If I'm a horse, this plot bunny grabbed me by the reins and refused to let me go. (Fun fact, since I was, and still am, tall for my age, I was the horse in a play about farm animals when I was 5.) In any case, here it is - a SI/OC tale I had the idea for today and wrote the prologue for TODAY. Enjoy!

Current music: Never Too Late - Three Days Grace

While I was in the library, the sky went dark.

Now, that's normally a natural part of the day, right? When the sun goes down, the stars come out to play (at least, that's what happens if you live in a rural area.) But there's something else you should know.

It was the middle of the day.

That's right. The sun was blocked right in the middle of the day, and I'll remember what time it was for the rest of my life: 12:29 PM.

Still, I must have figured it was nothing and gone back to my studies. Just like what time it was on the clock, I can still recall what I was staring at: My textbook for Pokémon Biology.

"Jesus Christ," I muttered. "Does it have to get dark right now?"

The handful of other students in the library this Sunday afternoon were all engrossed in their studies as well, but that was about to change. Literally every single one of them stared at me.

I gulped. I had few friends at college - at least, few friends that I spoke to in-person. Like many youths these days, I spent most of my social energy on my online companions, simply because I found real-life conversations exhausting. But enough about that.

"What?" I wondered aloud. "I thought the solar eclipse wasn't until April. It's February! It's only fucking February!"

The college librarian, a woman named Mrs. Fitzpatrick, gave me the dirtiest look I'd ever seen her give. Considering her typical demeanor, this was saying something.

"Don't use language like that in my library, please, Mr. Snow" the librarian muttered. "Please. I beg of you - just restrain yourself, okay?"

"I'm doing my best" I replied, breathing heavily. "But the sky's dark, and I can't see the page anymore - who turned out the lights?"

"Nobody did" Mrs. Fitzpatrick snapped. "The power must have gone out."

Just then, an acrid stench filled the air. I can't even describe what it reminded me of, simply because I had no idea. It might have been akin to burning monster truck tires, but I'd never smelled anything like that either. In other words…

What the hell is going on?

Just then, my phone shrieked with an emergency alert. And I knew the sounds they used for fire drills - this was not a drill.

"What's going on?" Mrs. Fitzpatrick wondered aloud. "Do we need to lock down? Is there…".

None of us let her finish that sentence. A lockdown drill was something to fear, even though there was no true emergency. But if there was a real threat on campus…

"Hide!" the librarian commanded us, and my heart stopped.

I ducked behind one of the armchairs the library had, figuring that if there was indeed a would-be attacker on campus, surely they wouldn't target me. They'd go after more accessible victims.

But a quick glance at my phone revealed that the threat was not, in fact, something you could hide from. Hell, given how quickly it was spreading over New England, you probably couldn't run from it either.

INCIDENT REPORTED AT SEABROOK NUCLEAR POWER PLANT. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

"It's not a shooter!" I yelled, but I could barely finish that sentence before I was seized by a coughing fit.

One of the other boys in the library glared at me. "Shhhh! Be quiet! They could hear us!"

But I wouldn't stop warning the others. "There's no shooter!" I shouted, finding it quite curious that people often shout more loudly than the sound they're trying to stop.

Then my throat began tightening, and I could barely breathe. In fact, just keeping my eyes open took so much effort that it was fast becoming untenable.

Suffocation is often described as a peaceful, relatively painless way to die, but I'm telling you right now that that's a load of Tauros shit. My body grew lighter and lighter, and I wasn't a small dude physically. I gasped for air, but it was all for naught.

And then things froze.

"What the hell?" I muttered, barely processing that this meant I could breathe again.

I opened my eyes more fully again, and I saw that the library was still there. However, Mrs. Fitzpatrick, who had previously been freaking out to no end, was now stock-still, her mouth and eyes wide open at the dark cloud outside the window.

"What's going on?" I all but screamed. "The world's locked up!"

"On the contrary, Lucas Snow," I heard an ethereal voice remark, "time is still moving for everybody else. It just isn't moving for you."

My mouth hung agape. "The fuck does that mean?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of light green, then an onion fairy popped into view.

"Celebi!" I exclaimed.

"I do not have much time to talk" the onion fairy told me, its eyes wide open with what might have been…worry?

"Why wouldn't you?" I snapped. "You control time, after all! You can make it crawl, you can make it go by at hyper-speed, you can do whatever you want with it! Surely you have a few minutes to speak to me!"

"A few minutes, I can do," Celebi stated. "Now, Lucas Snow, what would you like to know?"

I decided not to remark on that rhyme and instead asked the following question: "What happened?"

"Well, there was an incident at the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant that endangers anyone within a radius of several hundred miles."

Several hundred miles.

The population of New England (also known as Census Region 1 by the U.S. government), if I remembered correctly, was something on the order of fifteen million. The actual number of people present might vary, since people traveled in and out on a regular basis. But that was still a lot of people!

Still…

"So there was an incident?" I wondered aloud. "That could mean anything. Is it like the one that happened in the Soviet Union in 1986?"

Celebi frowned. "Do you mean Chernobyl?"

"That's what it was called?"

"Now is not the time for a history lesson, Lucas Snow" Celebi chastised me. "In fact, you'll need all the time you can get to stop this."

"Time? We had all the time in the world - all the way until today!" I yelled. "And we still weren't able to prevent it!"

In response, Celebi could do nothing but wink at me, which just pissed me off to the point of wanting to scream at it. I knew without even thinking that the onion fairy could do things to me that would make me regret any tirade immensely. But it was still incredibly tempting.

"Why are you winking at me?" I enquired coolly. "Because it looks like you're mocking me!"

"How so?"

I must have had a pretty wild look in my eyes as I shouted the following: "Oh, your world's about to end, but let me taunt you about how much time you need to save it!"

"I'm not taunting you at all, Lucas Snow. Just listen to me, okay?"

Somehow (don't ask me how), I was able to calm down even when everything else in my body was urging me to do otherwise. And I gave Celebi a tired look.

"Fine," I muttered. "Tell me what to do."

"I am going to send you back in time," the onion fairy said simply. "Three days should do it. You'll wake up in the North Woods region of your state on the morning of February 1, 2024, with nothing to your name except a job to do."

"Great. A quest."

"You can either complete your quest," Celebi replied, "or let New England get wiped off the map by a nuclear meltdown. The choice is yours."

Judging by the tone in which Celebi said the word choice, I got the feeling that this was no choice at all. And really, it wasn't, because as much as I'd come to despise the onion fairy in just a couple minutes, I couldn't exactly decline the chance to prevent such a disaster. (Even if it had, well, already happened.)

"I'll go back" I said. "Just send me there. Whatever it'll take."

"Right," Celebi stated. "There's one more thing, Lucas Snow."

"What's that?"

As I snapped those words, it occurred to me that I really didn't want there to be another catch, another nasty surprise. But then again, ten minutes ago I wouldn't have thought a nuclear meltdown was possible in my country.

"You'll be in for quite a surprise when you wake up."

Next up: America's favorite buffoonish President gives a speech that only makes everything worse.