Revan Kaiser gasped audibly with a pistol's barrel in his mouth, his body thrashing violently atop his living room's suede couch. Throwing the gun aside, its safety still on, Revan ran his hands along his body. Hyperventilating, a cold sweat of panic building atop his brow, he looked around at his surroundings wearily.
The last thing he remembered wasn't placing a pistol in his mouth, but sprinting through the lobby of his apartment complex intent on escaping its domain. He remembered everything from his past life, each and every moment which led to his miserable death. The screaming citizens below, the crashing cars, the plummeting airplane… But his heart fluttered as he stared at the television screen opposite from him, its surface displaying re-runs of some show about oil rigs off the coast of Alaska.
There was no static. The ceiling fan pulsed steadily overhead, providing an eerie breeze as candles flickered all around Revan. It was as if he'd been induced with some suicide-precipitated hallucination, a premonition flashing before his eyes instead of memories from his prior thirty-one years.
For the first time in his life, Revan Kaiser literally pinched himself, squeezing the underside of his leg as if his fingers were crab claws. Pain rang out, reassuring himself that he was alive and well, despite memories of being crushed by twenty floors of brick and mortar.
By the time his heartbeat slowed to ninety beats per minute—elevated but not abnormal—the television cut to static once more, sending chills of delirium from his toes to his teeth. In the same moment, the distinctive hum of his ceiling fan ceased as candles spat smoke in place of flames.
It was a perverse, sickening moment of deja vu that made Revan leap from the couch to the balcony doors, banging his shin against the coffee table in the process, though he appreciated the pain because it meant he was alive.
Hobbling on a single leg with gritted teeth, he launched himself onto the balcony as a knock sounded on his front door. He looked in the sky first for any sign of an airplane, but the sky was empty aside from a few wispy clouds. Oddly enough, however, the sun was still shining, though the moon crested closely nearby, sauntering its way toward an eclipse.
Revan leaned over the balcony as the knocking at his door grew louder. A hundred feet below, there were no bodies lying dead on the ground, although there was something even more inexplicable. Everything, everyone, was frozen. The street was eerily silent. Cars with running engines were motionless along the street. Pedestrians on the sidewalk paused mid-stride. Even a pigeon across the street was suspended mid-air as it took flight from a telephone wire.
"Little pig, little pig, let me in," a voice rang out in tandem with the knocking, causing Revan to shrink away from the balcony. He feared he was going insane, though he remembered a lecture in college where his psychology professor said a crazy person doesn't know they're crazy. As good and dandy as that was, it did little to explain his resurrection.
After pulling open his apartment door, he came face to face with a woman holding a pizza box. As if everything happening wasn't weird enough, she said, "Pizza delivery for Revan Kaiser." She wore a disheveled uniform from some place he'd never heard of.
"I didn't order any pizza," Revan said through strained breaths. His head swam with a maelstrom of confusion, not understanding how or why this woman was here while city dwellers outside the apartment were frozen like mannequins.
"That's a relief," she sighed, smiling. It wasn't until he saw her smile that Revan noticed how attractive the female was. She was the sort of woman who could easily be on the cover of magazines, yet was somehow so down on luck that she had to deliver pizzas for minimum wage. Beneath her crumpled uniform hat was platinum dyed hair, though the bangs were jet-black, tucked behind her ears.
She continued, "I don't actually have any pizza, I just thought it would be a fun roleplay to try out. Besides, you're lactose intolerant, aren't you?"
"How the hell—" Revan started, rubbing his temples as the shitshow he found himself in grew exponentially. Not wanting to be rude, he asked, "Excuse me, do I know you? I don't recognize you from anywhere…"
She flashed Revan a look that made him feel dumb for asking the question. She replied, her smile fading, "The world is seconds away from ending, Revan Kaiser. Why don't we skip the introductions for now, eh? How about you invite me in?"
