004

"Stop it, you asshole," she angrily muttered, "Turn around and leave me alone." She turned back to her work, sighing heavily in frustration. I couldn't help but chuckle – her fevered responses were what I lived for. I knew her well enough to realize she was one or two more incidents away from completely losing her temper.

I flipped my notebook to a blank sheet of paper and wrote a note on it, asking her 'How big are your boobs?' I snickered and folded it once, casually reaching behind me and letting it land in front of her. She huffed angrily, slamming her pencil down on the table which was usually enough to grab people's attention. Incredibly, she was willing to entertain what I could've had to say to her and flipped it open. After reading it, she immediately crumpled it up and threw it at the back of my head.

I grinned in amusement, letting her go back to working on her assignment. I looked around the room once more, amazed that she still had no idea what was happening all around her—or the lack thereof. She was so embroiled with her work that she didn't seem to care to make enough of a ruckus over being bothered by me. She just continued to write down on her paper, glancing between it and her textbook, whilst keeping a perturbed frown on her face.

But then, she went to turn the page of her book, only to realize it had become as solid as cement. "What the fuck?" she muttered as she stared at the book, trying to force the page to turn.

I knew there was no more turning back at that point and so I kept moving forward.

She realized something wasn't right by then and I decided to distract her. I quickly turned my chair around with a smile upon my face as I put my feet up on her table.

"Hey," I said, pulling her very bitter attention away from the textbook as she glared up at me. "If the assignment is too complicated, maybe we can play a game." She was completely incensed with me by then.

She angrily mocked me as she responded, “What game? Is it called 'Stab you in the fucking face with my pencil?” She was shouting, trying to gather up attention to herself from the teacher to try and deter me from bothering her further. It was her typical defense, only this time I wasn't backing down.

"It's called 'Put up your feet and take a nice nap." I replied with an amused grin as I leaned back in my chair, closing my eyes and folding my hands behind my head with a content sigh, "I love this game."

"You're such a fucking idiot!" she shouted, causing me to stifle a laugh. "Why the fuck is no one paying attention to this shit?" She finally took a look around the room and what she saw completely shocked her. "What the... hell...?" she whispered in confusion. I watched her as she got up from her chair and quickly became concerned as she tried to shake her friend next to her, only to find that she wasn't moving at all. "Julie?" she uttered, visibly more worried as she began to pant fearfully. I stood up, smiling reassuringly at her as she looked to the teacher.

I decided to try to talk her down a bit, "Hey, you know I–," but she silenced me when she ran from her chair, pushing me out of the way, and rushed to the teacher.

"Teacher?" she asked in a panic, waving her hand in front of his face as he stared over the class. "Hello?" She was panting even more fearfully than before, turning to the students in the front row and noting how motionless everyone was. Well, everyone except myself and her.

"What the fuck's going on here?" she shouted in a panic just before I approached her from the side with a reassuring grin. She was so fixated on everyone else that when turned to me, she gasped in fright.

"Hey, calm down," I said, "There's no need to freak out."

"Are you a fucking idiot?" she shouted at me before rushing to the door. "That's a stupid question, of course, you are." I chuckled and grinned in response. "Can you seriously not see something fucked up is going on here?" She pulled at the doorknob, grunting with effort, but it was as immovable as everything and everyone else.

I leaned on the table nearest the door, folding my arms across my chest and smiling calmly as I watched her turn around. She ran a shaking hand through her hair as she panted fearfully, her eyes bugged out as she looked around the room.

"This is not happening," she breathily said, "this is not fucking happening. I'm not trapped in some fucking horror movie. This is all a dream or something." Her eyes lit up. "Yeah, this is a dream!" She then squinted her eyes closed. "Okay... I'm going to wake up now and I'm going to be in my bed where everyone is alive and not frozen stiff."

I was amused, yet baffled. I didn't think at first that she would've reacted with such fright, though that was probably a giant miscalculation. My impression was that she'd see me as the only other animate person and instantly blame me for this. I'd never seen her so scared before, but I was confident I would make it right. While I could have returned everything to normal at any given second, I wasn't ready to back out on my idea just yet. I wanted to let it play out just a bit longer.

She swallowed and panted heavily before she looked over at me. It was then that she noted my calm, collected demeanor. I smiled and waved playfully at her. She suspiciously narrowed her eyes at me and her respiration slowly began to relax.

"Wait a minute," she said, keeping her eyes locked on me, "Why the fuck are you so calm?" I just smirked and casually glanced down at my fingernails, making it more obvious to her. "Did you... did you do this?"

I kept my eyes on my fingertips as I gave an offhanded reply to her. "Oh, yeah, I did it. It was nothing. Pretty cool, huh?" I looked up at her with an enthused grin a raised eyebrow. Jennifer was still in shock, although my relaxed demeanor seemed to help in calming her down. Inside, though, I was nervous as hell. Somehow I was finding unknown confidence inside me I'd never harnessed before.

"But... how?" she asked.

"Well, uh," I replied, "I don’t know. I mean, I just... made it happen."

She was befuddled and then angered by that answer. "What do you mean you just made it happen?" I shrugged in response, unable to give her an answer. "How long have you been able to do this?"

"Since this morning, actually," I casually replied. She was even more flabbergasted.

"I don't..." she trailed off, unsure of what to even say. “This is the craziest shit I've ever seen," she added with a scoff as she looked around the room. "You froze everyone else... except me," she realized. "Well then, wait... why? Why did you even want to do this in the first place?"

"Just take a look around," I said. "Everybody's all frozen like ice. We're talking and walking around while they have no idea what's going on. I bet we could do anything we wanted...?" I added very suggestively.

She looked at me with such intense disbelief, which then morphed into an amused scoff—she'd quickly caught on to me. She folded her arms across her chest as she shook her head. "You've got to be joking," she deadpanned. "You want to have sex with me?"