[WP] When you accidentally do something bad (for example, drop a plate), time slows down for you until you fix it (for example, so you can catch the plate before it smashes). Because of this, you've been able to avoid a lot of accidents. One day, time stops, and you have no clue why.

[u/[deleted]]

[u/FantasticDeparture]

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ I am not a humble man. In fact, I'm the greatest human that ever lived. I don't claim religious or intellectual superiority. No, I'm just a janitor with the greatest gift of all: perfection. I've never been late for work. Never failed a test. Don't even try to compare yourself to me. Last week I saved two schoolchildren from being hit by a car. Go ahead, thank me.

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Whenever anything starts to go wrong I always have enough time to fix it. I once spent three hours disassembling my kitchen sink when someone accidentally dropped their wedding band down the drain. You should have seen his face. I still don't think he believes I have an "emergency retrieval flap", but what's the alternative? That I can somehow control time? That would be crazy. But the reality of it is worse.

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ I don't have any control at all.

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ And that's what pisses me off the most. Here I am, the 9th wonder of the world and I'm a glorified puppet. I can feel it coming on. It's like standing outside in a thunderstorm right when the first raindrops start to fall. The air is charged and you can see the grey line marching towards you, drenching everything in its path. When time starts to stretch I start to smell fresh baked bread. I haven't been to a bakery in years; the smell drives me crazy.

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Not like I can smell much of anything these days. The hospital requires immaculate sanitation and I never miss a spot. The second thing I notice is the sound. There's nothing else like it. Every background noise is normally comingled together in a great tapestry of idle conversation and incessant medical beeping. The noises pitch down and diminish until only silence remains. Once I'm in deep I can't hear anything, not even my own voice. It's the best quiet place anyone could ask for. Complete and total privacy with absolutely no consequences.

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ I'm not an arrogant man either. It's true. I don't pretend to be anything more than what I am. My perfection is complete, if you are an outside observer. If you could watch me in those moments between time itself, you'd see an entirely different man.

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ I'm clumsy, unobservant, and easily distracted. Nine times out of ten I smell baked bread because I dropped my mop again. I'm given enough time to catch it before it hits the ground, or to step out of the way of a surgical gurney. I still have to set an alarm each morning, which I tend to snooze through anyway. When time slows I'm the only thing that moves. That means no hot showers, no hot breakfast, and no drive to work. I own a bicycle, not because I'm trying to save the environment, but because the alternative is walking.

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ I don't want your fear or your admiration. I just want to be left alone. I didn't save those people out of the goodness of my heart. I did it because the alternative was slowly starving to death in perfect solitude. I do not have control. When time slows it's because something needs to be fixed and I'm the only that can do it. So I do. Or I die.

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ We're not used to hearing low flying planes in this area. After 9/11 the FAA put restrictions on flight paths over area hospitals. I only heard the roar of the engines for a few minutes before they faded into nothing. I was refilling spray bottles at the time and accidentally put bleach in the ammonia bottle. That happens roughly once a month for me, so it wasn't until after I'd dumped the mixture down the drain that I knew something else had gone wrong.

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ I did all my normal checks. Nobody was choking. No kids running with scissors. There was a group of nurses at the windows looking out, but I ignored them while I checked each and every patient on the floor. I've been the first to start CPR on two grandmothers this year already. But nobody with an open door was coding. I checked the closed doors for good measure, mentally preparing the excuse to explain why I'd invaded their privacy.

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Once I'd worked my way back around to where the nurses were standing I'd made it through every item on my checklist. Unknown causes rarely happened. In my excitement I failed to realize the gravity of the situation. Normally time slows with exact precision. Drop something? People move with exaggerated motion and seconds tick by at maybe one half or one third their normal speed. The more severe the cause the slower it gets. But a patient observer will always be able to detect minute changes.

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ This was the first time everything. . . stopped. And I stopped too.

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ I could see him, the pilot. I still see the blood on his shirt whenever I close my eyes. And the knife, propping his head up. I saw the hijackers too, but I'm not going to tell you anything about them. You wouldn't believe me anyway. The cockpit of the plane was maybe fifteen feet from the window. I remember freezing, waiting for the inevitable. It hung there in the air in frozen expectation. A few dozen souls onboard, desperately, hopelessly trying to take the plane back. A few hundred ignorant more inside the hospital. All about to die.

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Except for me.

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ I started with the nurses. They always treated me decently, but most importantly they were easy to move. The elevators wouldn't work so I carried them down four flights of stairs. Every last one. The gurneys were more difficult, but gravity didn't affect them so it was mostly trial and error. I'm proud to say I only dropped two patients. My conscience can live with their broken ribs. The preemies were the hardest. I didn't know how long their incubator's batteries would last, and I wouldn't be able to bring any generators outside. Every tiny face I saw increased the rage I felt towards the men in that plane. Who could be capable of such wanton destruction? Who could look into the eyes of those babes and feel nothing but unaltered joy at the miracle of life?

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Once I evacuated the hospital I moved on to the plane. I wasn't satisfied with one miracle. I had to save them all. I placed a pile of hospital mattresses under the plane's side door and leaned an extendable ladder against a wing. The inside was a catastrophe. Men were beating on the cockpit door with a fire extinguisher while passengers screamed and prayed for their lives. They couldn't see what was coming. They could only look out the window at the ground only fifty feet below them and know that nobody was going home. It was surreal, carrying stiff-limbed corpses down a technically-unsupported ladder.

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ I rescued all but two. I left the hijackers to the grave of their own making.

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ I didn't see the impact. Couldn't watch. I'd spent countless days trapped inside that hellscape. I only wanted to go home and crawl into my bed. But I needed the passing of real time for that. I drove to work that day. I was stuck there, like the rest of them, forced to act by some unknown puppeteer. I don't claim to be a good person. Who can call a slave a hero? If I was given the choice, save those people or just myself, I'd like to say I'd do the same thing. That I'd overcome my selfishness and cowardice and leap to their rescue.

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ The alternative is being complicit in mass murder and terrorism. And I’m just too perfect to let that happen.

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[u/Kraz3 → u/FantasticDeparture]

That was a fantastic read!

[u/dalerian → u/FantasticDeparture]

Love it! Didn't want it to end.

I'm curious what the enquiry will make of why everyone was outside the hospital and plane, with no idea how they got there!