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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/nubats on 2024-09-06 11:53:18+00:00.


Maybe I should describe what I mean by that before everything else causes unnecessary confusion. It never started. It was just there from the beginning. It’s always been normal for me because until you leave the age of naivety behind, most things feel like a given. For the most part, my perception of time is probably similar to that of the people around me, but every now and then it gets a little confused. It can be slower or faster, almost standing still or too fast to process.

In the past, especially during school, these, let’s call them events, were a plague. Because a little too often I skipped several weeks without really realizing what had happened during them, and so I had to repeat one or two exams involuntarily. But it often went the other way as well. As clichéd as that may sound, the endless math lessons often really dragged on for an eternity. I would have to estimate that the longest of them would have taken a whole “real” day. But something that has never happened before is happening right now while my fingers are drumming on the small cell phone keypad.

Time stands completely still. Just as I walked through the narrow doors of the subway and was about to make my way home, everything froze. Without warning. The lights above me stopped flickering, the people around me froze from one second to the next. But I didn’t. Not only is everything completely frozen, but the entire environment is also impossibly quiet. No echo of the stressed footsteps, no announcements over the trains, not even the draft of air that usually freezes my neck moves through the many corridors and tunnels.

Normally, the sudden changes in perception don’t really bother me and the people around me have never noticed either. Just because time passes differently for me doesn’t mean that I’m no longer subject to the laws of physics. My body always moves according to the circumstances. If time slows down for me, I move and speak more slowly and vice versa; the only thing that is detached is my mind, which is why my current situation seems so strange to me. I move and think at my usual speeds, even though according to my usual logic, I should be frozen as well but able to think.

At first, I thought everything was just one of my normal events; it didn’t feel that different in the beginning. Of course, it annoyed me to a certain extent, after all, I have no control over the length and extent of my distorted understanding of time. As far as I know, this can either stop before I type the next sentence or continue like this for the rest of my life. As you can testify here, the former unfortunately did not happen.

For the first few minutes, I wandered around randomly and even enjoyed it a little. People look more interesting when they stand still and as my steps carried me through the great hall, I really became aware of their facial expressions. Most of them blank until you look more closely. A woman who was inspecting the timetable had small tears in her eyes, probably from overexertion or something that I couldn’t decipher. A young man in baggy clothes and huge headphones over his close-cropped hair wore a small smile as he stood on the stairs. With every face and posture that I looked at more closely, I noticed how little attention one normally pays to their surroundings.

I also noticed that I was probably completely excluded from temporary petrification, as my stomach began to growl loudly after my short inspection walk, but fortunately there were a few supermarkets nearby. This was where my first problem would arise. The automatic doors were closed and since the sensors and electric door openers also seemed to be subject to the state of time around me, I had no choice but to keep looking for supermarkets until I found one with open doors because I couldn’t go home.

My little “command center”, as I like to call the apartment, is still seven train stations away. So, I started my foray into supermarkets when I heard a noise behind me, or at least I think I heard something. At that point, the only sound waves that reached my ears were the rubbing of my clothes, my breathing and the echo of my shoes ramming their heels into the ground with every step. But what I heard was none of that. It sounded more like a deep piano note played by an old, detuned instrument that was carried through several train station alleys, bouncing off the stone walls again and again until the sound waves hit me. I dismissed it as my imagination and immediately tried to forget it. My hunger was in charge for the time being, demanding food and telling me to worry less and force more calories down my throat.

My foray picked up speed again and after too many steps and a walk through half the station area, my eyes fell on an open door to a bakery. I entered with a smile on my face; the smell of pastries and sweet goods immediately made my stomach rumble. Out of habit, I stood behind the short line of frozen people for a moment until I realized that I would probably rot before they could place their order. I realized that paying now was really just optional as I walked around the counter and reached for the doughnuts myself, since the seller was just as approachable as I usually am early in the morning. No one would even notice that I had been here; I was basically free to do whatever I wanted. But reason trumped my malice and I put the exact amount on the glass counter. As the coins left my fingers, they immediately froze in the air below. Surprised, I tried to drop the doughnut I had just bought, and it too stayed where it was. I unwrapped the paper from the doughnut and raised it to my mouth, letting it go immediately, watching it get stuck in the void. Without touching it any further, I ate it whole while it hovered helplessly in front of my mouth. I walked out of the store laughing loudly, amused by the absurdity of the situation, or at least I wanted to.

My chest rose and fell, but no sounds came out of my throat. Confused, I tried again, this time urgently forcing laughter, but again no sound came out. That had never happened in any of my prior phases of warped perception, but I had never eaten hands-free before either. I tried to speak, whisper and shout, but nothing audibly came out of my mouth. The more often I tried, the stranger and more insecure I felt with each attempt. As if I were breaking a rule. My throat began to cramp; it filled with mucus and my vocal cords refused to vibrate any further. Slowly, the slight insecurity turned into something else. Even though I didn’t want to admit it to myself, fear rose within me. How could it be that I could hear my footsteps, my breathing and my clothes but not my own voice?

I wanted to try screaming again but stopped myself. I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t, but I wouldn’t want to find out. Because there was actually a sound. Not caused by me but by something behind me. A long, impossibly deep “NOOOOOOOOOOO” rang out like an ice storm through my ear canal and crept into the last fiber of my consciousness, erasing everything and leaving nothing but sheer panic. My blood froze immediately, and I did as well. It didn’t sound like a human sound, nor like wind or any kind of machinery. It sounded like something indescribable was right behind me; I could almost feel a breath in my ear as it spoke into it; the sound seemed so close. I can’t describe it any better now, only the unbelievably cold feeling that shot down my back immediately afterwards. Pure misery spread through my whole body, flowing into every last cell, every last bit of existence that I could feel of myself. Fear is miles away from what I felt running through my head when the noise disappeared again. Unfortunately, it didn’t take the feeling with it.

Slowly and with more caution than I would normally have ever been able to lay down, I turned around. A few meters behind me stood only a man, frozen in time. He must have been about eighty; his long gray hair fell down his shoulders like a river of oil, flowing seamlessly into his beard. His dirty clothes hung in stiff shreds to the floor as he was stretched out across the pavement trying to grab something that was no longer there. I looked into his eyes, and they were as calm as the rest of his body. Eventually I gathered up all the courage I had left and dared to breathe a sigh of relief. Maybe I had just imagined it all. Maybe my head was just going a bit crazy because the whole situation was so unfamiliar. Yes, exactly; that had to be it. I was just a bit paranoid due to the situation and one or two auditory illusions could probably just be a byproduct. I’ve been through enough unfamiliar experiences, and this is just one of them. This thought helped me calm down a bit, but only until I looked at the green eyes again, streaked with cataracts and burst capillaries. Because now they were looking back, staring straight into what felt like my soul.

All the panic that had built up at that moment shot into my legs, screaming at them to give it everything they had. And that’s exactly what they did. I’ve never run so fast before, and I didn’t even know what I was running from or why. I ran until my lungs burned and my legs gave way. Every now and then I risked a few glances over my shoulder, but no one was following me.

I don’t think I’m alone here, and I don’t believe this is just a false perception of time. I may be the only one who can move, but if whatever just happen…


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