Stopping the World

When I woke up next to Nick the next ‘day’, I could tell that something was off. But, once I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, I wasn’t sure what.

I say ‘day’ because technically it was still night. Seeing as the earth was still frozen, and considering where we were, it was naturally. The world doesn’t rotate when you stop it, naturally, since everything else is stopped, so that was normal and I knew that wasn’t it. But still, something was off.

“Nick,” I said, shaking him awake. It took him a moment before he opened his eyes and looked at me.

“What? Is something wrong?” he asked, sitting up; nearly conking heads with me in the process.

“No, nothing’s wrong,” I said hesitantly, judging whether or not I should tell him that I thought something was up. I still wasn’t sure what was, exactly, so in that moment I chose not to. “Just... well, what do you want to do today?”

“We’re going back to The Great Wall, aren’t we?” he questioned, furrowing his eyebrows. “Since we only got, an hour through it yesterday.”

“Right,” I said, “well, let’s get ready and go then.” I then hurriedly jumped off the bed and bolted out of the room so that I could get to the bathroom before Nick could. I laughed as I heard him say something in complaint behind the closed door.

>>------------------------------------------->>

We walked much more of The Great Wall in comparison to what we walked yesterday. But being the antsy person that I am, I got tired of it after a couple of hours. And I couldn’t help but notice as we walked, that something was off here as well like it had been at home. I still didn’t say anything to Nick, though.

“You know what I’ve always wanted to try?” I questioned to Nick, as we slowed our steps. He looked at me to show that I could continue. “Walking on water.”

“Can you do that?” he asked, looking at me skeptically. I shrugged.

“Not in real life, no... but since time’s frozen now, why not? Everything else is frozen, so... why not water?” I said.

“But things unfreeze once you touch them...” Nick trailed off. Again, I shrugged.

“Oh well. The worst that could happen is that I’d fall in,” I pointed out, before bringing out the earth. “So... let’s see... I’ve always wanted to see the Bering Sea.”

“You do realize that that’s an actual sea, right? Not a lake,” he said. I waited to see what his point was. “You’re going to, if you can, walk all that way across it? Seriously?”

“Well, maybe not all the way,” I said. “But that’s just to test it. C’mon. We’ll not only see if we can walk on water, but we’ll see a famous sea. Aren’t you tempted?”

“Tempted, maybe. But if it doesn’t work out and you end up falling in? Not so much,” he said, sounding concerned.

“Aw, well, I appreciate that you care about me, but I’m still trying it,” I said. “But hey, you can just, stay here if you want to. Finish walking The Great Wall... if you can. How long does it take to walk the entire thing again?” Nick rolled his eyes, not agreeing with him staying behind.

“I’m going with you,” he said. “So... let’s go.”

“Fine, fine. Now you’re being the pushy one,” I said, as I narrowed it down on the earth. “Is it just me or is this thing... resisting me even more than yesterday?” I had to push down on the location quite forcefully as I said this. But nevertheless, it took us to the location.

“The world’s frozen, so maybe it can’t be as accurate or as fast as it usually is,” Nick pointed out. I nodded, assuming he was correct. “So... are you going to try it?” We looked out at the barren water.

“Yeah, hold this,” I said, handing him the bag after sticking the earth inside. I hesitated as I put my left foot toward the water. Once I had it above it, I put it down.

The water was like a glass floor under my foot.

“Well?” Nick said, as I cautiously put my other foot on it as well. I smiled before looking back at him.

“What do you mean, ‘well’? It seems to be working, no?” I said, as I stepped forward. I didn’t sink; the water felt solid beneath my feet. I swished my foot across it to still see it move. Kind of like the way it did when Jim Carrey walked across the water in ‘Bruce Almighty’. “C’mon, let’s walk.” Nick was cautious before joining me, but he finally did.

“Look, water angel,” I said, as I spontaneously laid on the water, and started flapping my arms up and down like you would do to make a snow angel. Nick laughed.

“Isn’t that getting you wet?” he asked me, and I then wondered the same thing. I stood up, though, and was completely dry.

“Hm... nope, I don’t know why, though,” I said, as I turned in a circle trying to look at my back, but failing. “Maybe because it’s frozen, still? I’m not sure.”

“There’s a lot of things confusing about this time freezing thing,” Nick pointed out.

“Yeah...” I trailed off, as I looked out ahead of us. “Wait a minute... what is that? Is that a boat?”

“Where?” he asked, looking where I was. “Oh, yeah, I guess it is.”

“But why is it moving?” I asked. “It shouldn’t be moving, Nick, unless one of us touched it, which we didn’t.”

“It’s not moving,” Nick contradicted. “It’s just kind of... rocking. I’m sure it’s staying where it was frozen.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “If so, why are we just now seeing it? Did you see it before?”

“I wasn’t really paying attention,” he commented. I slowly shook my head.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said, taking the bag from him, to get the earth out again.

“Why? Where are we going?”

“Anywhere but here,” I said, touching a random spot after grabbing his arm.

At first I didn’t know where we were, all that I noticed was that it was pouring. And that it was in the middle of nowhere, just some road. I then noticed we were back in US; Seattle, Washington to be exact. I looked to the left and spotted a city some miles away, but was still visible from where we were standing, since it was all lit up.

I touched a rain drop, and it splattered on my hand. But like the sea water, it just rolled off of my hand and kept me dry. I touched a few other frozen ones and they did the same.

But then, in the next instant, as if we were in a movie, everything unfroze. And the rain started to drench us.

And I had no idea why.