text: It was an ordinary day like any other. I was heading towards work, walking since it wasn't too far. It was a bustling city, cars sped by and people bumped into me constantly, but I didn't mind. I reached a crosswalk, waiting with all the others walking for the red hand to change. But then something strange happened. The people around me stopped talking. The cars driving stopped moving. Everyone froze mid-step on the other end of the street. Everything seemed to be frozen in time. I wondered, did I do this? I tried to move, but my body didn't respond. Even my eyes seemed stuck in place, staring at the red hand, only able to see what I had seen before the world froze. Someone had frozen time, but it wasn't me. How strange, I thought. My mind was unfrozen when everything else was. Were other people experiencing the same? "I've done it!" A voice shouted from behind me. I saw the owner of the voice run out onto the street, waving at the frozen cars now parked on the street. I knew in an instant that he must've been the one to do this. I felt secure, knowing that the man would have his fun, but eventually, everyone would resume their daily lives. Perhaps not right away, if everyone else was seeing what I did, assuming we even remembered this at all upon unfreezing. The man continued to walk around the streets, shouting, singing, laughing, doing anything he wanted with no shame. I laughed, if only in spirit. Oh, how funny it would be if he unfroze time and realized everyone had seen and heard everything he had done. Then it stopped being amusing. The man's jovial laughs became coughs, loud and ragged. He walked, stopping on the crosswalk right in front of me. His arms were clutching his sides, his legs looking like they'd collapse at any given moment. Then he dropped to the ground and stopped breathing. I waited. And waited. And waited some more. The man who had caused this had died. Right in front of me, even. I don't know how or why, but there he was. So why couldn't I move still? Time was frozen in that same moment, and I was still staring at that stupid red hand. I was stuck. I couldn't look around, couldn't move, couldn't breathe or blink. All I could do was sit and stare. This was my life, I realized. Nothing was moving and nothing would EVER move again. I couldn't die. Oh god, I couldn't die. I would never see anything more than this god-forsaken red hand! I can't fix this, I can't help. I will never sleep again, never feel the breeze on my face again. I'll never hear the sounds of the city or the calming sounds of the night. Instead, I see the corpse of the man who did this to me, and I want to shout at him. I want to scream at the top of my lungs. I want to cry. I want to fall to my knees and bury my head in my knees. I want to go up to the man and kill him a second time. But I can't do any of that. And I never will again. All I will ever do is watch the unchanging red hand with the corpse dooming me to this Hell lying beneath it.