[ WP ] You are able to freeze time and for years , you use this `` power '' for good . As a result , you are viewed as a superman-like hero . But one day you learn how your powers actually work - for every minute that you freeze time , you lose a day off of your life .

My life is like a book with its pages torn. Half a story with an abrupt end, the feeling of frustration and the sadness of in-completion. I'll never finish that book. I'll never know the end. Does n't it just rile you up? But what can you do? 
 
 
 I have done much in this life. I have helped so many people. Some know and some think I am some angel, a gift from God. Whatever they know, they know something good had been done, and that was all that I needed. 
 
 
 I was never a kind man. I ca n't say I'm very nice. But power changes you. Sometimes for the better. I was middle aged when I changed. Thirty five when I found my power. To me it was a gift from God, completely unimaginable. And how it changed me so. 
 
 
 I became spiritual. I wanted to know why I could freeze time when everyone was a slave to it. Why was I chosen? Was I chosen. And so I retracted from the world and became someone else. I was no longer concerned about the *me* of the world, but about using my powers, and using them for good. I know. I could n't believe it either. But that's how I felt. 
 
 
 Things were great. The book of my life had picked up. I saved a woman from death. A man from the bad luck of life. Helped the unfortunate. I did it all and I did it freely. And yet I am haunted. Yet I remain a monster as the tears of the book of my life come closer. 
 
 
 Her name is Maureen and she is six. In the coming seconds she is to die. A car is coming for her. A car is speeding near. I can imagine the smell of the smoke that lingers like a marble statue. I can almost hear the tyres squealing. I can feel the impact that will happen. The girl's name is Maureen and she will die. 
 
 
 So why ca n't I save her? Why do n't I do the easy thing and pick her up? To answer brings shame. To tell the truth, I have only a minute and this minute is going fast. My life is coming in ebbs, going out like water in a burst pipe. I have no energy. I have no will. I look young, but the light is going. The words are ending. 
 
 
 I figured it out a lifetime ago when the cancer came. That maybe a day or two ago for you. This power ages me. It takes my life for every minute I steal. Tit for tat. An inescapable exchange. Now I am old beyond my thirty five years. I feel deathly ill and the world slows, now in the way I can make it stop, but it slows in the way that let's you know that death is coming. And death is coming fast. 
 
 
 And so I see little Maureen. She is a few feet away but the minutes are the gulf that separates life and death. I can not reach her. I can not save her. With this final stopping of time, I feel the pain, the aches and intuition of the end of my life. My muscles sag from the magical aging and my heart strains and my brain gets foggy. The girl is going to die. So am I. 
 
 
 It is coming then and I will not release time. I wonder what will happen if I die like this. Will you all be stuck as well? Or will time resume with the death of myself and Maureen? Who will they cry for more? Me who has done so much good in this world? Or the innocent girl whom I could n't save. 
 
 
 The answers will not come as fast as the black. The world slips by and I see the permanent fear etched on the girl's face. How I am glad I will not see her end. How I am glad that my book ends here, one page shorter than hers. Both ripped and defiled. No satisfaction, only the cruel mistreatment that is life.