"I, erm," Revan stuttered, looking over his shoulder at the apartment's living room disarray. With the scattered, scentless candles and the gun lying on the floor, the space looked as if he were trying to engage in some sort of demonic seance. It wasn't the sort of place he wanted to invite an attractive woman, regardless of how odd her statements were.
She didn't wait for an invite and brushed past him before he could reply, throwing the empty pizza box on the nearby kitchen counter. She waltzed to the living room, hands on her hips as she sighed, "This has to be the most boring bachelor pad I've ever seen. No pictures or paintings hung, no decorations, no rugs… No wonder you were ready to kill yourself, I'd be miserable too if I lived such a dull life."
Shivers ran across the length of Revan's body, his heart skipping a beat at the mention of his failed attempt at suicide. Revan closed the apartment door and strode into the living room to join her, asking, "How the hell do you know about—"
"A man needs conviction, Revan," she said, cutting him off. She turned to face him, a look of pity echoing in her eyes. "Where the hell is your conviction, eh? Where's your passion?"
"Excuse me, but did you say the world is ending?" he asked. He'd been insulted by women in his past, but never before had one assaulted him on such a brazen, emotional level. A slap to the face was one thing, but being attacked for a lack of conviction? That was a first.
"Yes, well, time is relative for someone like me," she replied, striding to the balcony window so she could peer out at the frozen, inanimate people outside. "I've put a temporary freeze on everything outside this room for the moment. There's too much to catch you up on and not enough time to do it, so I paused time altogether."
The statement both made sense and was completely deranged at the same time. On one hand, it explained why life ceased all movement outside the apartment. On the other hand, the notion she proposed was utterly impossible. People couldn't stop the inevitable flow of time, Revan knew from common sense alone. If anything, time and death were the only two certainties in life.
"I don't mean to be rude," Revan stammered, trying to get his thoughts in order. "But who are you? And how did you know I was planning on killing…" He didn't finish the sentence, too embarrassed by his selfish cowardice. Minutes ago, suicide had seemed like the only reasonable answer to life's many problems. But now… How could he have been so stupid?
"I bet you think you're going crazy," the pizza delivery girl said with a chuckle. "They say the human brain can live for up to seven minutes after death, so I'm sure you're wondering if you were actually successful in pulling that trigger."
It's like she was in Revan's head reading his disorganized thoughts, further suggesting to him that she was right. For all he knew, maybe the pistol's safety wasn't on. Maybe, just maybe, he had blown his brains out and his mind was creating some weird, fucked up scenario as its lights faded from existence.
"I'll start off by saying that's not the case," the woman declared, leaving the balcony window and assuming a seat on Revan's couch. She sat exactly where he had moments ago, crossing her legs and looking up at him with amusement. "I have no way of proving it to you, but you are still very much alive. I even let you live out your final moments before hitting rewind, just so you could see what your future holds."
She was referencing the plane crash—the moment Revan's entire apartment complex collapsed atop him. Up to this moment, the man thought he'd hallucinated the occurrence, yet this woman knew about it as if she'd lived through it by his side.
"Are you a… Are you some kind of angel?" Revan asked, wanting to smack his forehead after hearing how ludicrous the question sounded.
She flashed a smile at him, almost as if it were a joke. "I mean no offense, Revan Kaiser, but why on earth would an angel waste their time coming to talk to you? Angels are zealous beings, and as I said before, you're a man who lacks conviction. You're nothing more than an insignificant speck of dust in their eyes. And besides, angels aren't powerful enough to stop time."
"Then are you—"
"No, I'm not God either," she replied, cutting him off before he embarrassed himself again with another ignorant question. "With all due respect, I think this meeting will be much more productive if you let me do the explaining. Now how about you have a seat. Kick back and relax, why don't you? After all, we both know your schedule is cleared for this afternoon."
Revan froze, every instinct within him telling him to check the balcony once more for the falling plane. He decided against it and took a seat at an adjacent leather sofa, rubbing his hands anxiously down the course of his pants.
