I looked around my bedroom as I lay there, now we get to the good part.

I picked up a book off the floor and threw it in the air, the moment I let go of it I thought really hard to make it stop. It didn’t stop.

Alright, second try, this time I thought extra hard. Nope, it just fell down again.

Hold on, if I wanted to use my power, I needed to know what it was, so currently I was pretty sure I had teleport. The guy told me he gave me two powers, well I bargained for two anyway, but what did the second one do? Well, it stopped a duck midair but I didn’t actually see an object levitating, but what about clothes then? I didn’t see enough to make any conclusions.

Alright what if I tried to make the world stop as a whole? Or maybe it’s just a certain area? Like a force field? Eh, it could be that the force field is just so big it encompassed the entire school. But that would raise the question of what happened to the clocks and digital devices? Are they all a minute late? Again, not enough data.

Let’s just try to concentrate on the thought of stop itself, that seemed to be the key word to the whole thing, perhaps I have to call out to evoke my powers. But I didn’t do that in class, argh whatever just throw the book up! I told myself.

I threw it up and thought stop in big capital letters. The book came back down.

God this was getting annoying, I picked it up again and this time I just thought how much I wanted the book to stop moving. Still nothing.

With an agitated sigh I lay back down on the bed, did I really have two powers? Yes of course I did, I discussed it with the guy and I’m pretty sure he chose Time manipulation but argh! Teleport and Time Manipulation practically canceled each other out. If you freeze time and walk somewhere it would still look like you’re teleporting to anyone else, but with more effort since you actually had to walk the distance.

Wait that’s it! I was try to make the book stop moving, not to stop ‘aging’.

I threw the book again and this time I focused on wanting to make it stop. Stop going on with life, stop trying to exist, stop working as a book to feed his family of little books, I basically tried to give it an existential crisis, it responded by hitting me on the head.

Damn. But I think I was on the right track.

What did I do before? Wait, I wanted that moment before I had to give Miss Pond my homework to last forever, let’s try that. So I threw the book up and thought to myself ‘Gee, I really wish this moment would last forever.’

It worked, surprisingly.

The History of the World: Grade 11 Edition floated there, right above my head completely still with its pages slightly parted, allowing me to even read a paragraph about the Salvador’s. Something about being a warmongering nation that built an empire by conquering everyone else before being conquered and turning into someone else’s empire.

But wait, that’s not the point, I could make a book fly in mid-air, which was pretty cool!

I moved to grab the book and bring it closer to myself, I could move it and stuff but when I let go it still stayed in the air, as if I was in space.

What about my sheet? I wondered. Getting up I dragged my sheets off my bed before letting go, they hung there just above the ground like some misshapen ghost. Yeah I was going to have fun with this.

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I punched the sheet and to my surprise it left a fist shaped mark there. Did that mean that the force I punched it with would activate when started time again? Let’s check. So this time I thought ‘I’d really like time to resume.’ And ta-da! The book and sheet both fell on the ground. It was pretty disappointing to see my punch not doing anything with the sheet but I tried again with the book, I punched real hard only to see it sail until it lost contact with my hand, huh. I restarted time again to see the book fell to the ground, disappointing but you can’t have everything.

Alright enough testing, let’s do some brainstorming. What could I do with this?”

Do my homework, obviously, cheat on tests, steal back my money, grope Sophia… I shuddered at that, she wouldn’t know right? It wasn’t really illegal if only I knew about it… Alright I won’t do that.

Moving on, I could beat up thugs and be a super hero, or alternatively I could rob a bank. Well I could technically say I was stealing from the rich if I did that, maybe? But what would I spend the money on? And how would I spend it without people realizing I was the one who stole it? There was a definite way to get money with this power, I just needed to do my research.

On a brighter note I could probably travel anywhere in the world, hopefully. I could visit tourist attractions, get free holidays, break in to high security compounds, yeah okay there was something definitely wrong with me.

But first I needed to check that I could travel anywhere in the world, I have to imagine the place so in theory I could go anywhere I have seen a picture of, right? I jumped on my computer and searched for a really famous tourist attraction, I found a suitable one that looked like it was close. The Churgon Formation, located bit south from where I live, in the small town of Patterbrook, which is in the Kingdom of Gordon. The Churgon Formation was a conglomeration of mountains that was notable for the strange way the mountains seem to have almost vertically risen from the ground, like a group of spikes growing together to create a single jagged teeth, they looked really cool.

I memorized one of the pictures on the page and imagined myself standing right where the photo was taken. I didn’t even have to close my eyes this time as the view around me changed almost imperceptibly fast, making me miss it if I weren’t paying attention. The sky was darkening and the trees seemed to have been a bit different but it worked, I was in the middle of a clearing within a really dark and scary forest, which I really didn’t want to be in right now.

“Time to go back.” I mumbled, trying to imagine my room again.

It worked. I was right back in my bedroom, alrighty then. Now, next test. Can I use electronic devices while stopping time? I moved the mouse around a bit but the screen didn’t register the movement, I took my phone out but it didn’t turn on when I pressed the home button. That answers that then.

I leaned back in my chair as I played with a pen in the air. The big thing was, what do I do now? How do I use my newfound powers? Caution will be the number one priority, I didn’t want to end up as a lab rat for the government or some organization, but what were my goals? A heavy question for a teenager to answer.

Well, there have been some new games that that came out recently which I haven’t been able to play. I glanced at my computer, but that was because my rig couldn’t run it. Okay, first stop is getting better equipment, wait what if my mom noticed? I frowned at that, I could use the same case maybe, but it wasn’t custom built so I would have to tear out the old hardware, and moving all my stuff from one to the other would be such a hassle. It would be simpler to just get a completely new pc then keep the old one… Oh fine I’ll just tell my mom I got a job or something.

And with that I delved in to the world of computer parts, browsing the most expensive ones without a care I the world, needless to say it felt good. I was humming when I realized I had a slight problem, how was I going to get the parts, was I going to steal someone’s credit card? No they’ll track that. Cash? Can’t use that to pay online. It looked like I’d have to steal the parts, okay but where were the parts kept? Warehouses, probably. But where were the warehouses? I don’t know search it up.

The internet really was useful when it came to finding things out, apparently the official name for warehouses was ‘Distribution Centers’. They would store goods on a larger scale which would eventually go to retailers, they could be located anywhere within a city but were most likely next to ports, airports, railways and roads. I couldn’t really find out anything else after five minutes of browsing the web but I figured that would be enough for now.

I found Patterbrook’s industrial park, it wasn’t anything fancy and was located near the railway station. But I figured that would be a good place to start searching. So I grabbed a hoodie off the floor, looked at a picture of the place, and jumped.