Time Lapse

2. zephyr

zeph•yr |ˈze-fər|

noun. a very slight or gentle breeze

The day after Bryan confessed his secret to Josie, the skies cleared up and the town was enveloped in rays of sunshine. Bryan and Josie soon became inseparable and were known as the rowdy duo to their neighbors. Bryan's taunting was always closely followed by Josie's soft laughter, and the mix of their voices became music to the cul-de-sac they lived in.

Even though Bryan was fully aware that Josie never told him her secret, he never pushed her to tell him. In fact, it nearly slipped his mind since she was constantly in a good mood. She never appeared to walk on eggshells anymore, and it didn't look like an invisible force haunted her at all times.

Josie also noticed the uplift in her own spirits as a result in making a new friend. She realized that the happier she was, the less likely her recurring visions haunted her. It was like she was on a cloud, peacefully drifting through the summer days.

In those blissful days, both kids never thought of the age-old saying: "what goes up must come down." Even clouds are not immune to this saying, and they cannot stay in the sky forever. They condense and fall down from the highest of heights and splatter on the sidewalks as rain. So naturally, it was only a matter of time before Josie and Bryan's happiness were dragged down by gravity.

Bryan was in the middle of showing Josie the extent of his abilities one afternoon when an unfortunate event triggered the beginning of Josie's downwards spiral.

"Wait here for an hour. If I did my calculations correctly, it should take about an hour and thirteen minutes for me get to the ocean and back." Bryan placed his hands on Josie's shoulder and pushed her down on the sofa in front of the television inside his house. The old, leather chair let out a soft groan. "You said you wanted a seashell?"

Josie nodded emphatically. Her most recent move to Bryan's town was probably the furthest away from an ocean she could get - miles and miles of farmland surrounded the town. She never lived near a large body of water before, and the ocean breeze existed only in fairytales for her. "I want to hear the sound of waves in the shell."

"Your wish is my command," Bryan chuckled before he disappeared. The sound of his laughter was carried away by the wind left in his wake. When Josie was surrounded by silence, she mindlessly reached for the television remote. Even though the television was on, she barely paid attention to the show. All she could think of was Bryan.

Bryan demonstrated his ability to Josie countless times before, but she still found it difficult to wrap her head around the fact that he could run at nearly the speed of light. Before this afternoon, he only ran small distances to prove his point; but for the first time since the two of them met, he offered to run halfway across the country to get her a seashell.

She felt a warm sensation travel up her stomach and into her heart. With each successive heartbeat, her feelings for Bryan travelled to the tips of her toes and the ends of her fingers. It filled her up with happiness that she never thought was possible. Even though he was just proving his supernatural abilities by getting her a shell, she couldn't help but feeling cared for. She wanted to think that she was special to Bryan, just like how he was special to her.