The world doesn’t stop when he wants it to. Time doesn't slow because he demands it. It keeps moving, faster and faster, as people run, and scream, beg for help, demand attention. He doesn’t move. His eyes are trained upwards.

The world is ending.

Hundreds are dead, and hundreds more might be dying all around him.

His eyes drift down, and he sees a woman, clutching a gaping hole in her stomach, her hands slippery with blood, her cheeks streaked with the thick red liquid.

He moves before he knows what’s happening.

He’s at her side, cradling her, as she cries for help. His cries join hers. Her pulse is weak, the blood flowing like a mini, scarlet Niagara Falls, and her eyes are wide, beseeching. He grabs her hand, and he holds it, while he shouts for help.

None comes.

The world is too busy, at that point in time, in the ten minute window that could have saved her, to come to the aid of one dying woman.

She bleeds out in his arms, her blood soaking her clothes, and his.

Her fingers go limp in his hand.

Her eyes glaze over, and her head falls backwards. Tears drip down his cheeks, as her eyes close, and she releases one final breath.

He holds her to him as she goes.

He rests her on the ground, and the paramedics arrive. Too late. They slap a red tag on her, a sticker that denotes the fact that her chest isn’t moving anymore, that her heart is no longer beating. She’s dead. Gone.

He doesn’t feel anything in that moment. He can’t, not yet. The world is ending, and hundreds more need help. He couldn’t have helped that woman any more than he did. She was already dead. He did the most he could.

He made sure she didn’t die alone.

He rejoins the swirl of the living, and those not yet dead.

The world never stops.