[ WP ] You are a member of a superhero team . You 've just frozen time seconds before your entire squad gets killed , and there is nothing you can do to change that .

Johnson, gone. Smith, gone. MacCarthy, gone. Keith, gone. 
 
 I could see the bullet frozen midair, caressing Smith's forehead with its delicate air ripples. The grenade, a few inches away from Johnson's ultra-friction boots, started blooming into tiny metal pedals. MacCarthy's forever cussing pie hole, still upturned, seemed to be defying the imminent doom, just like him always. Keith... oh god. Mrs. Keith just had a baby two weeks ago, and the way Keith held that innocent but fragile being... I could n't bear to look at this sight anymore, so I turned away. 
 
 Myself and the others, people called us superheroes. Sure they gave us stupid names like Flamejack, Waterminator, Razorspark, and Berserk. I was called Timechanic. But among ourselves, we just called each other by our names. All that superhero, costumes, missions, mysterious powers, villains bullshit can go fuck themselves; they were nothing but a intricately designed performance, a scheme to keep people entertained and distracted from what we're really doing. 
 
 See, we were not real `` superheroes''. We were... possessed by something. In our childhood, some mysterious cult sought to use child sacrifice -us, to summon something that should not belong in this world. They expected the `` thing'' to consume our flesh and innocent spirit, but it just turned against their intentions and inhabited our bodies. It slaughtered the cultists, with our tiny children bodies, to make sure it did n't get sent back. It -I should say they, for there were five of them, controlled powers of fire, ice, lightening, and sheer strength. I was the oddball, because I seemed to have no power at all, yet somehow we all knew I was possessed, just like the others. We escaped the dark underground cave, and were immediately captured by the government and sent to a specialized facility that kept all kinds of freaks like us. How did they know about us? Who gives a damn. My best guess was that they had their eyes on this cult for a long time, and wanted to do what they're doing, but could n't because ethical reasons. Then the moment the cult suceeded, they jumped out and claim that they were `` protecting'' us from harm, and continue to conduct `` justified'' experiments on us. 
 
 So we grew up on this secluded mountainous lab. I could not make any friends at all apart from those four; even they would not get close to me. They were honest enough to tell me that my sheer presence that gave people chills, and looking into my eyes felt like staring down an abyss. As a troubled kid, I always thought I had serious problems. Later, I came to realize that the thing inside me was trying to protect myself from others. Strangely enough, it was n't malevolent -it was just scared. 
 
 I found out my power, this thing's power, through the most excruciating way possible. One day I woke up, everything was still. Not a sound, not a movement, nothing, lifeless like a cosmic cemetery, where the whole universe had abandoned me. I was scared to my bones. I walked around my cell, banging on the windows and cried for help. In my physcial clock it might have been at least twelve hours, but there no time in this dimension passed at all. An overwhelming sensation of isolation and agony beyond all imaginations swept over my conscious, again and again. I was surprised that my senses survived it. At long, long last, I became aware that I was neither hungry nor thirsty after such a long time. Then a switch in my mind clicked, and time started to flow again. I'd never been so happy to see my compaion's suspicious looks and hear people talking about how I finally lost my mind. I hugged every single person I could, including those asshole guards. I got somewhat closer with my four companions after that; however, from that day on, the despair and desolation rooted in the back of my mind, rendering me incapable of feeling most emotions, if any at all. 
 
 After we grew up, the government studied us, and trained us to become spec-ops before sending us on extremely difficult missions. With our `` superpower'', these missions were merely a walk in the park. They tried to keep us as low profile as possible, not wanting to deal with pressure from media and public. Unfortunately, Keith blew cover in a mission three years ago. We completed the mission, but the footage of him chucking ten barrels maple into a dictator's personal distillery was leaked by a batshit crazy tourist who dared venture into the mansion at 4 a.m. Our top people had to cover up for us by giving us superhero identities. Everyone except John hated it, and the things inside us hated it. But there was no choice. 
 
 Well I digress. The reason I say all this is that these four are the closest thing I ever had to `` friends''. As much as I was incapable of feeling emotions, my only affection towards anything lies within those four, and now I'm losing them. It was my fault; I had been the eyes of the team: checking for potential threats with my power. Bad guys these days used plasma, energy, and nano-material technologies against us, but I see everything, so even the most sophisticated traps were useless toys. It had been at least 7 years since I last saw a traditional ballistic weapon used against us, and the one time they slipped my mind, this happens. 
 
 I can freeze time, which is all I can do. I can `` teleport'' to another location in frozen time by walking there when time freezes, but I could never go back. I tried many times, never worked. I can not alternate reality when I stop time; everything that I try to alter would bounce back to their oringal state immediately like they were held by invisible elastic bands. I had always been very, very careful to make sure I'd seen everything before I warn my team, but they still have to dodge the laserbeams by themselves. Now... it's too late. There's simply no way I could warn them before the bullet pierces Smith's head, before the grenade blows up the guts of the rest, let alone trying to stop them myself. 
 
 Even though I knew it was useless, I still tried to fend off their deaths, but all in vain. I kicked the grenade all the way across the room, and it shot straightback so fast it almost maimed my kicking leg. Did n't get away unscathed, as my shin started to bleed. I slammed my head onto the bullet, but it also bounced back, nearly knocking me out with the immense pain that resembled being shot myself. In the end, I gave up, fell onto the ground, and stared blankly into this grotesque snapshot of spacetime. 
 
 I know. I can make this moment last forever, so that they wo n't `` die''. Yes, I can stay here with them, with all our memories and friendship. I do n't need to eat or breathe. I am immortal in this world. I am the savior of their souls. Nothing can kill them anymore, except me. I have the power. I will be alone, but I will never live with the burden of four lives resting on my conscious. 
 
 I walked outside. We dropped on the roof of a five-hundred-story building, barely even stepped inside yet. The world outside was frozen. A magnificent sight: heavy clouds looming low to the ground; apocalyptic sunlight wormed their way through small openings, creating a monochromic illusion of the city beneath my feet. No wind, no sound. Everthing fit perfectly to be a one-man dystopian heaven. I looked back at their peaceful figures, and a great sadness surged up in my heart. Would they really live, like this? To become the collection in a personal museum exhibit, putting on a deceiving face that could not conceal the brutal truth right beside them? Am I saving them, or just satisfying my morbid ego? Would I want this if I was in their shoes? This simple yet mind-blowing question came into my mind: is it what they really want? I never thought of it in my selfish life before. 
 
 I thought long and hard. I paced along the unrailed edge of the roof. Maybe for hours, maybe for milleniums, I did n't know. I did n't only think about this question. My thought flew way beyond, asking myself from above: who are you? What are you? What does it mean to be human? What is human nature? What is `` time'' to a fleeting human soul? What if he is given infinite time? Can he handle infinite time? What is this thing inside me? Where does it come from? What does it want? I let my thought run wild, and for the first time in my life consumed by the manipulation of time, forgot that time existed. 
 
 I looked up from a very, very long meditation, and made up my mind. I could almost see my own face because how determined I felt. I was ready to go on and do whatever I have to do. At that very moment I made my choice, I suddenly swooned for half a second too long, swayed, and fell into the cold void stretching five thousand feet above cement. 
 
 Edit note: I rushed the first draft. Did n't like it, especially the ending. So I fixed it. Still far away from satisfactory, but at least it got out most of the things I wanted to say.
