“I’ve seen a slice of your life, and now I’m giving this to you. Do whatever you want with it. Do everything you ever wished you could. Savor a special moment. With this, it can last twice as long. Touch the one you’ve always wanted to. With this, you are their lover. Kill those that have made your life miserable. With this, you are their god. As long as you have this, there are no consequences anymore. You control time.”

Tristan’s hands trembled as he finished the note. He glanced down to the only other thing in the package; a silver wristwatch.

Somehow, he had made it back inside his apartment by turning his clothes inside out. It looked ridiculous, but it had worked. It wasn't as if he could have talked to his landlord to get help opening his door while he was covered in drops of blood.

After that, he had taken a shower. Well, it was actually three showers. It had taken that many times for him to feel like he was clean again. Next, he watched the news on TV. Apparently, everyone in that part of down town had been frozen for over 8 minutes. That included him.

He tried sending a message to New Universe.

“Are you okay?”

He had yet to receive an answer.

And then, he had opened the package. Sure, he hadn’t opened it immediately like the stamp on the package requested, but it wasn’t as if someone was watching to make sure that he did.

Then again, the note did say something about ‘seeing a slice of his life’. He looked over at the webcam attached to his computer. Had someone been watching him? He got down on his knees, putting his hand under his bed and moving it around for a few moments before pulling out a roll of masking tape. Ripping off a piece, he covered the camera. That would have to do for now.

Under normal circumstances, he would have thought this was a weird prank. After what had happened today, he knew that it wasn’t. It couldn’t be.

He picked up the watch and examined it. Made from cheap metal, it weighed much less than he expected. The time showed 5:15. It was set correctly.

At first glance, it looked like any other watch you might see on a businessman walking down the street. However, once he took a closer look, he could see that there was a fourth hand. It was blue, and sat stationary, pointed at the twelve. What did it keep track of?

He looked at the watch’s bottom. The brand logo was a common one, nothing that would make him think anything was out of the ordinary. Hesitating, he finally slipped it on and held it up to his face.

On the left side, there were small buttons marked with the numbers one through four. Like the blue needle, these seemed different than what was on a typical watch. Were they for setting different alarms? Did they have something to do with changing the time on the watch? He pressed the number 1.

Everything went quiet, like he had just put earplugs in. He looked outside his window. It looked like a light rain had started. Down below, people were hurrying about. Had the watch done something?

He pressed the button again. His ears popped, and the sounds street outside returned. Other than that, nothing seemed to have happened.

He sat down on his bed and buried his face into his hands. “I’m going crazy,” he mumbled. “This is all because I wanted to meet a girl. I should just have just stayed here, worked on a History Girl’s deck, ordered pizza, and accepted that I’ll be alone for the rest of my life.”

Then he noticed it. The blue hand had moved. It was a small change, almost negligible, but he could see that the blue hand had moved slightly toward the eleven. Whatever pressing the button had done, it correlated with the needle’s movement.

He looked at the side of the watch again. The numbers went as high as 4. What would happen if he pressed it? If it really stopped time like the note said, then would it freeze all of downtown? The entire city? More?

He couldn't bring himself to try the highest number. He brought his finger up to the watch, and pressed the number 3 instead. It went silent again, but he knew right away that something was different. His heart pounded, and he felt a strange energy spread throughout the room. Jumping up from his bed, he threw the blinds open and looked back out the window again.

“There’s no way,” Tristan whispered to himself. “This… is impossible.”

Outside, the flow of people ceased completely, to where they looked like hundreds of statues lined up on the street. The raindrops were frozen in midair. He glanced back at the note on his bed. ‘You control time’.

He gasped and frantically pressed the button again. Like before, the sound returned, and the mob below moved again. He looked down at the blue hand. It had moved again.

It must have represented some sort of charge for the watch. He couldn’t be sure, but it was likely that the higher the number he pressed, the larger the area would stop. If the number 1 had been his room or his apartment building, how big had 3 been?

He had used it for around the same amount of time. However, the blue hand had moved much more noticeably this time, though it still hadn’t quite made its way to the eleven. If the blue hand was something like a battery, then the higher the setting, the more energy it used up.

“The news!” he grabbed the remote and turned on the TV.

“…after several groups were protesting at the Oregon-California border,” the newscaster said. “The government has once again released a report detailing the levels of radiation present in the state. The cause of these high radiation levels is still unclear.”

A bead of sweat dripped down Tristan’s face. His stomach twisted into knots as he waited for the inevitable.

“We have a breaking news report,” she said, somewhat flustered. “There has just been another incident in what some are calling ‘the day time stopped’. Just moments ago, downtown Portland allegedly stopped moving for a total of 15 seconds. This is much shorter than the 8 minutes that happened earlier today…”

This confirmed it. There was a weapon wrapped around his wrist. A weapon that had been used to kill that girl in the white dress. A murder weapon.

