by his struggling to remove his underwear pulled over his head before he ran off the other direction.

With this new development in my abilities, things were about to get very interesting.