Timepieces and Bloodloss

"Timekeeper, calm down."

A voice spoke to me as if it was beamed directly into my head. A weird feeling considering that I'd only ever heard things externally. That and the fact that there was no one else in the hallway to have possibly spoken to me.

I tried to calm myself despite the spinning world by taking a few deep breaths. The dizziness subsided slightly, but not enough to make things too much better.

"You need to find somewhere isolated."

There it was again. Through the intense vertigo earlier, I was unable to tell much about the voice other than that it spoke directly into my head, but now I could make out a vague gender. The voice seemed to be slightly feminine, but not fully female. It was the type of voice you'd call soothing in any other circumstance, however, currently, it was almost as nauseating as the spinning hall.

Somehow, I made it into the bathroom and the large, handicapped stall. I sat down on the closed toilet and tried to get a hold of myself, but it was a slower process than I would've liked. After two or so minutes, the spinning subsided, though the nausea was still present. It was now that the voice decided to speak again.

"Hello, Timekeeper, my name is Unit 0027, I will be in your care. It appears as though some of my parts are damaged or missing, as such my connection to the Timewire is limited to pre-downloaded data. Would you like to review what data is available to you?"

On instinct I swung my head around the stall, trying to find the source of the voice. Just like in the hall, there was no one nearby, no one to talk to me and say confusing stuff like they were unit something or other.

"I assume you are looking for me, I am on your wrist currently. Your blood pressure seems to be elevated; I recommend some breathing exercises."

"My wrist…?" Looking down at my watch, things started to click into place in my jumbled mind. Time this, time that, whatever watch he'd picked from that guy wasn't normal. Even the highest-tech smartwatches had no way of beaming a voice right into your head.

"Yes. I suggest running the crash course once your blood is replaced."

"Woah, woah, woah, what do you mean wait until my blood is replaced?! How was it even drained in the first place?!" I couldn't manage much more than a hushed whisper, and it was for the best. If someone had been walking by and heard me, things could've gone south, fast.

"As you do not know my functions, I will initiate the walkthrough mode. Do I have approval?"

I almost jumped on it and said yes, but if it wanted my blood to be replaced before the crash course, there was a chance I would lose more blood simply by using the watch beyond talking to it. It was with the thought of blood in my mind that I noticed the formerly silver lining of the black watch had turned crimson. Everything from the numbers to the hands, the lining around the glass, it was all filled with blood, but I could worry about exactly what that meant after I went through the walkthrough.

"What exactly is the walkthrough mode?"

"Within the walkthrough mode, I will be explaining all of my most basic functions to you without the activation of any functions."

I contemplated the watch for a bit longer, I even thought about taking it off and getting rid of it, but the tech-loving side of me wanted to see just what this thing was capable of. And it managed to win out against the rational side of me.

"Initiate walkthrough mode."

"Understood."

The watch went silent for a few moments but came back and started talking once more.

"I am a Temporal Shifting Unit, more easily referred to as a TSU or a Timepiece. My main function is to allow the user to distort the flow of time to a limited degree. ⋘ Further information is unavailable ⋙."

"Wait, that's it?" I looked down at the Timepiece on my wrist, confusion written clearly on my face, if it could even see it.

"⋘ Further information from the Timewire is needed to proceed ⋙."

All I could do by this point was sigh and let out a broken, half-hearted laugh. I asked another question, hoping it didn't need information from the Timewire to work. And influencing the flow of time? Was that what that man did earlier?

"Why did I lose blood earlier? Did you drain it from me?"

"In an attempt to protect you from a foreign temporal distortion, I used the emergency activation function, which caused a larger than normal amount of blood to be extracted from your person."

Thinking about the situation, my rational side finally started to win out against my curiosity. I didn't want the parasite of a watch on my body any longer and went to unstrap it, only for an alarm to start blaring in my head.

"Warning. Removal of a synced Timepiece can cause problems with your temporal field. Under mortal risk, I encourage the synced Timekeeper to not keep the Timepiece removed for more than four hours at a time."

At that, I moved my hand away from the watch straps. I didn't know exactly what a temporal field was, but I could make a guess. It was probably what kept you anchored to the flow of time, almost like an electromagnetic field or gravitational field keeps us anchored to the planet. There was no telling exactly what would happen if I messed that up.

"Damn…" It was only now that I looked at the time on the watch, too much time had passed, and I'd been gone from the classroom for over seven minutes, even Mrs. Hughes would be suspicious if I took too long.