On a swing, in a park opposite his new school, Dorian thought.

His thoughts did not come quickly, nor did they reach any particular point, as they meandered from one place, to an idea, to a memory, and then nothing at all.

Only to do so again, constantly following a disjointed yet linear pattern, chaotic, and yet in its own way, ordered.

He found that reaching this mental state had started to become far easier, the more he used his ability.

Something about the knowledge that everything and everyone had stopped was, in a way, moving. As though the perfect silence had its own hypnotic pattern, that caressed his mind as he wondered, pushing it to be more…

Carefree?

No.

More calm.

Ever since the events of his last school, his ability had started to become easier to use. No more hiccups or delayed activation, all he had to do was will it, and everything stopped.

Everything but him.

’Why has it become so much easier?’

Maybe it had nothing to do with his power at all, instead he himself had just become less afraid of it, less hesitant to use it.

‘Sit here and watch the world stop all around you, and fully understand that you’ve completely and absolutely become the only thing capable of moving, of existing, outside the space it was in before you stopped time, and try not to grow a subconscious fear of your power and yourself. It’s harder than you’d think.’

Well, he’d at least always assumed everything stopped. Nothing, not the wind, or other people- not even the sun moved, he’d been sitting here four hours just thinking and it hasn't budged a bit, which was… frightening.

It's not like this was the first time Dorian thought about this, after all, when you had all the time in the world to think, thoughts started to become somewhat repetitive.

Which begs the question, why didn’t he feel so afraid of this admittedly terrifying power anymore, and why did it come so easily to him now, never a strain like how it was when he first developed it?

‘I guess existential dread just doesn’t have anything on the kind of dread you feel when you kill someone, and feel nothing.’

Frowning at the morbid thought, Dorian tried to move his mind away from those dark places, futile as that was.

If there was one trick he never managed to learn even after watching all those videos on meditation, it was how to cut off trains of thoughts he’d really rather not have. Mostly those videos directed you to let those thoughts flow through you, or something along those lines, not exactly what he wanted to do.

Though before he actively started to meditate, Dorian spent frozen time far too restless, constantly moving from one place to another, slowly getting bored out of his mind, until he decided to turn his ability off.

‘But at least then, I didn't spend all this time calmly thinking about how horrifying my power possibly was, and how much of a monster I definitely was.’

’I don’t remember thinking to myself this much either… if this is a precursor to talking to myself, that's probably not good.’

Dorrian could go on for hours like this, thinking thoughts, not chasing after them, but rather letting them come as they will, the bad and the good, taking in everything they had to say as they passed by.

It was… strange, he started this combination of meditation and introspection before the incident, so it definitely wasn't what allowed him to use his ability more fluidly. And yet, not only had his control over his power increased by leaps and bounds but that restlessness he faced, and the boredom that eventually seemed to always take hold of him after enough frozen time, seemed to become less of a problem, day by day.

Well, while it didn’t help with not thinking about that day completely, at the very least, the meditation helped with not repeating those events over and over… and helped him stay away from… her.. face…

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Dorian got up, meditation was fun and all, but after examining his new home, it was about time he checked out the school, in normal time, not frozen. Some teenagers might have taken years to get used to a town their family had just moved to, but Dorian's ability was more than convenient for those types of time sinks. He probably knew this place better than most of the 16-year-olds in his class, seeing that he doubted their parents let them stay out and look at every dingy alley or road.

Walking forwards, Dorian's head snapped to the left, as he saw something in the corner of his eye flash by him. Looking around Dorian saw nothing, aside from the few frozen people sitting around in the small park, all perfectly still as though they were images rather than actual people.

Back before he started practising meditation he used to hallucinate one thing or another every once and a while, but he hadn't seen something this clear for… well, since ever really, it really seemed as though some type of thing or person was-

“I need to go make some friends, or read a book, or something. All this alone time with nothing but my thoughts is going to be the end of me if I don't do something to stop this paranoia.” Dorian said lamely, massaging his face with his palms as he started walking towards the school.

It really was probably just a trick of the frozen light, besides he had a bigger thing to worry about.

