The Day Time Stopped  

It started at exactly 7:14 a.m. — not that anyone knew it right away.  

Emma woke up to the sound of silence. Normally, the ticking of her old wooden clock was a comforting rhythm, but today it was gone. She glanced at the face of the clock on her nightstand. The hands pointed stubbornly at 7:14. She tapped the glass, but they didn’t move.  

Shrugging it off, she got out of bed and padded into the kitchen. The microwave clock also read 7:14. The wall clock in the living room? 7:14. Even her phone, when she tried to turn it on, stayed frozen on the same time.  

Outside, the world seemed... off. The birds weren’t singing. The usual sounds of cars starting and neighbors chatting were absent. The air itself felt still, as if the wind had decided to take a break.  

When Emma turned on the news, the anchor sat frozen mid-sentence, his mouth hanging open. Every channel showed the same eerie stillness. Panic began to creep up her spine.  

Then the strangeness escalated.  

At precisely what should have been 7:15, Emma noticed the cat mid-leap from the couch — and staying there, suspended in the air. The leaves on the oak tree outside stopped rustling, hanging motionless in the breeze.  

She ran outside, calling out. No one answered. A paperboy was stuck in the middle of a throw, the newspaper hovering in the air. Cars sat on the road, drivers frozen behind the wheel.  

“Hello?” Emma’s voice echoed, too loud in the quiet.  

Then, far off, she saw movement — a boy, maybe ten, walking slowly down the street, looking just as bewildered as she felt.  

“You’re moving,” she called out, running toward him.  

“So are you,” he said when they met. “Everything else is stuck.”  

“Why us?” Emma asked.  

The boy shrugged. “I don’t know. But we should figure it out.”  

Together, they explored the silent town. As they walked, they noticed patterns — animals were frozen, but the wind wasn’t. Electronic devices were stuck, but the sun still rose higher in the sky.  

At the edge of town, they found an old, overgrown clock tower. The hands on its face were missing altogether.  

“Maybe this is the problem,” the boy suggested.  

Inside, the air smelled of dust and rust. The gears were still, caked in grime. At the base of the mechanism lay a small, glowing object — a crystal, pulsing faintly with light.  

“What is that?” Emma whispered.  

“I think it’s the heart of the clock,” the boy said, reaching toward it.  

As his fingers brushed the crystal, a jolt of energy surged through the room. The gears groaned and began to turn.  

Suddenly, the sound of birdsong filled the air. In the distance, the honk of a car horn. They ran outside just as the paperboy’s throw completed, the newspaper hitting the ground.  

Emma looked at her phone. 7:15.  

“Time’s moving again,” the boy said with a grin.  

But when Emma turned to thank him, he was gone.  

The clock tower’s bells chimed once, and everything was normal again — almost.