Chennai at night had a different personality.
Less shouting, more murmuring.
Less chaos, more caution.
And the kind of humidity that made Arun wonder why India existed below the Tropic of Cancer.
He stepped off the office bus near his street, massaging his shoulders.
It had been a long day — debugging, meetings, HR mails, and secretly using time freeze to avoid making small talk with an overly excited intern.
He walked down the dim street leading to home.
Most shops had shut already.
A single paan shop's fluorescent tube flickered like it had depression.
Dogs barked from somewhere far away.
The streetlights worked in a "one-on-one-off" pattern like a broken chessboard.
Arun's mind wasn't on the road.
He was thinking about the Mumbai transfer.
New city. New office. New… everything.
He wasn't sentimental.
But a small part of him felt something unfamiliar.
Hope?
Possibility?
Annoyance at having to repack clothes?
Maybe all three.
He crossed a narrow intersection — barely a four-way junction where autos bullied cars regularly.
Tonight, it was dead quiet.
He took three steps into the crossing—
—and heard a distant roar.
A fast roar.
He instinctively turned his head—
—and his heart dropped.
A motorbike—no headlights, engine screaming, rider drunk off his skull—was blasting through the junction at a deadly speed.
Straight toward Arun.
There was no time.
No warning.
No space to jump aside.
Just a wall of metal and velocity coming at him like a missile.
Arun didn't think.
He reacted.
And his body screamed:
STOP!
The world froze.
Silence swallowed the street.
The dog barking in the distance froze mid-bark.
A plastic bag mid-air froze as if pinned by invisible needles.
The dying tube light paused in its flicker.
And the drunk rider was suspended mid-impact, face twisted, bike lifted slightly off the ground like a wild animal caught mid-pounce.
Arun stumbled backward, nearly hitting the electric pole.
He stared at the scene, breathing heavily.
Then he shouted — purely out of the adrenaline still in his body:
"ARE YOU MAD?!!"
His voice echoed back at him, no one else alive in this moment to answer.
He placed his hands on his knees, bent forward, and tried to calm his heart.
"Dai… yen life ippidi…"
He straightened slowly and took a step toward the frozen bike.
He studied the rider.
Drunk eyes. No helmet. Shirt unbuttoned like he thought he was a movie star.
And the bike would have absolutely destroyed Arun had he not frozen time.
Arun felt a small wave of delayed fear.
Not panic.
Frustration.
"If time didn't freeze… I'd be paste on the road."
The thought made him clench his jaw.
He walked around the frozen bike, inspecting it like a mechanic about to complain about every part.
"Okay, idiot. Let's teach you something."
He placed two fingers on the rider's forehead and gently pushed backward.
Nothing happened.
The rider remained frozen.
He sighed.
"Right. Heavy objects = strain."
He braced himself, grabbed the handlebar, and pulled the entire bike sideways.
His muscles screamed.
His shoulder burned.
But the bike moved — slowly, like dragging a vending machine filled with cement.
"I need a gym membership after this… or time powers that skip exercise."
He finally managed to tilt the bike completely to the right and drop it safely on the road — far away from where he was standing.
Arun straightened up, gasping.
"Why do drunk people think they're immortal?"
He walked back to the original spot.
Looked around once.
Then whispered:
"Resume."
Time snapped back.
The bike crashed sideways on the road, rider tumbling harmlessly onto the ground with a confused shout.
"DAIII! WHO PUSHED ME?!!"
Arun stood there calmly watching.
The rider scrambled to his feet, dizzy and swearing.
"Bike… bike slipped… bloody road… maintenance illa…"
He picked up his bike and glared around as if the darkness itself was responsible.
Arun stepped into the nearest streetlight's glow.
The rider finally noticed him.
"You saw? Road is bad, ah? Bike skid suddenly!"
Arun nodded with zero emotion. "Yes. Road is bad. You are worse."
The drunk man frowned, processing slowly. "What?"
Arun pointed at the skid marks. "Buy a helmet."
The man blinked, swayed, then muttered something and limped away with his bike.
Arun let out a slow exhale.
Seconds ago, the world nearly killed him.
But something inside him was calm again.
The power had acted before he mentally commanded it.
Instinct.
It triggered when his survival was threatened.
That meant something.
He leaned against the electric pole and closed his eyes.
Rule discovered: In life-threatening situations, time freeze can trigger automatically.
He opened his eyes.
A chill ran down his spine.
This was no small ability.
No coin trick.
No convenience tool.
This was a literal second chance at anything.
An anti-death mechanism.
A protective instinct of the universe.
Or maybe just of him.
He walked toward home, feeling more awake than he had felt in years.
The sweat on his forehead wasn't from fear anymore.
It was the realization that he was growing into this power faster than expected.
He reached his small room, locked the door behind him, and collapsed on the cot.
He stared at the ceiling fan.
"Okay… now I know what this thing is capable of. I need rules."
He extended a hand upward and began talking to himself like a scientist planning experiments.
"Number one… power activates with willpower."
"Number two… selective unfreeze works only with focus on specific objects."
"Number three…"
He exhaled slowly.
"…in danger, time freeze activates spontaneously. No conscious command needed."
He stared at his hand again, wiggling his fingers.
"What am I turning into? Some god-level glitch in the universe?"
He paused, frowned, and corrected himself.
"Okay no, not god. More like… beta version of god. Limited features. Bugs included."
He sat up, rubbing his palms together.
Then something else hit him.
Something much more dangerous.
"If the power activates without my command… what if it activates when people are watching?"
He stopped breathing for half a second.
That was a problem.
A huge one.
If people ever noticed what he could do, his life would go from normal to nightmare in seconds.
Government. Scientists. Police. Military. Private organizations.
Everyone would want him.
Arun stood and began pacing the tiny room.
"Okay. Calm down. First step: no using powers in crowds. Second step: act normal. Third step: don't get crushed by drunk drivers."
He paused.
Then smirked to himself.
"Fourth step… learn control before Mumbai. Cannot embarrass myself in bigger city."
He lay back on the cot and let out a long sigh.
Between office tension and almost dying, he was exhausted.
But beneath all of that was something new.
A feeling he didn't recognize immediately.
Not fear.
Not pride.
Not excitement.
It was something more subtle.
Belonging.
As if for the first time in his life, he wasn't just drifting along.
He mattered.
The world didn't feel bigger than him anymore.
He had power — not over people, but over something even more precious.
Time.
He turned to the side, eyes closing.
Tomorrow would be normal again.
Office. HR. Mumbai documents. Senthil's bad jokes.
Except now… normal didn't scare him.
Because if anything went wrong?
He could stop the world.
And handle it.