Word Count: 984

The second time that the world stopped at midnight, Tao woke up from the same nightmare he could not remember. This was about two years after the first time he experienced the phenomenon. He wasn’t as surprised by this second occurrence. It simply proved that the first occurrence was not merely a dream as he had thought before. Still, the boy just wanted the world to return to normal. He knew that it would return to normal simply because after the first incident, he woke up the next morning and the zephyrs were blowing and the water was running. Tao simply went back to sleep. He awoke the next morning to a revolving world. He was only seven years old then.

The third incident, Tao was fully conscious and aware of when time stopped. He was awake reading long past his bedtime, back at the age of eight when he did have a bedtime. The candle flickered in the light breeze that trickled in through the window. Suddenly, the whole world lurched and Tao felt as if it had left him behind. He felt dizzy at first but when he finally managed to focus his eyes, he noticed that the candle flame was caught in a frame of motionless flickering. He reached out to touch it and found it to be cool, almost like water more than flame. He could manipulate the image and warp it but in the end it would always return to its original position. He vaguely wondered whether there would be repercussions later.

Unfortunately, Tao found out later that any damage done during that time is merely delayed and would come to him when time began to flow again. He woke the next morning with severe burns on his hands and realised that he should not do any stupid things during the time lock. Although he couldn’t be hurt by the frozen world when it was frozen, it would deal its damage one way or another.

The morning after, Empress Luhan saw the burns when she went to wake up the boy that morning. “What happened? How did it happen? Whoever did this to my baby is going to have hell to pay.” She probably crushed a few of his ribs in her motherly overprotective embrace.

“It’s nothing mum! It was an accident. I accidentally stuck my hand in the candle,” he replied to her as he struggled to breathe and push her off at the same time. His father, Emperor Yifan tried as best he could to stifle his laughter as he watched his overprotective empress smother their child.

“Dear. I’m sure that he is fine and that he will never burn his hand like this again. If you try to protect him any more, you might just break a few ribs.”

Luhan gasped. “Oh no! Was I hurting my baby!?”  She held him at arms length and squished his face.

“I’m fine,” Tao said as best he could with both of his cheeks squished. Yifan was finding it very difficult to not laugh. “Dad! Save me!” Yifan came over and gently rested his large hands on his empress’ shoulders.

“It’s fine dear.” Luhan finally released their son. She turned and buried her face in his chest.

“I’m just so worried about our baby; that he might hurt himself or something!” Yifan patted his empress’ back reassuringly but he looked at his son and winked. Tao mouthed a silent “Thank you.”

“Let’s just get you some breakfast,” he said leading her out of the room. Luhan continued to fuss over Tao for the next week as his burns healed.

--

Tao looked up at the ceiling of his room. It was funny that he was remembering that time even now, twelve years later. He only experienced a handful more of these time locks over the years. Some nights they just did not happen. Other nights, he might have been asleep. When he did experience them, nothing eventful happened. He could stroll about the palace without anyone seeing. He would pass by guards frozen mid-step or servants frozen as they scurried about. When he was awake for the time locks, he could almost sense them before they happened.

It was past sunrise and his mother was probably throwing a fit by now, wondering whether he was assassinated in his sleep or something of that sort and his father was most likely trying to calm her down from her panic attack. He was almost always punctual to breakfast, but when he wasn’t his mother threw a fit. When he finally came down, she rushed over to him and embraced him in the rib-crushing hug.

“My poor baby! Are you okay? What happened?”

“I just got up late,” he managed to cough out as she crushed his internal organs.

“Are you sick or injured,” Luhan cried.

“The only injurious thing is your hug,” he coughed out, which caused her to let go.

“I was so worried,” she all but sobbed.

“I’m only a couple of minutes late mum. I’m fine.” He was about twelve minutes late, giving Luhan plenty of time to work herself into a frenzy.

“Listen mum, I made plans to go meet my friend so I’m only going to eat a quick breakfast before leaving. Is that okay?” The empress pulled a hurt look, like she had just had her heart ripped out and smashed, as per usual. She was probably the definition of possessive and overprotective mother.

“Is it that Jongin boy again? That boy is trouble! You shouldn’t hang around him. That and he is beneath you in status. We must keep up appearances and he is merely a peasant!” She always said this, but she always let Tao go see the boy anyways.

“Yes mum, it is Jongin,” he sighed.

Luhan pursed her lips but in the end allowed him to go see his friend. 

A/N: Sorry about clingy mother Luhan. I don't know where that came from, it just kind of happened. I hope you like the story. It's going to start a little slowly but I hope you'll be patient. I also hope that you enjoy the story when the action starts. There may not be an update for a while and I am very sorry about that. XD