1 Arrhythmia
Nicanor Reyes Street, Sampaloc, Manila, Philippines. March 2, 2020
Getting goosebumps early in the morning is unnatural even for Geneva. She suddenly stood up while sensing the bad aura that is lurking outside her place. "It has started," she said while picking a kitchen knife then hiding it in the back of her jacket.
As soon as she opened the door of her apartment, a red car flew across. She was agitated, excited, and sad at the same time.
Geneva started to wave in a certain pattern with her hands and then it simultaneously made time slower, so slow to the point where it is like an undisturbed lake. She jumped to the car which is below the second floor of their building then another jump makes her touch the earth.
Funny faces of people screaming in slow motion make her giggle, though what she would do is very saddening. While aging, Geneva rushed towards a male, almost four feet floating above the ground, doing the same gestures as her.
The man's eyes are grayish, nose bleeding, and with a thirst to kill. "I need to finish this now," she said as she jumped on the man picking her knife, and then bury it right through his heart.
As time flows faster, Geneva started to move slower. "Did I over-extend?" although she knows, she would still ask herself.
It's her power's consequence.
Every moment she controls the flow of time, she would age as if her time is being sucked dry to the point she dies. From another perspective, she would lose one second and then age a year.
The old woman, approximately ninety to ninety-five years old, returned to her apartment. She cast her mantra while waving to end the temporal manipulation and then she rests - waiting for her body to recover.
Geneva is forty-four years old. She acquired her talent when she was ten years old and even experienced near death so many times because of her temporal manipulation being extended.
"Geneva." a soft voice coming from nowhere suddenly propagate throughout her mind as if they were one. The noise coming from outside like the screams, explosions and wailing sirens suddenly ceases as if they have been in a radio set with volume control.
"Geneva, please talk to me." the soft voice continued to speak. It is a woman's voice and it is in Japanese.
Geneva, with a creased forehead, asked herself how could she understand Japanese. She did not even learn a word from it.
"Geneva, I am running out of time. I am Kayoko and I need you to save Eloisa." whilst saying those names, images appeared in Geneva's memories. As if they belong to her. Kayoko really messes her up and her nose would start bleeding. Geneva is around eighty years old as of the moment Kayoko entered her consciousness and she is barely breathing.
Kayoko is a clairvoyant and uses telepathy to communicate to whoever she needs to. Geneva, with slower recovery, starts to absorb all images Kayoko has seen even when Kayoko got hit by lighting - the same lightning that struck Geneva when she was ten years old.
Eloisa has been diagnosed with Bradycardia, an illness of having a slow heartbeat. Although it is far from fatal, she would die from it. Even after being struck by the lightning, her condition didn't get better and for worsening the situation, she has been hunted for being a key person in a prophecy stated ninety-three years ago by a clairvoyant with an unknown name and origin.
Kayoko cannot see far into the future yet but she knows that Eloisa is needed to be saved. Otherwise, a dark aura will surround the world, triggering the end of times.
Geneva lost her consciousness.
-
San Vicente, Tarlac City, Philippines. March 3, 2020
Every person that has been struck by lightning that day never wake up until yesterday. They were in a coma for years and some of them woke up completely perplexed, some calm, and others were violent and have killing intent.
The President of the Republic of the Philippines proclaimed martial law due to the state of emergency the monsters, as they called them, brought. Proclamation No. 922 s. 2020, in a simple term, states that nobody can either enter the country or leave it. It also states that military personnel will add extra security for the victims of the unknown phenomenon and it will last until the Department of Science and Technology finds an answer.
It is unclear why those lightning strikes simultaneously hit people around the world on the 16th day of September 2016. It has been almost four years since then but nobody knows the answer until somehow, a percentage of these people, started chaos by developing some sort of power within them. Scientists begin to speculate if these powers were the result of the worldwide phenomena. There is only a bit of a problem, these people are scientists and they cannot believe something, some unfamiliar force is disobeying the laws of physics.
Lying beside Eloisa, Athena wakes up frantically as she was having a nightmare about her best friend. "Eloisa, please wake up," she said to the woman in deep sleep. "The others are already awake," she added, and as soon as she stopped talking Eloisa's heart stopped beating.
Athena's a bit shocked and petrified while her eyes begin to summon tears. She screamed, "Eloisa!"
As fast as they can, some police officers from outside Eloisa's room rushed in not to take care of her but to point their gun at her. Athena spreads her arms while crying and using her body as a shield. "She stopped breathing and you point your guns at her? Are you still human?" she's hysterically shouting, spitting her saliva in every word she says.
In a moment there, one police officer pointed, with his index finger, the direction of Eloisa who is now gone.
She vanished like a bubble popped out into thin air.
In awe, all the people in that room, sat to the nearest chairs and even on the floor, losing their breath as they reach the highest point of anxiety - the panic level.
