“Stop!”

Piper’s heart thudded so heavily against her chest that it almost covered the sound of her naked feet splashing the cold, wet street beneath her. She could feel her asthma attack slowly starting, as her lungs started squeezing all of her breath out and black, sudden spots appeared at the corner of her eyes. But she didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop.

“Please! Someone stop them!” Piper yelled at the top of her lungs.
She ran down the street covered with puddles made of melted snow, her hands turning numb from the freezing weather, the muscles of her legs aching, and tears rolling down her rosy cheeks. Dark, strong feelings of guilt flowed in and out of her heart as if it was ready to take over her body. Her breath was shortening, her legs were slowing down, and her friends in front of her were getting out of sight.
I can’t give up. I need to stop them before it happens…
She shook that horrible thought away and focused on gaining her speed. She looked around and called for help, but the people around her merely just looked at her as if she was mad and carried on with whatever they were doing. The lukewarm tears blurred her vision and blood squirted out of the blisters on the bottom of her feet. But she kept running. Because if she didn’t, she knew, she knew very well that her friends would die.
Oh, what have I done…

It was a lazy Friday afternoon. The balmy rays of the winter sun shone through the tinted windows of Piper’s chemistry classroom. It seemed to lie upon her eyelids and push them down to sleep. But Piper was in the middle of an important chemistry test. She knew she would never get a good grade at this rate, but she needed to at least finish it.
“Psst… wake up!”
Piper’s eyes instantly opened to the whisper of her best friend. Avoiding the teacher’s gaze, she quickly glanced back to see Jon’s crooked smile. Piper rolled her eyes and focused on her test after reading his lips that mouthed, Wake up, sleepyhead.
Like you never sleep during tests, thought Piper.
She usually loved the winter sun. It combined so well with the weather, creating a balance between hot and cold. However, it wasn’t doing so well in earning her favor today. Her head drooped down further, but she snapped awake at the sound of a snicker from the back of the room. Assuming it was Jon, she just ignored it. She went back to her exam but sighed at the empty boxes on her test paper.
How could I forget we had a test today? Not that I would get a good grade even if I knew…
She read every single question carefully, trying to think of the chemical symbols and equations she had learnt – or at least heard during class. After miserably failing to so do and softly banging her forehead on her desk, Piper just guessed and wrote random letters in the boxes, turned her paper in, and dozed off to sleep.
Piper dreamed of a dark, spooky alley that she always noticed on her way to school but never went in. Like normal schooldays, she was biking to school with Jon, Rich and Leah when a glistening something caught her eye. She abruptly turned her wheel to the left and drove towards the unknown object in the alley when… she woke up from a tap on her head.
“I told you, never touch my head,” grumbled Piper.
“But I needed to wake you up dude,” replied Jon. “The bell rang.”
“It did? When?”
“Like ten minutes ago.”
“And why didn’t you wake me up?”
Jon gave Piper an are-you-serious look.
“Fine,” whispered Piper.
“Come on, let’s go. Rich must be waiting,” said Jon, grabbing Piper’s backpack and heading for the door.
“Waiting? Why is he waiting?” asked Piper, jogging after Jon.
“Don’t you remember? We decided to help him buy a gift for Leah.”
“Oh, right,” mumbled Piper. She loved Rich – he was a great guy. But when it came to him and his girlfriend, he wasn’t so great after all.
“He needs to learn how to say the right things at the right times,” complained Piper. “Leah goes on forever about Rich’s careless actions. And now I have to pick her gift for him.”
“I know,” said Jon. “If only he was as good-looking as me, then Leah would probably forgive him for everyth-”
Piper interrupted him by hitting him on the head.
“Dude, it was a joke.”
“Me too,” replied Piper, with a grin on her face.
Jon laughed along with Piper as they walked to their bikes. Rich was waiting for them on his bike, texting (probably Leah) on his phone. At the sound of footsteps he looked up and waved when he saw Piper and Jon.
“What took you guys so long?” asked Rich.
“Mrs. Sleepyhead over here was sleeping,” replied Jon.
“Oh,” said Rich. “That’s… not surprising at all.”
“Shut up guys.”
Piper was about to get on her bike when her phone rang. Piper held out her hand for her backpack and Jon handed it to her. She stuck her arm into her bag and searched for her phone.