High school.

Walking into the bathroom, then into one of the stalls, Dorian unpaused time. This was usually a relatively decent way to return back to normal time, with little to no drawbacks. Doing it outside had the chance of some random bystander seeing, and anywhere else in the new private school he’d be going to from now on had cameras everywhere, so the bathroom was his only safe option.

Walking outside, Dorian listened to how the world seemed so much louder compared to the silent place it had just been. Not just the teenagers coming in and out of various rooms, making all their usual assorted noises, but the sounds of birds outside, and the constant traffic on the road besides the school. Everything seemed so much more alive in normal time, so much so it was as though frozen time was a different world entirely.

Head in the clouds, Dorian almost crashed into one of the teachers walking past him as he walked.

“Watch where you're walking, young man, that means eyes looking forward, not up” An irritated teacher grumbled as he walked by, Dorian recognized him from his interview with the principal before his admittance to this place. It was the deputy head, and English teacher, Mr Rolands.

“Sorry sir” Dorian mumbled, even though by then he was a solid 5 or 6 steps passed him, clearly not expecting nor wanting a reply.

It was hard, going from living in a world all of your own where you could do whatever, to a place where even a moment's distraction got you lectured by some teacher. Brushing the experience off, Dorian continued walking toward his class, more cognitive of his surroundings, eventually finding it and walking inside.

Sitting down on a chair near the front, he noticed he was one of the first people here, aside from the teacher herself, and a girl with long raven black hair, with her head on the desk in front of her in a sleep-like position.

Walking up to him, and speaking relatively quietly, the young blond-headed homeroom teacher started speaking.

“Dorian right? Hi, I'm Miss Catherine, and you’d be our new student, yes? The principal told me your family moved due to some traumatic experiences at your old school, so if you ever need someone to talk to, I'm always here to help, or at least listen to anything you need to say.”

Dorian blinked, then said, “Yes, hi I’m Dorian, and thanks, Miss, I'll be sure to take you up on the offer… if I ever need to.” Finishing with an unsure lilt to his voice. Not used to such a seemingly kind authority figure, Dorian was slightly off put. It's not like the teachers he’d had before were monsters or anything, just… Well, they seemed to care far less about their students.

The words the teacher said did seem routine, almost perfunctory, but he appreciated them nonetheless. Honestly, he was worried his class teacher would be another old, jaded person, upset that their class structure was changing halfway through the year. Instead, she was a pretty, nice teacher, who clearly cared for her charges.

“Good, now, our other new student is right over there, I'm not sure if you knew, but the both of you start today. It was quite a surprise seeing that usually students aren't taken in after the first couple of weeks, but I guess you’re both special cases..” she trailed off as she gave a disapproving stare to the now clearly snoring girl sitting at her desk.

“Well, let's wait for everyone to get here, then I'll introduce the both of you to the class,” Miss Catherine said as she walked back to her desk, leaving Dorian to sit while the class filled out.

Soon enough the bell rang, and the new girl's head shot upwards, making a couple of the other students laugh. Miss Catherine, seeing this, moved towards the whiteboard and began the class.

“Hello everyone, glad to see you all today, but as you can see there are some new faces in our class today, Dorian Torres, and Emi Ward, could you please come up.” The teacher said, gesturing for both of the students to get up and walk to the front of the class.

Reluctantly Dorian, and even more so Emi, got up and arranged themselves in front of the entire class, looking into the group of students.

“Please introduce yourselves.” Miss Catherine said, and so they did.

“Hi everyone, Im Dorian, uhhh, glad to be here.” Dorian spat out quickly, along with an awkward smile.

"I'm Emi," Emi said.

Standing by his side now, Dorian could get a decent grasp on Emi’s face, pale and striking, locks of hair as black as ink falling down like water across her face, accentuating her cloudy blue eyes- she was beautiful.

Turning her stunning eyes on him, she gave a brief glare, then walked past him towards her seat, and a strange feeling of deja vu came across Dorian as her black hair flashed by him.

‘For whatever reason, I feel as though this is going to be an entirely too long year…'