"I've been watching you for quite some time, Revan Kaiser," she said. She who hadn't yet revealed her name. She who Revan didn't recognize in the slightest. She who knew how to pause time itself and stop the earth's orbit.
She continued, bluntly, "You're a nobody. You haven't done diddly-squat with your life. Why's that?"
If he was being honest with himself, he'd never asked himself such a question. The world was already harsh enough on him, so why bother beating himself up? Between the time he woke up on any given day and the moment he went to sleep, Revan spent his time inwardly complaining, yet he'd never taken it upon himself to fix his many problems.
Instead of answering her question, he asked, "You've been watching me?"
"Don't flatter yourself, hotshot," she giggled. "I watch many people purely out of my professional duties. You in particular drew my attention several years ago, when your bride-to-be left you at the altar. How embarrassing!"
"How did you know about—" Revan gulped, the memory seared into the forefront of his mind.
"But even more remarkable was what happened that same night, when you made the first attempt on your life," she said, unbothered by the morose details involving Revan's suicidal ideation. "You intended on throwing yourself over the side of the Hargrove Bridge, do I have that right?"
Revan nodded, thoughts of Melissa Baker lobotomizing his brain for the first time in several years. Since the moment she abandoned him, he'd been utterly inconsolable. She'd taken any semblance of joy he'd felt in earlier years and doused them in complete darkness.
"Tell me what happened that night," she said, urging him to speak aloud the sole reason he was still alive, extending his shelf-life for six more years of misery.
"You already know what happened that night," he replied coldly.
"But I want to hear you say it."
"Hargrove Bridge overlooks the Hargrove River," he began, unsure why this woman derived so much pleasure from making him relive past sufferings. "When I looked over its edge, I saw… I saw a stray dog caught in the rapids… It was drowning."
Revan's eyes flicked briefly to the empty dog bed sitting in the corner of the living room, then continued, "It was nearly midnight. There was no one else around. I knew if I didn't do something, the dog would die."
"So you jumped in," she applauds, clapping her hands sarcastically. "The same jump you planned on taking in order to kill yourself, you took so you could save another life."
Still staring at the dog bed, he briefly recounted the years he'd spent with Chance, the dog he saved that night. The dog had no collar or microchip, so Revan had posted fliers for several weeks to find its owner. But after no one came forward to claim the canine, Revan refused to turn the dog in to the shelter. In many ways, Chance had been the only reason Revan's heart was able to heal from Emily's absence.
"I'd heard of other people dying in the rapids, but I wasn't sure if it would work. I wasn't thinking rationally… Like you said, the love of my life—the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with—had just left me at the fucking altar."
"You didn't do it for recognition," she said, ignoring his latter comment. "No one was there to give you a clap on the back. No one wrote a news article titled: Brave Citizen Risks Life to Save Drowning Mutt. You did it simply because someone was in need, and you possessed the ability to lend a helping hand. In fact, after going back in time and analyzing your life, you've exhibited many acts of suicidal bravery."
"What's your point?"
"My point is," she sighed, unimpressed by Revan's deduction skills, "Sometimes the only thing separating death and defiance is a single good deed. Like I said before, you're a nobody, Revan Kaiser. No one will remember you, and being forgotten is one of humanity's greatest fears. Even though they know it's inevitable, they rage against its futility, motivated to be the best they can be. But not you. In fact, you embrace it. In some ways, your desire for death is your greatest strength."
Oddly enough, her words were the first genuine compliment Revan had ever received. Still, the mysterious woman wasn't done singing him praise. "I've come to you, Revan Kaiser, because you might just be humanity's last hope. As of this moment, you might very well be the weakest, most unremarkable specimen of your species, but you've got something most human's lack… You've already accepted the Void, and that's something I can use."
Revan exchanged a puzzled look with her, waiting for her to elaborate. But after several moments of uncomfortable silence, he asked, "Am I supposed to know what the hell that means?"
The question elicited a smile from his guest, who asked in return, "Tell me, what do you know about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?"