Raven looks up from the glowing screen, her face holding disbelief and then uneasiness. She looks around the room hastily, probably to find some sort of escape to the situation I have trapped her in with my simple question. I won't let you escape this one Raven. I need to know. I look at the smallest movement created by Raven's slim hand, which is gripping the desk, ready to run. Before she can, I wrap my hand around her tiny wrist firmly, refusing to let go as I look into her eyes, waiting for an answer. She looks at me and must realize how determined I am to keep her here, to have her spill her deepest secret into my ears, as she sighs and leans back in her chair, staring at the unanswered question. I let go of her wrist uncertainty before turning back to my phone, those three dots haunting me as they seem to last forever. I sigh heavily and look back toward Raven impatiently as she is typing, but then stops, deletes her previous text, and starts again. I know I asked her to answer my question and she is, but I am just itching to hear the answer, even though I am pretty sure I already do. The real question is how and why? Soon the answer is revealed as the fateful dinging sound emerges from my phone. 

Raven: He is gone. 

Luna: Gone. Like, not here? Like not...alive?

Raven: yup okay now my question to you. 

Luna: Don't you want to talk about it?

Raven: No thanks

Luna: okay

Raven: okay?

Luna: yeah if u don't want to talk I will respect that and I'm ready to listen whenever u are ready to talk

Raven: wow thx

Luna: np. Now ur question?

Raven: um who is ur favorite person in the world

My favorite person. It could be my mom, but she is never home. It's definitely not Ashley, maybe Ethan or Lucas or Aidan. Raven. It's probably Raven, she is the one who makes me feel the most happy and special, but I don't want to sound too creepy. 

Luna: my brother Aidan maybe

Raven: oh. Cool. 

Luna: yeah uh what's your favorite food

Raven: i would say pizza

Luna: omg! Me too!

Raven: rly?! We should get pizza together sometime!

Raven: I mean if u want to. Maybe. 

Luna: that would be so fun! Let's do it!

Raven: so this weekend maybe?

Luna: yeah! Now I want to fast forward time just for it to be weekend. 

Raven: I can.

Luna: oh yeah! Lol I forgot, even tho that's a pretty hard thing to forget. 

Raven: yeah

Luna: I'm still not over that u have a freaking super power! I feel like I'm in a movie or something except I'm not as cool as the characters. 

Raven: I've never rly seen a superhero movie. 

Luna: r u kidding me I HAVE TO SHOW YOU ONE

Luna: We could watch it after eating pizza!!

Raven: sounds great! Which movie should we see?

Luna: I have a feeling u will rly like the flash so we can see the new justice league movie

Raven: idk who that is but sure let's do it

Luna: great!

Raven: who's your favorite superhero?

Luna: it was spiderman but now it's definitely the flash

Raven: why the sudden change?

Luna: you'll see...

Raven: so mysterious lol

Luna: I'm so excited now it's like my two favorite things. Superheroes and PIZZA

Raven: nice

Luna: what are your two favorite things?

Raven: music and my awesome jacket ;)

Luna: lol very swaggy

Raven: never use the word swaggy ever again

Luna: :(

Raven: :)

Luna: u think we have enough info for our project?

Raven: definitely 

I look up from my phone with a stupid grin on my face. I feel like I have gained a new best friend. We seem to click perfectly, unlike any other friendship I've ever been in. We both have a sarcastic humor, love pizza, love movies, what else could you want in a friend? But what makes my eyes light up even more is when I look over at Raven to find the same stupid smile spread across her face. 

"So are we all done?" I ask, inquisitively.
"I think so. We just need to copy down our answers onto our paper and then we will be finished."
"Cool." We spend the next few minutes copying down our answers, looking back and forth from the phone to the page, eventually giving me neck pains. Once I finish, I reach a hand behind me to gently rub the back of my neck and wait for Raven to finish up. After yet another minute, Raven looks up. 

"Okay, so now comes the tricky part with stopping time."

"What?" I look at her with a raise of eyebrows. Of course there is a consequence. Every superpower comes with some sort of setback! The question is, how bad of a consequence is it?

"Basically, you just have to return to the exact position you were in before I paused the time, so when I resume it, it looks like nothing happened."

"What happens if you don't get in the exact position?"

"It will basically look like a glitch in time and that might cause a bit of confusion for their puny, non superhero brains." Raven smirks at this statement, obviously being a bit of a show off of how she is basically like a superhero and I'm not. 

"Hey! My brain has feelings you know!" Raven looks a bit confused at first, but then seems to realize something and laughs. 

"What?" I defend. She must be laughing about me.
"Nothing, I just- nothing, never mind."

I start to object, but don't want to seem to pushy and decide not to. 

"So, how do I return the the exact position I was in before without looking like some sort of glitch?" I ask Raven. I have no idea how this task will be completed successfully, it just seems so impossible. But then again, I thought having superpowers was impossible 3 days ago, so who knows?

