Broken Reality

I guess I should start at the beginning. My name is Farrah. My math teacher, Mrs. Bennett, was blabbing on and on about the angle of depression and lighthouses and whatnot. I have no clue what she was talking about and I’m not trying to remember.

What I am trying to remember is what exactly happened afterwards. From my memory, I saw Bitsy Hadley’s hand shoot from the crowd of heads and shuffling feet to answer the question. Then, she stopped.

Matter of a fact, everybody stopped. Heads stopped humming, hair stopped brushing, feet stopped tapping. At the sudden silence, my head perked up and my mouth popped open. Payton, Camden, even ADHD Arlo sat completely still. Was this a prank?

I stood waiting for Mrs. Bennett to reprimand me and tell me to sit back down.

The silence, however, wasn't broken by a scolding voice. It was a thick, suffocating blanket that had fallen over the entire classroom. My eyes darted around. Bitsy’s hand, frozen mid-air, was a porcelain statue. The tip of a pencil, about to fall from Arlo’s fingers, hung suspended. Even the dust motes dancing in the single sunbeam that sliced through the window seemed to be caught in an invisible net.

Panic, cold and sharp, began to prickle at my skin. This wasn't a prank. Pranks involved movement, laughter, someone jumping out from behind a desk. This was… wrong. Utterly, terrifyingly wrong.

I pushed myself up from my seat, my own legs feeling strangely heavy, like I was wading through molasses. I took a tentative step, then another. The floorboards creaked under my weight, the sound unnaturally loud in the absolute stillness. My breath hitched. How could they not hear it? How could they not react?

I reached out and lightly touched Bitsy’s outstretched arm. Her skin was cool, smooth, and utterly unyielding. It felt like touching marble. I pulled my hand back, a shiver tracing its way down my spine.

"Hello?" I whispered, my voice trembling. It echoed in the void. "Is anyone there?"

No response. Just the silent, unblinking faces of my classmates, their expressions locked in a moment of mundane classroom boredom. Mrs. Bennett’s mouth was slightly ajar, as if she were about to utter the next word in her lecture, but the sound never came. A fly, which had been buzzing annoyingly near the whiteboard, was simply… there. Hanging in the air.

I walked around my desk, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. I could see my own shadow stretching out in the sunlight, the only thing moving in this frozen tableau. It felt like I had stepped into a photograph, a photograph I was desperately trying to escape.

Was I dreaming? I pinched my arm, hard. A sharp sting, but no change. I was awake. And alone.

I made my way to the classroom door, my hand reaching for the doorknob. Cold, solid metal. I turned it. The lock clicked, a surprisingly loud sound. I pulled the door open, expecting to see the bustling hallway, students milling about, lockers slamming.

Instead, I saw the hallway frozen. A group of seniors, mid-argument, their mouths open and contorted. A girl, her backpack slipping from her shoulder, the strap hanging limply. A janitor, his mop suspended inches above the linoleum.

It was the same everywhere.

My breath came faster, shallower. This wasn't just our classroom. It was the whole school. Maybe the whole world.

A wave of nausea washed over me. What had I done? Had I done this? The thought was absurd, impossible. I was just Farrah. I aced art, stumbled through math, and spent most of my free time doodling in my notebook. I didn’t have powers. I didn't even have a pet hamster.

But then, the memory of Mrs. Bennett’s droning, the sudden shift in the atmosphere, the complete and utter cessation of all sound and motion… it clicked. It was like a jigsaw puzzle that had been scattered for years, and suddenly, the most obvious piece had slammed into place.

I remembered a flicker. A feeling. A surge, deep inside me, right before everything stopped. It was like a jolt, a tiny internal earthquake that had somehow… broken reality.

My hands flew to my face, my eyes wide with a terrifying realization. Time hadn't stopped for everyone. It had stopped for everyone but me. And if I had somehow done this… could I undo it?

A frantic hope, tinged with the same fear that had been my constant companion since the silence descended, began to bloom. I looked back into the classroom, at the frozen faces of my classmates, at Mrs. Bennett mid-sentence.

