Hospital

You're alive. And in bed. The wrong bed. The wrong pillow at least. That the covers feel waird might be down to you changing them recently, but someone, maybe one of your damned siblings, has gone and pinched your memory foam cushion that you've been hanging onto forever. Or they would have if you still lived at home. This isn't home. No one wakes up on their own at home. There's always some noisy parent waking you in the morning. So this isn't home. It isn't the student residence either. That's where you're supposed to be. Unless you went to sleep and forgot to roll down the shutter. It's not normal for so much light to be going through your eyelids and hitting your retinas. Better open the eyes and get an explanation. Maybe see where the phone has got to. It should have rung by now. Maybe it's down on battery.

Ah. Well lit room with large window and beautiful woman sitting beside you. She's in her twenties, still fresh-faced, and wearing a nice nurse's uniform. That being because she's a nurse. Duh. You're in hospital.

The nurse smiles at you.

"Are you feeling any better?"

Better? So you were badly injured at some point. Strange, you feel fine now. She reads your confusion and anwsers your question preemptively "There was an explosion on Uni campus. You were right in the middle of it. Do you remember? No? Just as well. I wouldn't want to remember being in your unfortunate condition. Fortunately the shard merely destroyed most of your liver, and left the rest of your organs intact. You'd be surprised at how much of that thing is expendable..."

That's right. It'd been pissing rain thick like lead sludge, you'd stopped time and everything had gone boom. There was no one around, and you'd woken up that morning to find you were completely off track several days worth. You had speculated about the relative passage of time for you and for others...

"How long have I been asleep?" you cut in over whatever she was saying. "Days? Weeks? A month? I was stabbed, right?"

She blinks, "They brought you in yesterday. They didn't even need to anesthesize you for the emergency surgery. The surgeon closed you up around 10 am, and you stayed **** until fifteen minutes ago. I heard you moaning in your sleep."

So less than a day. That's good. You fire at her again "What did I say?"

"Nothing. You just moaned. People do that when they're waking up sometimes, you know, if they had a bad dream, or if they were very agitated before they went to sleep, as in your case. I don't think there's more agitated than being at the center of a circle of smashed buildings. They still don't know what caused it. It was all over the news, you know; I expect it still is. So far they say there's nothing in the wreckage to suggest foul play. No bombs, no powder, nothing. The place just trashed itself, it seems. You don't happen to have a clue do you? You were there."

Of course you have a clue. You're not likely to tell her. You disregard her question and counter with your own, "Why was the place deserted? I was there, and there was no one about."

She shrugs, "There wouldn't be anyone. It's the holiday. You were the only person on campus."

The holiday? Which one? And why so casual? Surely you're not the only person suspicious?

"Doesn't anyone suspect me of being responsible? I was in the middle. I was the only sod on the scene. What is it you're downplaying?"

She slackens her shoulders, and looks at you as though to say 'busted me'.

"There's absolutely nothing to suggest you had any involvement. There's nothing to say anyone had any involvement with it. No evidence. They said so on the radio. That's the official story. But even the news cycle has gotten around to giving lip service to the conspiracy theories. Take one look at the internet, Mr Smith, it's all about you. One minute you're a member of the new World Order Illuminati organisation who got kicked out spectacularly, the next you're a powerful wizard who battled his arch enemy on the student campus. And then there are people who think you have become the unwilling vessel for the spirit of some ancient god and that the struggle between his and your mind is what wreaked such havoc. Everyone suspects you except the authorities. I thought it might upset you."

"Should I leave the country? I don't want to be a superstar." Uni is dead. Your family and friends will want anwsers you can't give, and they won't stop asking. Soon everyone will be on your tail. Not safe here.

"Your identity hasn't been made public. It won't be without your consent unless the police decide to publicly make a suspect of you, which they probably will given how much attention and pressure the investigation is going to get." She pauses. Then "And as I said, there's absolutely nothing that we keep you for at the moment -- except in the immediate future. You're a patient recovering from surgery. By the way, are you alright? I gave you a painkiller when you started stirring, but you should feel some discomfort, it wasn't very strong..."

"I feel fine, thank you." You wouldn't have known you'd been injured if she hadn't filled you in. You feel completely normal. There isn't one tiny thing, not one signal from any organ or process, your skin, your breathing etc, nothing to suggest that you couldn't, for instance, jump out of bed and bolt from the hospital and run all the way to Kathmandu right this minute. But you add "Although I do feel a little numb lower down." Best to play it safe. The world at large is waiting for some sort of Mage to emerge from all of this. Best not draw attention to your possibly having an exceedingly fast rate of healing. And your senses could be deceiving you, admittedly.

The nurse seems satisfied with your response. She looks at the time and notes that she has other patients to attend to, since you appear to be all good. She gives you a few pointers to anything you might need to use, to call for help in case of pain or bodily needs etc. Then she turns and walks out, allowing for a little ogling of her considerably alluring backside.

She's gone. Time to think. It's already very quiet in your tiny little hospital room, and very private, but you still feel the need to stop time. It's like a mental comfort at this point. Or drawing the curtains when the window is already closed and the shutters already rolled down. It calms a mild anxiety over doing things properly, all the way.

First you need to get a look at the alleged injury. There should be a scar. There should be stitches. You throw off the covers of the bed and find that you are in a loose white gown. You shove the material out of the way to reveal your mid-section.

Hmm. A lot has changed. There is a scar, and stitches, and it looks several days old, not a few hours, but that isn't the thing that strikes you. There's a lot less fat on your stomach. Your limp knob is almost as big as it would be while erect, and your legs look huge, thick, heavy slabs of meat. It seems your entire body has grown in size. Oh dear. If this happens each time you're injured you'll be ten feet tall in a few years.

It's established then that you do indeed heal from injury abnormally fast. It also looks like non-use of the time halting ability leads to trouble. You don't have lots of evidence toward that of course, just one day where you didn't freeze anything followed by disaster, but it seems a safe bet that a good way to avoid that happening is to make use of the superpower rather than not. Perhaps you have a role to play. Perhaps there is always someone who can halt time at will. No one else would know until they got the power themselves. Perhaps it is a necessary braking mechanism. Against what you have no idea, but it's an appealing thought. It lends itself to pursuing one's goals...

You decide to lie low for a bit. Pretend to be convalescent. Pretend to be taking longer to recover than you actually are. At some point you will be quitting the country. Preferably soon. You never know when the frustrated State prosecution machine might latch onto you as a scapegoat in the face of failure to explain things.

You unfreeze time.