Ghost

A team of researchers had finally discovered tachyons—superluminal particles—photons that travel faster than the speed of light, and effectively flow backwards in time. Under the right conditions, smashing the right particles together, the supercollider produced a brilliant flash of light, and unfortunately for one researcher, a lethal dose of radiation.

He had about a year left to live; his body was decaying, ripped apart by the tachyon particles, leaving tumors and obliterating his immune system. One night, while laying in the hospital bed, staring at the clock on the wall—everything stopped. Nurses, patients, the birds and planes in the window, all still as statues. He reached for the call button, unleashing a searing pain across his forearm. And then, in no time at all, the world resumed. His hand and arm burst into flames for a microsecond before the heat dissipated entirely—and the clock resumed ticking.

He spent the next weeks learning about his newfound power—the ability to pause time while moving through it. To an onlooker, his body would accelerate instantaneously, generating incredible amounts of friction. Every motion superheated the air into plasma, and every step created a sonic boom. But public sightings of a figure coated in white, heat-shielding tiles became more frequent—stopping crimes, saving civilians, appearing and disappearing in no time at all. The public referred to him as “Ghost,” a fitting name for a dead-man-walking.

But this was not the story of a hero. After 10 months, the man returned to the hospital, weak and sickly. His body would continue to decay while in ‘real time,’ as the radiation ate away and the tumors grew. So, in an act of cowardice, he left the world in paused time—frozen, unmoving; a world where he would survive. A world that Ghost could haunt forever.