The soles of my sneakers were lying to me. They were thin enough that I could feel the grit of the library's linoleum floor, every microscopic pebble and crack vibrating through my socks. I'd walked three miles to save the two bucks on bus fare, and now, standing in the fluorescent-lit basement of Miller Library, I felt every single inch of that walk in my lower back.
My name is Elias, and according to the state of New York, I'm a full-time student. According to my bank account, I'm a rounding error.
I was standing in front of the vending machine—a hulking, buzzing beast of a thing that hadn't been cleaned since the Clinton administration. My stomach wasn't just growling; it was staging a full-scale riot. I'd had half a bagel at 6:00 AM, and it was now 11:45 PM. I had a Calc II midterm in eight hours that I was 100% going to fail, not because I was stupid, but because I'd spent the last three nights pulling double shifts at the diner to cover a "convenience fee" my landlord suddenly decided was part of the lease.
I stared at the row of "Honey Buns" and "Spicy Nacho Doritos." They looked like treasures behind the scratched plexiglass. I fished into my pocket, my fingers brushing past a crumpled receipt and a lint-covered button, before finally finding my last three dollars. They were limp, damp with sweat from my palm.
Clink. Whirrr. Reject.
The machine spat the dollar back out. I smoothed it against the edge of the metal, my hands shaking. Come on, man. Just let me eat.
Clink. Whirrr. Reject.
"Are you kidding me?" I whispered. My voice sounded thin in the empty basement. The hum of the industrial HVAC system was the only reply. I tried the second dollar. Then the third. The machine just stared back at me with its dim, yellowed lights, a mechanical god judging my poverty.
I felt a heat rising in my chest, a boiling mixture of exhaustion, hunger, and a deep, jagged resentment that had been building for years. It wasn't just about the snack. It was about the shoes with the holes, the coat that didn't zip, the professor who looked at my late assignments with a pity that felt like a slap, and the fact that I was doing everything "right" and still drowning.
I didn't punch the machine. I didn't have the energy for a theatrical outburst. I just leaned my forehead against the cool glass and closed my eyes.
"Just... stop," I breathed. "Everything. Just give me one damn second to breathe."
And then, the sound died.
It didn't fade out. It didn't taper off. It was as if someone had grabbed the master volume knob of the universe and yanked it to zero. The constant, soul-crushing hum of the HVAC? Gone. The distant, rhythmic thump-thump of the heavy library doors upstairs? Gone.
I kept my eyes shut for a heartbeat longer, my mind racing through the most logical explanations. Power outage? No, the lights were on through my eyelids. Stroke? A brain aneurysm? Is this what dying feels like?
I opened my eyes.
The first thing I noticed was the fly. It was right in front of my face, maybe two inches from the glass. It wasn't moving. Its wings were a grey, translucent blur, caught in the middle of a downward stroke. It looked like a piece of dust trapped in amber.
I pulled back, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. But as I moved, I felt… resistance. The air didn't feel like air. It felt thick, like I was wading through a waist-deep pool of lukewarm syrup. Every movement required effort.
I looked around the basement. A student I'd seen earlier, a guy in a pristine Patagonia vest who probably didn't know the price of a gallon of milk, was caught in the doorway. He was mid-stride, one foot hovering an inch off the ground, his face twisted in the beginning of a yawn. He was perfectly still. Toppled water droplets from a leaky pipe in the corner were suspended in the air like a string of glass pearls.
"Hello?" I tried to yell.
The sound was wrong. It didn't travel. It was flat and heavy, falling out of my mouth and dying before it hit the floor. It sounded like someone dropping a wet towel.
My mind was a chaotic mess of static and screaming. Am I dead? Is this Purgatory? Is Purgatory a library basement in upstate New York? That seems about right. I checked my pulse. I had to press my fingers deep into my neck because my hands were shaking so bad.
Thump... ...long pause...
...Thump.
My heart was beating, but it was slow—monstrously slow. One beat every ten seconds.
"Okay," I whispered, the word feeling like a physical weight on my tongue. "Okay, Elias. You've finally snapped. You've had a psychotic break. This is the 'hearing voices' part, except it's 'seeing still frames.'"
I walked toward the guy in the Patagonia vest. Moving was a workout. My muscles ached with the effort of pushing through the stagnant air. I reached out, my finger trembling, and touched his shoulder.