“Hello?”
“Piper, where are you?”
Piper looked at the phone screen and saw that it was her mom calling.
“At school.”
“Well then, come home quickly.”
“Mom, I told you I was going out today with Jon and Rich.”
“Tell them you’ll hang out with them tomorrow,” spoke Piper’s mom. “I just received an urgent call from my friend and I need go out. And you need to come here quickly and look after your sister, Piper.”
“Take her with you, mom,” whined Piper. “I can’t just leave them.”
“Why not? And you need to stop hanging with those boys. Have some fun with girls – Leah or Penny.”
“I do hang with them. And Jon and Rich are perfectly fine to hang out with.”
“Just get here will you?”
Rich interrupted their conversation and said, “You can leave if you need to.”
Casting an I’m-so-sorry face, Piper replied to her mom, “Fine, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“Dang it, I have to go home,” said Piper.
“It’s fine. I guess I’ll have to go with… this guy,” replied Rich, pointing to Jon and putting on a disgusting look.
Ignoring Rich’s joke, Jon said, “We can all go together tomorrow. Leah’s birthday isn’t until Sunday anyways.”
“Yeah, let’s go then,” said Rich. “Come on, we’ll take you home.
“No, I can go alone. I need go quickly. I’ll call you guys when I get back home.”
Jon replied, “But don’t go too quickly, what if – ”
“I’ll be fine; I have my inhaler with me.”
“Alright, see you tomorrow then,” said Rich.
Piper smiled at Jon’s worried face one last time before she got on her bike and pedaled towards her house. She was having a bad day so far – failing her chemistry exam and canceling her plan with Jon and Rich. She told them she needed to go quickly, but she couldn’t because her asthma was getting worse these days. She sighed and continued to pedal when she saw the alley that she had seen in her dream. Out of curiosity, she told herself she would just see where it led to and go back home. She went towards the alley and noticed something shining on the ground.
“No way,” whispered Piper.
She got off her bike and went closer to have a better look. It was the exact ‘glisten’ she had seen in her dream earlier on. Carefully, she picked it up and shook out the dust. It was a uniquely shaped pendant with a clear, teal emerald stuck in the middle, about a fourth of her palm. She held it up to the sun, but its rays were too weak to properly shine upon it. It seemed as if it had been there for a long time. Assuming the pendant had no owner, Piper put it into her pocket, got on her bike and went home.
“What took you so long?” asked Piper’s mom.
“I was just being careful,” lied Piper.
“Alright, well your sister is asleep, so don’t wake her up. If she starts crying, check her diapers or give her some milk.”
“I know, mom,” replied Piper, rolling her eyes.
After her mom went out the door, Piper went upstairs to her room and pulled out the pendant. She noticed there were three tally marks scratched on what seemed like the inside of the jewel.
I wonder who put that on and what it means.
She saw herself in the reflection of her dressing table mirror. She held up the green pendant up to her collarbone and thought it matched well with the color of her eyes. She snuck into her mom’s room and tried to find a necklace chain that would look good with the pendant. She found a short but gorgeous silver chain on her mom’s dressing table, as if it was waiting for her. She put the pendant on the chain and clasped the necklace around her neck, but was surprised of how heavy it was. It seemed to press against her collarbone, but she chose to ignore it. She went back to her room and threw herself down in her king-sized bed. She stared at the ceiling and reflected back on her day. She didn’t know what made her feel this way exactly, but all the things gone wrong that day and the pendant weighing her down increased her burdens. It indeed was a horrible day. Fiddling with the pendant in her hand, she signed and whispered to herself.

“I wish I could go back to last night.”

A gush of chilly winter breeze rushed into her room and made Piper abruptly close her eyes. She opened them back up and closed the window that the harsh breeze had opened.

What was that about?

She made a face and was about to lie back down on her bed when her mom called her for dinner. She looked at the clock. 6:08.

Woah. How did time travel so fast?

She ran downstairs and saw her mom setting the dishes on the dinner table.

“You’re back already?”

“Back? What do you mean?” asked Piper’s mom, in a puzzling tone.

“I thought you had an urgent appointment or something,” replied Piper. “So you told me to come back home quickly.”

“I’ve been here the entire time. Now stop the nonsense and eat your food. It’s your favorite – green bean casserole!” replied Piper’s mom, chuckling.