He spent the next twenty minutes just staring at the television. The people’s mouths were moving, but he was finding it hard to focus on what it was they were saying. He was brought back to his senses with a knock on the door.

Why? Who the hell would be knocking at a time like this? It was too late to be mail, and he hadn’t ordered any food. He jumped up, ripping the watch off and stuffed it into one of the drawers of his computer desk along with the note that it came with.

Shutting off the television, he crept up to the door and strained his ears for any sign of who was there. Nothing. Carefully, he looked into the peephole.

He let out a deep sigh. It was just his landlord. He must have forgotten something when he went to the front office to get his room key.

The landlord knocked again.

Tristan undid the lock quickly, and opened the door. “Is there something wrong?”

His landlord stood looking troubled. As Tristan peaked his head out of the doorway, he realized that he wasn’t alone. Standing to the right of the door were two people; a young looking woman with snow-white hair, and a man in a long brown coat. They had been just out of view.

“This is him,” his landlord said, before turning back toward him. “Tristan, these detectives want to talk with you.”

“Detectives?” Tristan’s heart dropped in his chest. He moved his eyes back to the two strangers. The man had a smile on his face, and gave off a calm air. The woman looked back at him with cold eyes.

“Thank you for your assistance,” she said, not breaking her stare.

With that, his landlord turned to leave, only looking back to give him a suspicious glance. Tristan could feel himself starting to break out in a cold sweat.

“Tristan Brooks,” the man spoke this time. “I’m detective Nicolas Blaine. This is my partner, detective Arlene Ferguson. We’d like to ask you a few questions regarding your whereabouts today,” he reached into his jacket and flashed a badge.

“Questions?” He knew exactly what they wanted to ask about, but he tried to play dumb. “What about, exactly?”

“It might be best not to do this here in the hall,” Nicolas said. “Can we come in?”

“Do you,” Tristan tried to sound confident. “Do you have a warrant?”

“We’re not here to search your apartment,” Nicolas laughed. “We just want to talk. Of course, we can arrest you if you’d prefer.”

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” Tristan said.

Nicolas took a step forward. “Tristan… is it okay if I call you Tristan?” He reached into his coat and pulled out a stack of photos. Skimming through them, he pulled one out and held it toward him. “We’d just like to hear what happened.”

The picture was black and white, and showed him running through a crowd. It must have been taken right after he had found himself in front of that girl. The feeling of warm blood seemed to form on his skin, and the smell of iron returned to his nostrils. Just looking at it made his head spin. He took a step to the side, opening a path for them.

The investigators stepped inside. He had to unearth two chairs from the corner of the room for them to sit down. He never had company, so he never really had a use for them. He took a seat on his bed.

“A studio apartment, huh?” Nicolas said, still standing. “How much do you pay for something like this?” He looked around the room, his hand on his chin. Although it appeared that he was admiring the place, Tristan couldn’t help feeling like he was being made fun of.

“Nicolas,” Arlene sat down with perfect posture. “You are wasting our time,” her voice was soft, and was as ice cold as her eyes were.

“Excuse Arlene,” Nicolas sat down next to her. “She lacks in the manner department.”

“It is you who lacks manners. Your idle chitchat is inconveniencing Mr. Brooks,” Arlene held out her hand to him. “Give me the pictures.”

“You see Tristan, this is what I have to put up with,” Nicolas put the stack of photos into her hand. “Can’t even enjoy some simple conversation,”

“I know what it might look like,” Tristan sounded more panicked than he wanted to. “But I didn’t kill that girl. She was dead when I found her.”

Arlene ignored him, quietly thumbing through the pictures. “This was taken by a security camera right before the stop,” she held one out to him. “As you can see, the girl is nowhere to be seen.”

“What about after it stopped?” Tristan asked.

“There is no ‘after it stopped’,” Nicolas said, crossing his arms. “When we say everything stopped, we mean everything. Cars, birds, cell phone connections, clocks, the wind. Absolutely everything. The camera didn’t record anything for 8 minutes.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Tristan said. The answer didn’t really surprise him, but he felt he had to make them think it did. He tried to keep his eyes from darting over to his computer desk. As long as they stayed away from that, everything would probably be fine.

She took the picture back and pulled out another.

“Arlene,” Nicolas said, grabbing her arm. “It may be best to skip that one for now.”

Tristan didn’t need to see it to know what the picture was of. It had to be what the camera recorded when it turned back on. It had to be of the girl in the white dress.

