Prologue
It was the silence that made JJ realise something was wrong. He noticed the unearthly absence of noise about halfway down the racetrack, slowing to a stop as he did so.
As he turned around, JJ saw why it was silent. The parents and classmates watching the race were frozen in place, not moving as they stood huddled in what had been a windy day. Hair was floating in midair, people permanently mid-stride, one girl in particular was halfway to falling to the floor, looking like she was flying - at least to JJ.
He took a step forward, hoping to break the eerie spell that seemed to have been cast over the sports field. Nothing happened. JJ let out the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, and started walking around the field, walking up to people to get a closer look at them. He brushed the hair of one woman, whose hair was stuck flying through the air as the wind howled in her face. It moved with his hand as he did so, but when he took his hand away, it stayed there, floating in midair.
The wind didn’t seem to be affecting JJ for some reason. He obviously felt it when he ran, and for some reason - he couldn’t yet figure out what - it took more effort to move than it would have normally, as if he were struggling against the wind. But standing still, he felt nothing. The lack of even a breeze was almost as odd as that of noise.
A coffee cup was what JJ took next. He prised it carefully out of the hands of the man who was clutching it tightly. It looked like he was trying to use the heat from the coffee to warm himself up, but it wasn’t working particularly well. The man’s shoulders were drawn up, his face screwed up as he too battled the strong wind that bombarded the field that day.
JJ could feel the warmth of the coffee cup. Removing the lid, he took a sip. It was hot to him too, just a normal cup of coffee. The odd thing happened when he tipped it upside down. Or, more accurately, didn’t happen. The coffee stayed in the cup. The liquid didn’t fall out, it floated there inside the cup, which hung there in midair like a puppet on a string.
He moved the cup away, upwards, and laughed incredulously. The cup moved with his hand but the coffee drink stayed there in the air, holding the shape of the cup it had up until a moment ago previously occupied. How was this possible? This couldn’t be happening, and yet it was, right in front of his eyes.
"What’s going on?" He asked, but obviously no-one replied.
And then JJ looked closer. He really looked. People were still moving, just incredibly slowly. The girl was still falling, the wind was still blowing, the runners were still running, but so slow that he couldn’t see it happening unless he really looked.
JJ stopped and thought for a second. Was everyone else moving really slowly, or...
He looked at his watch, to see if that was affected too. The second hand was still moving, but it took almost thirty seconds by his count for it to even measure one second.
"Am I... Have I stopped time?" He voiced to no-one in particular. Of course, there was no answer.
JJ put his hands on his hips and frowned.
"What the hell is going on?"
***
Rachel pushed open the door to her parents’ apartment, casually calling in as she threw her bag down.
"I’m home!"
There was no reply, which was unusual. Normally at least one of Rachel’s parents would say something when she came in, but for once... Nothing.
A confused Rachel edged slowly towards the door to the lounge, noticing a couple of low voices muttering to each other from inside. Her parents hadn’t told her they’d invited anyone around, and from the depth of the voices it was most likely a couple of men from her dad’s work. And he would definitely have mentioned something to her if he was having an important meeting with people from work. He always did, to make sure she didn’t burst in and interrupt as she had done once or twice.
She started to quietly back away from the lounge down the hallway, and was almost at the front door, when a man in a black balaclava exited the the lounge, a gun in his hand.
"Come here, you!" He said in a gruff voice, advancing towards Rachel. At that, she turned and ran, out onto the balcony that connected all the apartments on her floor, her first thought to get down the stairs and as far away from her flat as possible.
The man ran after her, the sound of his feet on the balcony growing slowly louder as he gained on her. Rachel turned around to see exactly how close he was, and that was her downfall. She had forgotten that there was a railing at the end of the balcony, remembering it was there only as she flipped over it, just about managing to grab on, preventing her from falling 20 stories onto the cold, hard ground below.
The panting masked man caught up with her within seconds, aiming his gun over the railings at her as he spoke to her in a gruff voice, a London accent that Rachel wasn’t used to hearing at home in Manchester.
"Either you climb back over this railing, girlie, and come back to your apartment with me, or I shoot you here and now."
Rachel thought about her options. There was no telling what would happen if she climbed back over, but at the same time a bullet wasn’t a great option either.
Then she remembered the night before, took a risk, and made a decision.
"Neither." She said defiantly, and let go of the railing, giving herself to gravity’s tempting pull.
The man swore, but soon was out of earshot, as Rachel swiftly dropped past floor after floor, heading towards the unforgiving, solid concrete below. If this didn’t work, she thought, at least it was better than a bullet.
If Mrs. McDunstal had looked out of her window on the first floor, she would have had the shock that would most likely have caused a heart attack.
Rachel Gallagher, the girl she knew a little from the top floor, was outside her apartment - the wrong side of the railing. Somehow, Rachel wasn’t falling any more. She was hovering in midair. She was flying.
She had, thankfully, been right. The night before, when she’d tripped and hovered above her floor, flying at a few inches above the ground, hadn’t been just a dream. Rachel had really flown - and it had saved her life.
She dropped down onto the ground and landed in a roll, looking back up as tears filled her eyes. She couldn’t call the police - her dad didn’t trust them, after all. He was paranoid, he always had been, but apparently he had been right to be so.
And so, even though it broke her heart, Rachel turned and ran.
***
Lucy huffed in frustration. She didn’t know why her sister had decided to come shopping on one of the busiest days of the year, but nonetheless she had, and she’d dragged her sister along with her.
"Hey Lucy, what do you think of this?" Asked her sister Amber, holding up a dress in front of her.
"Absolutely stunning," said Lucy dryly, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "the idiotic boys in your year won’t be able to keep their hands off of you."
Amber rolled her eyes. "I don’t know why I brought you along,"
"Neither do I," Lucy muttered, folding her arms. Audibly, she said to her sister "if you need me I’ll be getting a coffee."
"You’re thirteen, you shouldn’t be drinking coffee!" Amber argued, attempting to exert the authority that, as the elder sister, mistakenly she believed she had.
"And you shouldn’t be looking for a prom dress in the most expensive shop in town," countered Lucy, "but," she bowed, extending her arms to remind her sister of where she was standing, smirking as she did so, "here we are."
Amber huffed, but didn’t do anything to stop her sister.
Lucy overlooked the bustling shopping centre in the middle of Bristol as she sipped her coffee, her arms resting on the cold metal barrier that stopped her falling down there to join them. There were hundreds of people down there, just fumbling around in the pre-Christmas rush.
’They’re all idiots,’ Lucy thought to herself as she sipped her coffee. ’People are just so dumb. Wrapped up in their own little bubbles.’
She sighed. ’I bet they’re all thinking stupid thoughts. Like ’what do I get Matt for Christmas?’ and ’Have I remembered my purse?’, and-’
’Henry said he wanted the new Xbox, didn’t he?’
Lucy frowned for a second. A thought had appeared in her head, one that she hadn’t thought herself. Another person’s voice, in her head-
Then the floodgates opened, and suddenly she could hear it all.
’That Sam is so cute!’
’I’ve got the CD for Helen, the book for Eleanor... What was it Bill wanted?’
’Did that guy just pocket something?’
The thoughts of thousands of people crashed into Lucy’s mind, completely overwhelming her. She couldn’t hear anything, not her voice as she screamed, or the people that rushed to check if she was ok, or even her own thoughts. All she could hear was the thoughts upon endless thoughts in her head as she sank to the floor, sobbing in pain as she tried desperately to stop the voices that only she could hear.