“Again?”
“What do you mean, again?”
“We had this yesterday, mom.”
“What are you talking about? You had dinner with Jon and Rich yesterday.”
“No, that was Wednesday.”
“Yesterday was Wednesday, sweetie.”
Piper looked at her mom as if she was crazy, but she soon realized that she was the crazy one.

“Why don’t you get some more sleep?” suggested Piper’s mom.

“Yeah… I think I’ll do that.”

Piper ran upstairs back into her room and checked her phone. What had happened? She was sure she came back from school because her mom called her on a Friday afternoon. But it was still Thursday, 6:11pm. She tried to think of what had happened. Was she dreaming? But everything seemed so real. She looked at the mirror again. Her tired hazel green eyes had dark circles underneath them. Her uniform was dirty, but the pendant on her neck made her prettier than ever.

Wait. Pendant? Why do I still have that? I thought I found this today… or tomorrow, I guess.

Astonished, Piper tried to think of what could have caused this.

So I flunked my chemistry exam, said good-bye to my friends, found this pendant on the way back home… I came up to my room and lay down on my bed and… said I wanted to go back to last night! No way.

Piper fiddled with her pendant and fell into a deep dilemma. What was happening? Was it really this weird pendant that was causing this? Piper dragged herself over to her computer desk and opened the internet. Without much hope, she searched about her pendant. Surprisingly, she found an image of a pendant that looked very similar to the one she found on a website under a section called ‘Mythology’. She rolled her cursor down and started to read the context out loud.
“Since ancient times, the legendary moonstone has been a prized gem for copious magicians and kings all across the planet. In times of trouble, if the owner touches the gem and wishes to go back in time, it activates and grants the wish. When this happens, the owner becomes a Time Traveler, traveling back to the time he or she desires to go back to. However, if the wish was out of greed and selfishness, someone else takes the situation him or her avoided instead. Because of this, the owner must be careful in avoiding a situation; if it was death that was avoided, someone else would pay the price. The moonstone allows the Time Traveler a total of three time wishes, keeping record of the number in tally marks engraved in the gem. Once all wishes are used up, the moonstone relocates itself somewhere else to meet its new owner.”
If this was true, then Piper had gained access to two more chances of going back in time. Impatient as she was, she decided to save that for an awkward or irrevocable situation. Her Friday… or Thursday, had gone from gloomy to exciting. She lay back down in her bed again and thought of all the things she could do with this pendant.

Since it’s still Thursday, I could… I could study for my chemistry exam!

She sat down on her messy, unorganized desk and decided to use the pendant’s advantage well and study for her exam. She tried to think of the questions that were on the test and wondered if it was cheating. After taking off her necklace and chucking it in her school bag, she sat down on her chair and memorized a bunch of stuff for what seemed like hours, then she finally switched off the lights and her eyes.

The next morning, Piper woke up feeling pumped up to take her exam.

“Why are you so excited today?” asked Rich on their way to school.

“Nothing,” grinned Piper.

