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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/nubats on 2024-09-10 17:54:12+00:00.
My last message feels like an eternity ago, but I'll be able to tell exactly how long when I eventually send this one. Circumstances have changed a bit, but one thing at a time.
I've just now finally found enough protection to risk a new post. Actually, this is probably more of a cry for help, but back to the topic. As it turns out, time didn't freeze permanently after all, the whole phenomenon seems to oscillate. Unfortunately, I can't say at what "correct" intervals this happens, only that the thawed time intervals have never lasted more than about 6 hours up until now. So far, I've experienced two of them.
I've also found out that I'm the only exception to the rules during the time freeze. Whatever I touch becomes part of this exception, and as soon as I let go of it, it is immediately subjected to the strange laws of the environment again. But these things don’t just have to be tangible objects, they can also be physical processes that are normally commonplace, like sound. The reason why I can't hear my own voice most of the time, but can hear the rubbing of my clothes, is because the sound waves and their medium must be in direct contact with me. The surrounding air represents this medium. As soon as the sound waves move too far away from me, so far, I estimate around 15cm, they freeze just like everything else. So, I can hear a dull hum in my chest or the movements of my tongue in my mouth, but my voice has been taken away from me.
In any case, this is at least how I try to explain to myself how the whole situation works and, at the same time, how I fight the part of me that doesn't want to accept it all. But I don't know whether my theories are correct. What also gives me something to think about is the fact that I can use bicycles, but not other vehicles like cars. Perhaps this has something to do with the battery. I can, in fact, use my smartphone without any problem during the time standstill, so I suspect that I must be in direct contact with the energy source, which also my guess as to why the automatic doors didn't work back then. To make them functional again, I would probably have to be connected to the power plant and touch all the live wires. So far, I've stuck to small vehicles, but haven't had much time to study the rules of this phenomenon in more detail, because I'm not alone in here.
My experiences so far were real, as I've discovered. I don't yet know exactly what it is that’s trapped in these phases with me, but with each experience, I have more reason to believe that it doesn't like my company. When I read these last few lines again, I feel a little... let's say unsettled. Not because of their content, more because I sound a little too unstable to myself. I started to construct a lot of “what ifs” in my head that make me doubt that whatever is happening is even real. Maybe that's why I'm writing everything down because it reassures me that my brain isn't winning the tug-of-war against madness. Time is frozen right now and my current location is inside my apartment. I will try to recall the events of the past timewaves as accurately as possible, or at least as much as I can, before I have to move on again. Because it never takes exceptionally long for it to find me, once everything around me stopped moving.
Okay, let's pick up where I left off last time. When I wrote that message, I hid in the luggage storage area of the train station, lying between several layers of suitcases and backpacks, so that I could feel at least a little safe. The looks I received were rather strange when, not long afterward, normal time began to resume, and I suddenly emerged from a mountain of luggage. The way time went back to normal felt like a ramp-up, starting rather slowly but eventually reaching the usual speed.
I must have looked like an undead, at least that's how the events before made me feel, but I have rarely felt as relieved as I did at that moment. A small part of me, looking back it probably was actually the largest part, hoped that this would have been a one-off experience, but as you can see from these lines, it wasn't.
My next stop was the apartment, a warm bath and several irrelevant videos from the Internet were definitely necessary to digest the shock. The train ride and the short walk there had no reason to feel so carefree, not after everything that had happened before. When I got home, I was immediately overcome by a feeling of relief and a small, gentle laugh began to tremble in my chest. This time I could for sure hear it, louder and louder and, with more relief, I let the laughter flow freely until my ribs began to cramp and my lungs could no longer get enough air. Slowly, the events before moved into the less relevant areas of my brain and the adrenaline finally stopped, so I decided to prepare my well-deserved bath.
At this point, I was not yet aware of the danger of my situation; how could it have been? As far as I knew, the incident could have been just a one-time event or one of my usual changes in perception, with perhaps a little more spice than usual. The warm water with the aroma of roses greeted me with a gentle hug, washing away the horror of the last "hours". The more I thought about it, the stranger the situation seemed to me, but first came relaxation, then I could worry again. The bath went without any notable incidents, relaxed and relieved, I got out of the tub, the fluffy bathrobe was already ready and calling me to it. Wrapped up and comfortable, I left the bathroom, quickly pressing the button that opened the tub drain on the way out, which made a faint gurgling noise every time.
It got louder as my still slightly damp feet carried me into the kitchen. Without thinking too much about the noise, I reached for the toaster, threw two slices of bread in and let them bake. The noise from the bathroom had already reached a strangely loud level by then. Maybe something was caught in the drain, so I made my way back into the bathroom when I noticed something. The water wasn't going down the drain. A waterspout-like whirlpool swept through the tub, hurling drops across the room with a wind that almost knocked me off my feet and found its end in the inlet opening. The wild movements slowly died down the closer I fought my way to the little wet tornado. It soon stood almost completely still, the outer surface shimmering in a bluish silver tone that reflected a distorted version of me. The slurping sound of the water being pushed back into the pipe also quieted down when I reached out for it. Slowly, the sounds of the roaring and slurping merged into a kind of noise, like you hear on old TVs, until my hearing was able to filter out something. It was speaking. Like thousands of little demons in purgatory, tortured screams mingled together, all screaming the same thing at slightly different times.
"You can't delay!"
"You can't delay!"
"You can't delay!"
Even though I didn't know what it meant, the screams put me into a kind of trance, more and more each time they spoke, drawing me to the whirlpool and asking me to get in. Almost out of control, my head headed towards the faucet, something inside me wanted to reach for the tornado. It seemed so beautiful, so warm, so calm. The sounds continued to wash over me like a wave of honey, swallowing me whole in its beautiful noises. It would take away all my worries, it told me. I believed, not being able to find a reason for it to lie. With every sweet cry and every second that passed, the desire to dive into it grew stronger.
"Join us!"
"Join us!"
"Join us!"
Those screams seemed different from before, the sweet tone all of a sudden deep and yearning. The deliriousness cleared just a bit but enough, that my brain could begin replaying the fresh memory of my experiences during the time break. What if this moment was part of it too? What if it could influence things outside of a time anomaly as well? No, I couldn't give in. I couldn’t fall for the beautiful sounds of its sirens. With the last of my willpower, I was able to break the spell and almost fell over, but just managed to stumble to the button and close the drain.
Immediately, the water feature disintegrated before my eyes and was soon nothing more than a quiet puddle. Only then did I feel my heart racing and the ice-cold feeling running down my backside, which must have been there for a while because my back felt frozen solid to the touch, as if all blood circulation had been interrupted. There was something in this water and I urgently needed to get away from it. I practically rushed out of the bathroom as fast as I could, slamming the door as if my life depended on it. My hands found support on the wardrobe in the hallway, and I was able to breathe a sigh of relief for a moment, then my skin began to itch.
That’s right, I had bathed in that water before. Perhaps whatever was in it had settled on my skin? I had also drunk from it. Maybe it was now decomposing my lungs from the inside? An inner panic of unimaginable proportions began to wash away the warm feeling of the bath before and replaced it with sheer fear, but I had already been through enough. I needed to calm down and told myself that I would be safe within my apartment, that I had only been confused and out of sorts from my previous experiences during the timestop and that the symptoms o...
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