The Time Dancer of India

"I can stop time."

These words, these four words, were the most terrifying thing I had ever heard. There was no doubt that I had heard them and there was no doubt that those four words meant exactly what I thought they did. My mind raced through the possibilities, tried to find a way to argue against this absurdity. My mind raced and my heart raced, but there was no denying the truth in his words.

"You can't," I said in a voice louder than I wanted it to be. "You can't just say something like that and not expect me to believe you."

There was a pause and then he laughed at me. Laughed! As if he didn't know what he had told me! As if he hadn't spent the last hour telling me stories! "Why do you think they never found the bodies of your friends?" he asked with a laugh. "What do you think happened to those people who disappeared after the Car Accident? Even your parents!" He laughed again. "I made it all happen."

My head was spinning as I tried to process all of this information. How could I have missed it? How could I have been so blind? It wasn't possible. It couldn't be possible! "But...but..." What was I going to say? That he couldn't have stopped time because that's impossible?

He smiled at me and leaned forward in his chair. "I've seen their faces when they died in pain just like everyone else, but only for a few seconds before time started again. You should see their faces when they realize what happened." He paused for a moment and winked at me, before leaning back in his chair once more.

"It's not possible," I mumbled at him as tears started falling from my eyes. "You're lying."

He smiled at me again and shook his head. "I'm not," he said calmly with another smile, as if everything were fine between us. As if all of this were normal! But how could it ever be normal? How could this fake life be anything other than an illusion? This boy was crazy! He had killed my parents! He had killed my friends! And now he wanted to kill me!

"I'm not lying," he repeated quietly as he stood up from his chair and walked towards me with a knife in hand, while continuing that same damned smile on his face! His green eyes pierced into mine as he brought his knife closer to my neck, but somehow I couldn't look away from him. Somehow my mind kept convincing itself that maybe this wasn't real, maybe none of this was real. Maybe it was the drugs or the head injury or something else entirely! But deep down inside, I knew better than that even though my mind refused to accept it. Deep down inside, I knew this man wasn't lying about killing everyone and everything around us until there was nothing left but darkness and emptiness for miles around us for miles around us...just like today...just like now...just like always...