“And why are you so down?” asked Rich, placing his hand on Jon’s shoulder.
“Nothing.”
“Yeah, thanks guys. I’m doing fine too. You know, just in case you guys were curious about how your best friend is doing.”
All that came as a reply was a ‘Hmm’ from both Piper and Jon. Rich rolled his eyes and all three of them pedaled to school. When the teacher handed out the sheets for their chemistry exam, all of the students groaned as they put on their thinking caps and got out their pens. All except for Piper. Although she didn’t remember all of the questions that were on the test, she was lucky, for the other questions were on the area she studied the night before. Confident of a full score, Piper joyfully handed her test in. Because she was the first one to finish the test, she went back to her desk and slept for the rest of the period. She imagined her dream to be the same dream as yesterday- or the other Friday’s, but it was different. She dreamed of running down a cold, snowy street barefooted just outside her school, only to find Rich and Leah’s body fallen on the bloody street. The driver of the car that hit them rushed outside and called the hospital, but Rich and Leah had already stopped breathing. She felt warm tears running down her cheeks and collarbone and over her green pendant. Then, a tap on her head woke her up.
“I told you, never touch my head,” grumbled Piper.
“But I needed to wake you up dude,” replied Jon. “The bell rang.”
“It did? When?”
“Like ten minutes ago.”
“And why didn’t you wake me up?” laughed Piper.
She realized she had already gone over this conversation with Jon before. After Jon’s are-you-serious look, she continued talking.
“So, you were saying that Rich is waiting for us?”
“Um… I never said that, but he is.”
“Let’s go then.”
“Well someone seems real happy today,” remarked Jon. “Aren’t you usually stressed after tests?”
“I already knew half the ques-”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
Oh crap. Should I tell Jon about my pendant?
“Um… half the questions on the test were the ones I studied, is what I meant to say.”
Jon gave Piper a weird, distrustful look.
“If you say so.”
There was an awkward moment of silence, but it was soon disrupted by a commotion in the street outside of the school gates. A wailing of a girl could be heard, and the myriad of people around that girl was trying to stop her. Jon and Piper looked at each other instantly and ran towards the crowd. Over the heads and shoulders of the people, Jon and Piper could see a girl – a girl in their class – the valedictorian of the school, all covered in scarlet blood that also covered a white car parked next to her.
“Oh my gosh,” whispered Piper.
“What happened?” Jon asked one of the students, who was also in shock.
The girl replied in a shaking voice, “You know how obsessed she was over her grades; she apparently forgot to study for an important chemistry test – so when she took it and obviously failed… she…she just ran out into the streets, crying, and wasn’t able to see the car and crashed in… into…”
Piper collapsed on the ground. Her mind went blank. Her chest tightened, and she couldn’t breathe. Her asthma was failing her again, but not because of lack of air, but because she knew, she knew very well what had happened to the girl.
“Piper! Look at me! Are you okay?!” yelled Jon.
But Piper was not okay. Wheezing and panting, Piper turned her face towards the girl and whispered ‘I’m so sorry’ before passing out.