“In any case,” Nicolas said, releasing Arlene and settling back into his chair. “As you can see, we have a problem here. How exactly did the girl get there when no one else could move?”

Tristan had an idea, but he knew he couldn’t say anything. Besides, he couldn’t know for sure until he could confirm it. “Did you find her in another picture?” he asked. “One before everything stopped, I mean.”

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“In a matter of fact, we did,” Nicolas smiled. He grabbed the pictures from Arlene, causing her to cast a glare in his direction. “It wasn’t easy though, we had a lot of people looking through a lot of surveillance footage to find this.” He went through the pictures before finally picking one out. He reached over and handed it to Tristan.

His hands were trembling. This was a picture of the girl while she had been alive. It was in color, and he could clearly make out the details on her white dress. She had her hand up, brushing her bangs out of her face. And around her wrist was a bright red watch.

“One more question,” Arlene spoke up. “This has yet to be released publicly yet, but the victim’s name is Rose Aldrich. Is the name familiar to you?”

Rose. He mumbled the name to himself for a moment. It was an old fashioned name, but a pretty one.

“I don’t think I know anyone with that name.”

“And you are positive you have never met her before today?”

“I don’t think so,” Tristan picked up the picture he had set on his bed. “I… don’t get out much.” To be honest, he could probably count the number of people he came face to face with in a month on one hand. His landlord, the mailman, food delivery, and occasional workers from the convenience store across the street.

“The… girl from the convenience store,” he said.

“Good, I don’t like people who play dumb,” Nicolas smiled. “We already confirmed it with the manager there. According to their records, Ms. Aldrich delivered to your apartment at least once every two weeks.”

“I wasn’t playing dumb,” Tristan said. “The convenience store employees wear uniforms. She always wore a hat with her hair pulled back. That’s why I didn’t recognize her at first.”

“I understand,” Nicolas said. “This has been a traumatic experience for you.”

Once again, Tristan didn’t feel like Nicolas’s words were very genuine.

“How was Ms. Aldrich’s behavior when she came for deliveries?” Arlene reached into her pocket, pulling out a small notebook and pen.

“I don’t know,” Tristan said. “Friendly, I guess? It’s not like we were having conversations together, but she was always nice.”

“Putting that aside for now,” Nicolas reached forward, taking the picture from his hand. “She was missing from this spot when the cameras turned back on.”

“You couldn’t find anyone else?” Tristan asked. “No one else went missing from the cameras?”

“We haven’t yet,” He shook his head. “The investigation is just beginning, and there’s still a lot of footage to go through with a fine tooth comb.”

Tristan put his hand over his eyes. “I think I need some water,” he said. He walked to the sink and filled up a glass, drinking it in one gulp.

“Now, Tristan,” Nicolas began. “I can call you Tristan, right?”

“Yes,” he said. “That’s fine.”

“Tristan, you say you don’t get out much,” Nicolas cleared his throat. “What exactly were you doing downtown today?”

He had him there. There was no point in hiding the truth about it. He sat back down on the bed. “I was going to meet someone at a café.”

“Who? Which Café?” Arlene was writing in her notebook at a brisk pace.

“A friend I met online. We were going to meet at the Peace Café downtown. It was supposed to be our first time meeting in person.”

“Gender. Name.”

Tristan couldn't help laughing to himself. He had never met someone so to the point before. “Female,” He said. “Well, probably female. Her user name online is New Universe. I don’t know her real name.”

“You do not know her name?”

“Yes,” Tristan said. “We were going to share our real names when we met.”

“And you do not know her appearance?”

“That’s right.”

Arlene stopped writing and looked up at him with a blank expression. “How did you intend on meeting her without knowing what she looks like?”

Tristan’s skin crawled. What was with this woman?

“Now, now,” Nicolas said. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. I’m sure Tristan can explain.”

 “I guess I just figured we would know who was who when we saw each other.”

“There you go,” Nicolas crossed his arms and smiled. “Perfectly reasonable.”

Arlene looked over at him out of the corner of her eye.

Was this some kind of good-cop bad-cop routine? Honestly, he had no idea what was going through their minds. Did they suspect him after all?

“I really don’t know anything else,” he stood up. “I don’t have anything else to tell you.”

“Tristan,” Nicolas grinned up at him. “Tell me, what is it that you think stopped everything?”

“Huh? I have no idea,” Tristan’s heart was thumping. He could still feel the tingling feeling in his body from when he had activated the watch.

“Just take a guess.”

“I don’t know,” he was starting to get anxious and frustrated. “The government? A mad scientist’s invention going haywire? A beautiful girl from the future arriving in a time machine so that she can stop the zombie apocalypse?”

“I love it,” Nicolas slapped his knee. “Write that down, Arlene.”

“No,” Arlene said.