"Okay," I whispered, my voice gaining a fragile strength. "Okay, Farrah. You did this. You have to fix this."

I closed my eyes, trying to recapture that strange, internal surge. I focused, not on the angle of depression, or lighthouses, or the quadratic formula. I focused on the silence, on the stillness, and on the desperate need for it all to… move again. I imagined the hum of the classroom returning, the rustle of paper, the tap of feet, the drone of Mrs. Bennett’s voice. I willed it. I needed it.

And then, a faint tremor, not of fear this time, but of possibility, ran through me. The air, which had felt so heavy, seemed to lighten, just a fraction. Was it my imagination? Or was it the first whisper of time's return? I held my breath, waiting. The fate of everyone around me, it seemed, rested on whether or not this impossible thing was actually happening.

The tremor intensified, a ripple of energy pulsing through the air. I opened my eyes, heart pounding, and took a step back into the classroom. Bitsy’s hand was still frozen, but the tension in the room felt different now—charged with an electric possibility.

“Come on,” I whispered to myself, “you can do this.” I closed my eyes again, pushing aside the panic and fear that had gripped me. I focused on that flicker deep within me—the spark of whatever had caused this disruption.

I pictured the classroom as it should be: laughter bubbling over from Camden’s corner, Payton doodling furiously in her notebook, Mrs. Bennett gesturing animatedly about angles and lines. With every ounce of willpower I could muster, I imagined time flowing back into place like water rushing down a mountainside.

“Please,” I begged quietly, feeling as if I were standing at the edge of a vast chasm. “Let it all move again.”

Then came a sound—a soft creaking noise from somewhere behind me. My heart leapt as I turned just in time to see Arlo blink slowly, his pencil finally falling from his fingers and hitting the floor with a loud thud that shattered the silence like glass breaking.

The effect was instantaneous. The classroom erupted into life; laughter spilled out from Camden's mouth as he joked about something only he found funny. Payton groaned about having to take notes instead of doodling while Bitsy shook her arm as if waking from a deep slumber.

“What just happened?” Arlo asked, rubbing his eyes in confusion.

Mrs. Bennett blinked rapidly and cleared her throat. “Alright class,” she said with newfound authority, “let’s get back to our lesson on angles!”

It was surreal—everything returned to normal as if nothing had ever happened at all. But there was one undeniable truth lodged deep within me: I had done this.

As my classmates resumed their chatter and scribbles filled the air once more, an undercurrent of exhilaration surged through me like wildfire. What had started as fear morphed into something else entirely—a sense of power that made my skin tingle.

I sank back into my seat, heart racing with both excitement and trepidation. What did this mean? Could I do it again? Was there a limit to what I could control? The questions swirled around my mind like autumn leaves caught in a gust of wind.

“Farrah!” Bitsy’s voice broke through my thoughts, pulling me back to reality. She leaned across her desk with wide eyes filled with curiosity and concern. “Did you see that? It was like we were all… frozen! You didn’t notice anything weird?”

I hesitated for just a moment before shaking my head dismissively. “Nope! Just another boring math lesson.”

But inside, my heart raced with secrets untold—of power coursing through me like electricity and a world where reality bent at my will.

That afternoon dragged on as usual; classes blurred together in colors and sounds while part of me remained trapped in wonderment over what had transpired. By the time school ended and everyone filed out into the hallway bustling with life once more, I'd made up my mind: whatever strange ability lay hidden within me wasn’t going to remain dormant for long.

As I stepped outside into the cool breeze of late afternoon sun filtering through trees lining our school yard, determination set fire to my thoughts—I would explore this new facet of myself further; there was too much potential here to ignore.

But how? How would I summon that surge again?

I glanced around at my friends laughing nearby—Payton tossing her hair back playfully while Camden mimicked some teacher’s accent exaggeratedly—and felt another wave of inspiration wash over me.

Maybe it didn’t have to be so grand or terrifying next time; maybe it could be small—a simple nudge rather than an earthquake.