He was hard as a rock. Not cold, exactly, but he didn't give. He felt like a statue carved out of something slightly warmer than marble. I pulled my hand back, a jolt of pure, primal fear shot through me. This wasn't a hallucination. This was real.
I turned back to the vending machine. The little red digital display that usually blinked "USE EXACT CHANGE" was frozen. The "C" in "Change" was half-formed, a jagged red line caught in the middle of a refresh cycle.
My stomach gave a sharp, painful cramp. The hunger was still there. Even in the end of the world, I was still a starving college kid.
I looked at the "Honey Bun" in slot B4. I reached for the machine, but instead of putting in money, I grabbed the edge of the delivery flap. I had to pull with everything I had. The plastic felt like it was set in concrete, but slowly, agonizingly, it groaned open.
I reached up. I couldn't reach the coils, so I did something I'd never have dared to do in "real" time. I picked up a heavy wooden chair from a nearby study carrel. I swung it.
It was like moving a mountain. I had to brace my feet and heave. In slow motion, the chair moved through the thick air. When it hit the plexiglass, there was no "crash." There was a dull, low-frequency thud that I felt in my teeth. The glass didn't shatter into a thousand pieces; it spider-webbed, the cracks crawling across the surface like slow-moving lightning.
I pulled a piece of the glass away. It took effort to detach it from the "stillness" of the air. I reached in and grabbed the Honey Bun.
The moment I touched the plastic wrapper, it "woke up." The crinkle of the cellophane was the loudest thing I'd ever heard. It sounded like a gunshot in the silence. I pulled it out, tore it open, and took a bite.
It was stale. It was full of preservatives and chemicals. It was the greatest thing I had ever tasted.
I sat on the floor, surrounded by the frozen world, and ate. My mind began to settle, the initial terror being replaced by a cold, calculating clarity.
If the world was stopped... I could do anything.
I looked at the Patagonia guy. He had a MacBook Pro sitting on the table near the door. That laptop cost more than my car. I looked at the librarian's desk. There was a cash box in the bottom drawer; I'd seen her put the fine money in there earlier.
A thought flickered in my mind—a dark, oily thing. It's not stealing if they never know it's gone. But as soon as the thought formed, a sharp pain lanced through my temples. My vision blurred. A drop of something warm and metallic-smelling hit my upper lip. I wiped it away with the back of my hand.
Blood.
The silence wasn't free. My head felt like it was being squeezed in a vise. The "Silence" was a muscle, and I was holding a weight that was far too heavy for me.
"Start," I gasped. I didn't know how I knew that was the command, but it felt right. "Go. Move. Please."
I snapped my fingers.
BOOM.
The world rushed back in with the force of a tidal wave. The HVAC system roared to life. The guy in the doorway finished his yawn, the sound echoing off the walls. The water droplets hit the floor with a rhythmic tap-tap-tap.
And then, the sound of the vending machine. The glass I'd cracked finally gave way, several large shards falling to the floor with a series of sharp, bright tinkles.
The Patagonia guy spun around. "Whoa! Hey, man, you okay? Did that thing just explode?"
I was leaning against the machine, my nose bleeding down my chin, clutching a half-eaten Honey Bun like it was a holy relic. My heart was racing at a thousand miles an hour, trying to make up for the lost time.
"I... yeah," I coughed, wiping the blood away with my sleeve. "I think the compressor blew or something. It just... snapped."
He looked at the shattered glass, then at me. "Damn. You look like hell, dude. You want me to call campus security?"
"No," I said, a little too quickly. "No, I'm good. Just startled."
I watched him walk away, his expensive sneakers squeaking on the floor. He didn't have a clue. Nobody had a clue.
I looked down at the Honey Bun. I looked at the shattered glass. I looked at my hands, which were still stained with a bit of my own blood.
I had been a ghost my whole life. I was the kid people looked through, the one who worked the jobs nobody wanted, the one who lived in the cracks of a system that didn't care if I starved.
But I wasn't a ghost anymore. I was the only one who was truly awake.
I felt a grin spread across my face—a jagged, hungry thing. I didn't care about the Calc II midterm anymore. I didn't care about the rent. For the first time in twenty years, I wasn't afraid of the future.
Because the future was whatever I decided it was going to be, one stolen second at a time.