The rocks were floating in front of me, but that’s just how it would look on the outside. If I were to describe it better, it’s almost as if they were stuck in time, yet moving very slowly. Around 1/23rd (or even slower) of a second slower than the natural speed we have come to expect from moving objects. And based on what I can see, it’s not just these rocks that were affected by this, Grant himself is also stuck in this slowed-down state, as he is now unable to move.

“It’s definitely just like that time in the hospital, so many years ago,” I mumble.

I drop down on my knees to crawl away from the rocks and move towards Grant. While doing that, I noticed that my wrist is feeling looser and looser as I begin to move, so when I stood up and actually tried to remove the bindings, it easily untied itself from me. So, all this time, I could’ve freed myself from that rope because those nimrods didn’t tie it tight enough. Now, I feel as dumb as they are. Whatever, it doesn’t matter anymore.

And now, standing eye-to-eye with the frozen in time Grant, one thing is clear in my head. This guy has totally pissed me off with everything that he’s trying to pull on me today. He ruined the collar of my shirt, and that is something that I won’t let stand. As much as I don’t relish in violence, I don’t like people ruining my things and being insulted. But most of all, the thing that really pissed me off is the fact that he would send such stupid lowlifes to seize me, which is worse than any worded insult that he could ever muster.

With him just a few centimeters away from me, my hands trembled in excitement on the possibilities of what I could do to him.

“I don’t know if you can hear any of this, Grant. But all the same, I’ll just proceed and tell you anyway. You do realize that Raina is well aware of your affections for her, that she knows that you’re in love with her; but unfortunately for you, it doesn’t seem like she cares about any of that. And considering what you’ve done in the past few minutes, you didn’t really heed her warnings and I can definitely see that having more than a separated shoulder is what you truly deserve,” I told him.

I cracked my neck and my knuckles, while stretching my arms visibly.

“Oh, this entire thing may be quite confusing for you. You’re currently stuck in slow motion, and the only thing that can make you move right now is having physical contact with me. Of course, it’s also possible that this effect would just simply disappear on its own, but I wouldn’t bet on it. With that said, what do you think would happen to you if I just started punching you? I know you can’t answer as quick, so I’ll just tell you; time would resume normally for you in contact and then slow down again after my fist loses contact, making you feel that pain for a way longer period of time because of your slow state,” I state to him, making him feel some semblance of fear.

But even with that, I still ponder deeply whether or not this man deserved that much suffering. I may be angry, but I don’t really want anyone to feel any suffering because of me.

I sighed and told him, “But thankfully, I won’t be doing any of that.”

I start breathing slowly to calm my emotions down and be in a zen state. After a few seconds, I was finally able to calm down and in turn, everything around us started to resume normally. The rocks that were initially thrown immediately hit the wall behind me and he begins panting heavily afterwards. The time these people feel while in that state must’ve been ridiculous, since I can theoretically think that they must’ve spent hours in that state, when it has only been a few minutes for me.

“Did you hear what I said?” I ask him, as he’s trying to compose himself.

He looks frustrated, with his face contorting as if he was about to burst at any moment. His body looks like they were trembling terribly, which I can understand very much, but his fists are clenched so tightly that there’s literal blood flowing out there. Because of that, I braced myself from a possible punch in the mouth coming from him.

But instead, he was actually trying to hold back tears and then he started wailing loudly.

“She hates me, doesn’t she?” he asks me.

“I don’t know?” I mutter.

“She does, huh? Why? Why does she hate me so much?! I didn’t do anything to deserve it, so why?!” he squeals so loud.

I scratched my head in disbelief and said, “Honestly, I’m sorry about that, man.”

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I tap his head for a bit, before deciding that I’m done with all of this and it’s time for me to leave. I feel it’s okay to leave, letting him wallow a bit in his circumstance and not to make him feel embarrassed by showing this weak side of his. As I turn my back and start walking away, I hear some rustling on the ground. Something must be happening behind me right now, because my intuition is screaming at me to turn around.

“It’s all your fault!” Grant screams.

