Time ceased to flow.
David felt it first as resistance, as if the air around him had transformed into thick honey. His limbs moved with agonizing slowness, each attempted motion requiring impossible effort against the weight of suspended reality. The world around him shifted into a tableau of frozen moments—Elara's fireball hanging in mid-creation, flames blooming outward like a deadly flower opening in slow motion. Luna's shadows extended at a glacial pace, obsidian tendrils that seemed painted against the laboratory walls rather than actively moving.
What... is... happening? David's thoughts felt sluggish, as if each one had to push through the same temporal molasses that gripped his body.
