Without ever knowing the word for it—
he used it.
Not consciously. Not deliberately. Not yet.
It happened in a moment too small for headlines.
A boy late for school.
A crosswalk light blinking red.
A delivery truck barreling through the intersection, brakes screaming too late.
Someone shouted.
Time did not slow.
The world did not bend.
But the gap did.
The boy took a step forward, then stopped—not because he saw the truck, but because something in him hesitated. A pause without fear. A breath held in exactly the right place.
The truck passed.
Wind tore at his jacket, tugged his bag, rattled the taped pencil inside. The force was enough to knock another child backward—a girl reaching the curb too fast, footing unsure on rain-slick paint.
She should have fallen.
She didn't.
Her stumble caught on nothing solid. Not a hand. Not the ground. Just… space behaving differently for the span of a heartbeat. A fraction of alignment, then gone.
No one noticed.
