He couldn’t believe the Fae had struck such a bad deal.

What were some childhood memories compared to the ability to stop time?

”Just snap your fingers and time will stop except for you. Snap again to start time back up. Go ahead, snap your fingers so I know you are able to and you don’t try to back out of our arrangement.” He didn’t know this Fae of course, so he couldn’t tell if the smirk was just the way their face was, or if they were trying to pull something. So he snapped. The Fae closed their eyes for a heartbeat, opened them back up, and nodded saying, “I have now given you the power you seek, and taken your memories from before you were 10. Magical creatures won’t be affected, but you are only mortal so it seems fair that you can only impact mortals.”

The Fae turned on their heel and walked away, with a purpose to their stride, tossing a little wave over their shoulder.

He decided to head towards the edge of the forest that bordered on a highway to test his new ability. He stood on the embankment above the road, held up his hand dramatically, and snapped.

In an instant, everything froze. The cars down below, birds in the sky, leaves blowing in the wind, everything! It worked, he could stop time!

After an elated moment, he realized that he couldn’t lower his hand. A moment after that, with a rapidly increasing heart rate, he realized he wasn’t breathing. He couldn’t move at all. The cursed Fae had given him the ability to stop time, but that included the air too, the air all around his body. He tried in vain to snap his fingers again.

As his vision slowly went dark, he could see a butterfly flapping across the highway, carefree.