try to wake her up

Joe draws back from actually kissing Vanessa, however. If he does kiss her and she’s actually ill in some way, it just wouldn’t be right, would it? He’d be the victim of humiliation from the girls for weeks afterwards.

“Vanessa, you can stop now, you know,” he says, and moves away from her. “It’s not clever.”

Joe clicks his fingers in front of the pretty girl’s eyes – the classic way to make someone flinch. Nothing. She was completely out. Damn it. He’s torn between opposing motivations: his cock is almost dancing with desperation from the sight before his eyes and Vanessa’s sweet perfume. But the good part of him wants to make sure she was all right.

Gently, he shakes her shoulder, trying to wake her from this strange “sleep”. Nothing. He picks up the cup that was sitting on the sink nearby, filled it with cold water and sloshed it over her pretty face. Nothing. It just dripped down, soaking into her t-shirt.

“What is it?” he asks – himself more than her.

Could it be she’s diabetic or something? Slipped into a coma? No, but then surely she wouldn’t be standing up. She couldn’t have died – again, she wouldn’t be balanced on her delicate bare feet if she’d died, but also, she’s way too young for a heart attack and so on. Joe reaches for her wrist, searching for a pulse. He can’t find one.

And then he sees her watch.

It’s an ordinary cheap digital watch, but it seems to have stopped. The thing is, though, that digital watches don’t just stop. When the battery runs out, it fades, but the time readout continues as long as it is dark enough to read. Here this one is, though, with completely dark digits, but even the seconds read-out has stopped: 12:23:34.

What if she’s not sick. What if it’s time that’s sick? What if there’s something wrong with time? If time doesn’t roll onwards, there’s no way he could get a message to Bennett and the others. But then what would his message be anyhow? The experiment hasn’t been a success. Admittedly, it has produced interesting results, but that is not good enough for a project like this.

Somehow, he’s got to find a way to get time moving again. He has to do something that will somehow push himself back into the real world. If he doesn’t, perhaps he’ll go crazy – with loneliness if nothing else.