Piper woke up to the smell of alcohol and medicine. Rubbing her eyes, she looked around and noticed she was at the school nurse.
“PIPER!”
It was her mom.
“Oh dear, are you okay?! You scared me to death! I am never, ever letting you go out without your inhaler again…”
Her scolding seemed to actually alleviate Piper’s worries and stresses. Piper just kept nodding to her mom until she finally stopped and they were ready to go home.
“Oh right, Jon asked me to tell you to call him when you wake up,” the nurse said when they were about to leave. “You should thank him – he brought you here.”
“Oh okay,” replied Piper. “Hey mom, I’ll just go home on the bike after I talk with Jon. I’ll be fine, really.”
Piper’s mom gave her a disapproving look, but she knew riding a bike in this cool weather wouldn’t be too bad.
When the nurse and Piper’s mom left the room, Piper quickly got her phone out and dialed Jon’s number.
“Are you okay, Piper?” were the first few words Jon said.
“Yeah,” Piper lied again. “Hey, but thanks for bringing me here.”
“No problem. Umm… Piper? You have to honest with me, okay?”
“Huh? I told you I was fin-”
“Are you a time traveler?”
Piper froze. She felt her heart drop all the way down to her stomach with a loud ‘clang’.
How… how does he know about this? What do I do?
With so much on her mind, Piper quickly hung up and started panicking again. Could her day get any worse?
But I can trust Jon….
Yet, something inside her made Piper reach out for her pendant and say, “I want to go back to before the phone call.”
When Piper opened her eyes, she was at the school nurse again, but alone. She figured her mom and the nurse had left already. Sighing, she grabbed her stuff and went outside to her bike. When she was riding, she realized she still had the pendant in her fist. She realized it was this pendant that made her go through all of this pain and trouble. She was about to chuck it away when there was a loud ‘HONK!’ of a car right in front of her. She had been too carried away by her thoughts and couldn’t see the car. She quickly reached out for her brakes, but they were broken. And just like that, Piper crashed into the car and went flying in the air.
Dear life, when I asked ‘Could my day get any worse?’, it was a rhetorical question…
In midair, Piper’s instincts told her that she needed to go back in time. Thus, Piper used her last wish to avoid the accident and go back to the nurse.
Piper woke up to the smell of alcohol and medicine – again. She already knew she was at the school nurse, and in a few moments her mom would yell…
“PIPER!”
Piper and her mom were getting ready to leave after all of that talk again, when the nurse told her that Jon asked her to call him.
“I’ll call him later,” Piper said.
She held her mom’s hand so that they wouldn’t separate. Sighing, she went on the car and immediately lay down. She realized that she had used another wish that would bring bad consequences, but she didn’t have the time or the freedom to think about that. All she thought was that she didn’t want to die at the age of 15 by some car accident.
“You seem extremely depressed, Piper,” said her mom.
I am.
But Piper lied, “It’s just the asthma attack. I’m just worn out.”
Piper was just about to close her eyes and let her mind deviate away from all of her troubles when her phone rang. Although her body was lazy and tired, she forced herself to pick it up. It was Rich.
Right, I was supposed to go shopping with him...
“Hey, Rich,” said Piper.
“Paaayeeeeperrr,” replied Rich. “Are you still at school?”
“No, I’m on my way home. Hey, I can’t go tod-”
“No, no that’s good. I was going to tell you that you didn’t need to come. I heard about your asthma attack…and you’ve been telling us that you were fine all the time!”
“I’m sorry.”
“If you’re sorry, just get plenty of rest, okay? Oh, and why is your bike still here at school?”
“Oh, I just left it there so that I could go home on the car.”
“Can Leah and I use it? Neither of us have our bikes.”
“Sure, why not.”
“Alright, well get plenty of rest yeah? I’ll see you hopefully tomorrow.”
“Bye, say hi to Leah for me.”
She closed her eyes and reflected back on her actions for the past few days. Or technically one day. She had such great friends around her who really cared for her, a loving and caring family, and yet she chose to use the pendant to her benefit, making others suffer in return. The first one was accidental, but she used that accidental happening and cheated. She used the second one just to avoid an awkward situation with Jon regarding the pendant. And the last one… she avoided a car accident.
Wait. I got into the car accident because my brakes weren’t working! And Rich and Leah are riding it right now… Could the consequence be…?
Without hesitation, she yelled at her mom to stop the car and ran out. She ignored her mom’s yells and shouts and just ran to school
Please, oh please don’t tell me you guys are riding it already…
She reached school, only to see Rich and Leah’s figures slowly getting farther away in front of her. Piper started running again. Her heart was throbbing with pain – both physical and emotion pain.
“Stop! Rich! Leah!”
Warm tears rolled down her cheeks for the thousandth time that day. She knew at this rate, she wouldn’t be able to stop them. Her asthma was getting worse- breaths were getting deeper and heavier. Piper despised herself for finding that pendant and using it to her benefit. She could see that Rich and Leah were slowly getting out of sight. She couldn’t lose her friends – no, definitely not especially because of her mistake. But her body was failing her. After what seemed like a few more seconds, with all her might, she yelled, “Stop!” before eventually falling to the ground. Sobbing, she forced her head to look up. But something was different. Nobody – not a thing was moving. She was the only thing with motion.
“So you were a time traveler,” said a voice behind her.
Surprised, Piper looked back.
“Jon!!”
Jon walked up to Piper, helping her up.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I… I was…” stuttered Piper. “Wait… Rich!”
Piper resumed her running again, but Jon grabbed her wrist and stopped her.
“It’s okay, I stopped the time.”
“You – what?”
“There are more moonstones in the world than you think there are, Piper.”
It took a moment for Piper to understand this.
“So… you’re a time traveler too?”
“I’m actually from the future, believe it or not,” replied Jon. “I can’t remember what my first wish was, but I know that I used by second one to come back here, to the 21st century. I was going to use my last wish for going to back, or forward I guess, but then I met you and Rich. I didn’t want to leave you guys. I was going to wait to graduation.”
“And… you used your last wish to save Rich and Leah, although it was my fault.”
“Don’t you get it? All of this is my fault. You finding the pendant, using it – this is all my fault.”
“No…” sobbed Piper. “I…I don’t know…”
“Now it’s your choice, Piper.”
“What do you mean?”
“My last wish isn’t over yet. Time did stop, but it didn’t go back. I’m going to leave it up to you. When do you want to go back to?”
Piper tried to calm down and think logically. What would be the best for everyone? She didn’t want to use Jon’s last sacrificial wish out of greed. She wanted everyone’s happiness.
“I want to go back to the time right before I brought home the pendant. I don’t care about whether or not I failed my test, or whether or not I get to hang out with you guys. That can wait, right?”
Jon smiled. “Of course. Here we go.”
When Piper opened her eyes, she was in the dark alley again, holding up the pendant to her eyes, examining it. She quickly dug a deep, deep hole and chucked the pendant in, wishing that no one would ever find it again. After sealing it carefully, she got back on her bike and pedaled home for a happy, normal Friday afternoon.