"It won't be easy, you can trust me on that, but I did do something that might help." She has a suspicious grin on her face as she picks up her phone and starts sliding her finger repetitively across the screen. I await patiently, tapping my forefinger on the desk to remind Raven that I am waiting. Finally, Raven's finger stops moving and she flips her phone around, shoving the blue screen into my face. It is a picture of me, I am slumped over on my desk and my face is covered by the palms of my hands. I look back up at Raven, done with viewing that disgusting photo of myself, and wait for an explanation. When it doesn't come, I decide to bring it up. 

"Well?"

"Well, what?"

"Well, why is there that horrible picture of me on your phone?"

"First of all, it's not horrible. Second of all, it's to help you. To help get back into that position so we can start time again." Her tone is suddenly irritated, which only aggravates me more. 

"Um, it is horrible. It is basically a captured moment of me in my lowest moment."

"It's probably not your lowest moment! Besides, I'm just trying to help! All you have to do is recreate it to get back to real time."

"Fine. I'll do what you want." It's like I can't stop these aggressive words from spilling out of my mouth. Where are they coming from? I can feel a deep pit of anger and aggression twisting and churning inside my stomach, causing an eruption of fowl words and a disastrous attitude to spill from my lips and into Raven's innocent mind. Why is this happening? 

I get up and trudge through the groups of frozen bodies that I have completely forgotten about until now. Once I reach my desk, I plop down into the chair and reluctantly slump over and put my face into my hands, recreating the photo, purposely resuming a terrible moment in my life. I can feel sweat build on my palms and forehead as I wait for Raven to start time again. It always seems like I am waiting for her, like she doesn't care about how I feel by her disappearing and making me wait, for her. 

"Raven, are you gonna sta-" Suddenly there is a burst of noise, the class scrambling to gather their papers and turn them into the teacher. I look up, allowing cool air to swirl through the rows of desks and cool the beads of sweat starting to drip down my nose. 

"Oh my god, Ethan, did you see that girl take a picture of Luna? What a stalker! I knew she was a creep!" I hear a voice from behind me and can only recognize that provocating voice as Ashley. She is purposely being loud, so I can hear it. Even though I am still mad at Raven for what she did, though I know deep inside that it wasn't her fault, I cannot let someone, Ashley no less, insult her. I spin around and shoot Ashley the deadliest stare I can muster, but all Ashley does is smirk at my attempt. I cannot stand her anymore! She used to be my friend, but now is my worst enemy. Everything's all her fault! She pushed me away and stole Ethan, and tried to take Raven from me too, with those lies about her. I am done. I get up and accost Ashley, standing above her, next to her desk.

"You know what Ashley, I have had enough of your sh-" 

"Everybody! Everyone. Please return to your seats and uh put your papers on the edge of your desk, so I can, uh, pick it up, please." Mr. Swinburne is waving his hands around at the front of the class to get everyone's attention, causing the chaotic conversations erupting from the class to dwindle to a murmur. Not able to finish my spill of anger, I send one last glare to Ashley instead before returning to my seat. My paper of messily strewn questions and answers is already laying on the desk in a crumpled form. God, I wish the school day could be over already. Maybe it could be.

I look behind me to Raven, who is peering over her sheet of paper, but when she senses my movement, she looks over at me. I send her a pleading look with my eyes and she responds with a confused look written all over her face. I try yet another way to signal her. I move my hands to a slicing motion, trying to show her that I want to stop time to talk to her. She seems to get the message, but only shakes her head stubbornly. Honestly at this point, I could care less what Ashley thinks about me and my relations with Raven. I get up from my desk and walk across the class to Raven.

"Luna, you are already in enough trouble as it is, go back to your seat," Mr. Swinburne says, impatiently. 

I decide to make it quick and only mutter a few words into Raven's ear before turning away to take my seat again.

"Fast forward time to the end of the school day." I am about to walk off, but she grabs my hand and pulls me back around. 

"Meet me in the closet by the water fountain with the metallic tasting water." 

"What? Okay, I guess, but why the closet?" 

I am yet again interrupted from finding answers when Mr. Swinburne becomes impatient.

"Luna! Back to your seat, right now please!" I roll my eyes and trudge back to my seat.

  What have I become? I'm like some sort of monst- a monster. I am the monster. Not that thing that was supposedly in the schoolyard, me. I barely pay attention to the rest of class as I think about that concept, and the more I think about it, the more real it becomes. At last, the bell rings, rattling me from my thoughts. I stand up and walk from the class to find that stupid closet by the stupid water fountain. Once I find it, I twist open the knob and walk inside the small, dark room. I close the door and the room is pitch black, but I can still make out two bright circles of color that I could never miss.

------

AN:          ^_^