NATALIA'S P.O.V.

Date - March 25th
Time - 11:55
Location - Unknown Farm

I had never felt this happy for a long time.

It's really happening, it's all happening.

He started pointing off to a car inside the barn when a thought occurred in my head: How did he find me?

"How did you find me?" I asked, and all of a sudden every muscle in his body twitched.

A sunken feeling dug inside of me. Something's wrong.

He turned around, gave me a serious face, and said, "I could tell you the truth right? Because the truth can be heavy, but it's the truth."

I gulped and bit down my lip to prevent me from sobbing once more. Something was definitely not right.

He pointed at the stray road, where the wreckage of the two vehicles and the bodies of the dead lie helplessly on the ground. "You've read about the accident. I couldn't approach you before, because I didn't know where you were among the traffic, so I got the boy, Cole Devin, to find you. I needed him to find you quickly, so I made him some consequences. If the girl he chooses is wrong, she dies. If he fails to find you and retrieve you, he dies. He failed, but I found you, so that's all that matters now."

I felt my eyes widen and my fingertips grow cold. I was right all along, he killed all those people.

He searched my face, and I quickly nodded. "Wow," was all I could say without showing him my real feelings.

"I know," he said, before turning around and walked towards the car, blabbering about on the destinations that we could go to.

I need to get out, I thought frantically, searching for an idea. He's not sane.

"Come on Nat!" he called out for me. I unfroze and jogged towards him, feeling so fearful and wide-eyed.

He opened the car door for me, and I slipped inside.

He went to the other side and opened his door, putting the Time Desistor on the dashboard before slipping himself in. He retrieved the small device kindly, as if it was a precious stone, and placed it on the compartment place that was covered in velvet.

He closed the compartment door and slid the seat belt into the buckle, giving me a glance before reaching out to put the ignition key into its hole.

"Say, can I have a look at that Time device thingy?" I asked perkily, earning an odd look from him.

"Why?" he asked, looking slightly guarded.

"Oh, come on!" I played with him, trying to sound casual. "I want to see the thing that helped us get to spend time together. Please, dad?"

Being called dad must have melted his icy heart a bit. He nodded and opened the compartment door, took out the device gingerly and placed it in my cupped hands.

It wasn't that heavy, the device, nor was it light. It was sharp, you can say, with all the weird protruding bolts and screws surrounding the whole body, the antennas poking out like horns in a goat. I saw the timer counting down slowly, but it all still seemed so far away. There were a few buttons, all in which had a different symbol or shape etched on it.

"It's called a Time Desistor, mind you," he said, before pointing into a button just beside the ticking timer. "That's the start button, which means at any command it is given, it will start doing it."

He pointed to the next, a smooth, clean, arrowed button facing both ways. "Those are the time settings. Up to add, down to decrease."

He pointed at the gold button, engraved with a sort of hexagon. "That button is for if you want things to be back to normal."

He then placed his cold, rough hand on mines, and gave me a small smile. "Simple, ain't it?"

Fake

Liar

Bastard

Those words rang in my head so loudly that I was afraid that he would hear them, but I just gave him a small smile and nodded.

I needed to figure out a way to set this thing right. I needed to stop this.

"How are we the only ones moving?" I asked sweetly.

"Oh, that's simple," he said, before pointing to a coppery brown button with a circle engraving pressed in the center, looking very much polished than the rest. "You see, the Time Desistor doesn't exactly stop time, it only slows down other people's time and only keeps certain people in the normal pace. If I press this button, then all who I wish to be normal (within a few meter's range) will be so. The rest will move like they are in sluggish waters."

I gave him a wide-eyed stare. So, there was no such thing as time stopping, there was only time alteration.

I gave him a quick smile and caressed the device gently. "That sounds kind of cool actually."

"Yea? It took me almost five months to get that out of that cursed place. You don't want to know the hell I had to go through to get out of there, bombs and soldiers and all of that," he blabbered on, finally getting more comfortable with me, but still eyeing the device in my hands.

He lend out his hand with the palm facing up, "Come on now, give it back so we can get going."

I gulped. He had that greedy-eyed stare in his eyes, those hungry gazes that told me that all he cared was that small device in my clutches.

I needed to act quick.

"Can't I hold it while you drive? I promise I won't drop it. I'm not a child anymore you know, I'm a respectable twenty," I complained, letting some of my annoyance channel out.

His gaze turned hard. "I know you are twenty, but that device is something that should not be tossed around by the traffic, so hand it to me now Natalia."

I gave him a steely look that was ultimately replaced by a pitiful one, "I'm sorry."

I saw his eyes widen as I hit the golden button hard, letting time around me move back to its normal pace. The heat settled around me, so did the air and the noise, but I wasn't finished yet.

His strong arm wrestled for my hand, but I was quick enough to slip out of the car while having my finger on one particular button.

I waited for him to come closer, listening as the sound of the car door slammed out violently, and the sound of his raging roars echo through the air.

I looked at the screen on the device, counting up to an impossible number, and yet my finger never wavered from the button.

"NATALIA FREIGHTWOOD!" he bellowed loudly, his face a wash of fuming red, his teeth bared into a snarl.

I heard the device beep and saw that the number stopped increasing, and knew that it was time.

I maneuvered my finger to the next button, the coppery button with the circle engraving, and stared at him, who stopped in his tracks.

One name echoed in my head as I pressed the button:

Griffin Freightwood

I reached with another finger the button that sat next to the screen. He moved once more, bellowed so loud and ran so quickly that it was a shock for me when he had suddenly halted. My finger had pressed the button.

I took a deep breath, stared at the frozen figure in front of me, and looked down on the screen.

876,000 hours

100 years

I looked back up again, stared at the man who had offered me something that I had always wanted, offered me the happiness that I lacked, and looked away.

"Griffin Freightwood is dead," I whispered slowly as I took more deep breaths.

My gaze went down to the device, still nestled in my hands, and I threw it towards the barn door, which broke almost immediately.

I gave him one last glance before I walked out of the barn, bolting the door shut behind me.

I felt a deep loss inside of me, as if the happiness I once wanted was and will never become true. But as I walked down the noisy, busy highway of the I-10, I wondered,

What will happen in 100 years?

THE END