The first thing I saw when I turned around again, my eyes widened at the sharp metallic glow that’s emanating from his hands. This guy has a sharp knife on his hands and he is about to lunge at me and possibly, stab me somewhere.

This guy is too far gone!

Why the hell would a student have a deadly weapon like that with them here?!

“You damn fool!” I exclaim.

And as expected, he gets caught inside the space of slowed time. This weird phenomena only manifests itself whenever I feel like I’m in grave danger. It’s like an automatic defense mechanism that’s always ready to protect me at all times.

But this defense has some specific timing, because the knife is just an inch away from stabbing me in the eye. One second too late, and he would’ve blinded my left eye. That would make that side of my body even more deformed, and he purposely targeted my eye to disfigure me where it hurts the most.

This callous, condescending, motherfucker!

“I was going to spare you the trouble…” I told him while I’m crunching my knuckles. I’m seriously done now. No more Mr. Nice Guy. “This is all the proof that I need. Let’s see what this does to someone who is stuck in this state.”

His eyes slowly turned into fear, as I circled him and made a stop behind him. With this, I won’t be able to see his face as I’m about to do something that is truly dastardly, vengeance. Raina, one way or another, you’re going to hear about this and I truly apologize for what I’m about to do. I took a deep breath and my eyes finally darkened.

One swift punch in the back and in the short amount of time that my fist connected with him, I could hear him howl in pain before immediately being brought back to the slowed state. I followed it up with a bunch more punches, some light and some heavy, completely relishing in the fact that he must be suffering so much pain and he’s sent back in a really slowed state to feel it for even longer. I’m enjoying this so much that for a second, I had to stop myself because I’m starting to really forget who I really am.

“Look what you’re turning me into,” I told him.

I took a deep breath as I walked back to face him. The look of utter pain and terror is so pronounced, that I was weirded out by the enjoyment I felt seeing it.

“I suppose you’ve learned your lesson at this point,” I told him. I took a deep breath once more and said, “But one last shot wouldn’t hurt, right?”

And with one charged motion, I landed a haymaker straight to his face.

“Aghk!” he mumbled in pain, before being trapped again.

“Time has turned back to normal,” I mutter as I finally feel calm once again and the slowed state has been completely removed.

I expected him to come flying away because of how many punches I gave him, but instead of being sent flying, he simply collapsed from where he stood. The knife that he was holding fell down beside him. He dodged a bullet there, if he got stabbed by the knife, it would totally be fatal for him. As much as I want to make him suffer, I wouldn’t want them to die.

”Hopefully, this is the last time we ever meet again,” I mutter.

This whole thing has been a huge headache for me. Good lord, dealing with a jealous senior that led to all this nonsense is not in my bingo list for today. At the very least, it’s done by now, since he’s practically knocked out cold.

But, regarding the other two who kept guard out there, I saw them knocked out cold with bubbles foaming in their mouths when I turned to the side of the gymnasium. Their brains were probably unable to handle the sudden change in their time perception. Looking at them makes me feel some form of sympathy, but it’s also a bit funny.

With all of that done, I decided to walk back towards the main hall of this college. And the first thing I see is Raina waiting near the doors.

“Hey!”

“Oh, hey! Where’ve you been? I’ve been waiting for half an hour,” she asks.

“Sorry for making you wait, I just had to deal with something,” I told her.

“Something?” she mutters.

“It’s nothing important, don’t worry about it. Let’s just go home now,” I said.

“Okay!” she gleefully agrees.

I’m not about to tell her what happened. As much as I want Grant to suffer, I don’t think he deserves to feel Raina’s wrath. He’s desperate for love already, and I can seriously understand that. But hopefully, this should all be enough to make those goobers off my back. Other than the haymaker to his face, I didn’t put my back into the punches I gave him. I don’t need him to seriously be injured, so hopefully he’d just be fine when he wakes up. Worst-case scenario would probably be being hospitalized for a few days.

Ah, what do I care?

Jealousy is an ugly emotion after all.