“What if I told you that the answer was much simpler than that?” Nicolas said, leaning forward. “Well, it’s complicated in its own way as well I suppose.”

“What are you talking about?” Tristan asked.

“People are born differently, wouldn’t you say?”

Yeah, like you, Tristan thought. He decided it was better to just keep his mouth shut.

“Some people have genes that will make them really tall, for example,” Nicolas got up and looked between the window blinds. “Maybe they have brown hair, or green eyes, or freckles. Right now, I can see hundreds of people, all of them different in their own way.”

“Get to the point,” Arlene said, putting her note pad away. “I do not want to spend all night in this pig sty.”

Tristan winced. He knew that inviting girls into his apartment was a bad idea.

“Well some people are born very differently,” Nicolas said, turning back. His smile had faded from his face. “Some people are born with abilities no one else has.”

The sudden change in Nicola’s expression took Tristan by surprise. “Abilities?”

“Arlene and I are part of a very special division. As such, we investigate when very particular things happen,” he said. “Things that could only be done by people with these… abilities.”

Tristan laughed nervously. “What, like magic or something?”

“Arlene,” Nicolas yelled.

With this, Arlene sprung out of her chair, grabbing Tristan by the arm and pinned him on the ground. “Try to move and I break your arm,” she said.

Tristan let out a scream, but he didn’t resist.

“How’s he feel?” Nicolas asked.

“He’s covered in magical energy,” Arlene said.

“This kid can’t seriously be a magician, can he?” Nicolas asked.

“No,” Arlene said. “But he was exposed to it. Much more so than the others that were frozen.”

“Please,” Tristan cried. “I haven’t done anything. I don’t know anything.”

“You think the girl was a Type-2 then?” Nicolas asked.

“Possibly,” Arlene said. “Although she didn’t show up in the registry.”

Suddenly, Tristan’s phone buzzed loudly. Nicolas reached into his pocket and pulled it out. “Looks like we have a message from our mystery girl.”

Tristan’s heart jumped. “New Universe? She’s alive?”

“Sorry my phone died,” Nicolas read the message aloud, making sure to pitch up his voice. “Can you believe what happened?”

“Are you suspicious of her?” Arlene asked.

“A little,” Nicolas said. “Could be a magician on magician murder, as rare as they are.”

“It was not a magician,” Arlene responded. “No magic like this exists.”

“Well then how did time stop and why is their magical energy everywhere?” Nicolas said. “Clearly, there’s magic that the families haven’t told us about. You think they don’t have secrets?”

“This is not an issue of secrets,” Arlene said. “Magic simply does not work this way. It’s impossible. There is nothing that you could possibly pull out from the gate that would stop time.”

This had to be an April Fools prank. Maybe they had been using his camera to spy on him. The people outside were actors, stopping when he pressed the button. Any second now, a camera crew would come in and they would all have a good laugh. That had to be it. It had to be a joke.

“Alright,” Nicolas pat him on the back. “Tristan can help us clear this up.”

Arlene released his arm. He let himself lie on the floor in a pile of wrappers.

“Sorry about that, Tristan,” he said. “We just had to make sure that you couldn’t use your hands until we were sure. Arlene went a little overboard.”

“I did what was necessary,” Arlene said. “If he had been a magician, you could be dead right now.”

“I told you,” Tristan said. “I don’t have any idea what the two of you are talking about.”

“Please message Miss Universe back for us,” Nicolas said. “My gut’s telling me that there’s something more going on here than meets the eye. I’d like you to meet with her.” He put the phone into Tristan’s hand.

Tristan glared at the two of them, holding his arm. He wasn’t exactly sure what they meant by ‘magic’, but it was clear that they had no idea about the watch. This meant that Rose’s body hadn’t had the watch on it. In other words, the watch had been taken from her after her murder.

“Tristan, you’ll be helping us in our investigation,” Nicolas grinned. “Please smile. I don’t need another person like Arlene around bringing the mood down. Unless you’d rather be arrested. We can do it that way too.”

As if he had a choice.

“You’re working with the FBI now,” Nicolas said. “I’m expecting great things from you.”

“Are you serious? I’m a suspect, aren’t I?”

“Yes,” Nicolas smiled. “You are. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have you participate in the investigation.”

“You’ll forgive me if I say that this is a little insane,” Tristan said.

“Well I do things a little differently. We aren’t tied down by the same rules most detectives are,” Nicolas said. “I still expect you to be professional though, of course.”

Professional? She almost broke his arm.

“Remember this, being professional means everything you hear from us stays a secret,” Nicolas said in a friendly tone. “It also means you don’t keep secrets from me. If you do, you will regret it.”

If this was a joke, it wasn’t funny.