The first story I ever finished and to be honest it shows. But as Wattpad SciFi has deemed it fit for your eyes, I'll let it linger here for a while yet. Please continue to read my other shorts, a mixture of scifi, comedy and other stuff. Thanks in advance.

SLOW

Déjà vu (noun): a feeling of having already experienced a situation.

"Shit, I've done this before."

"What, you having a bit of déjà vu?" Niall asked, he was drying some plates and stacking them on the counter.

"No, I've been here before, exactly here, doing exactly the same thing," Marie replied.

"I'm sure you have, you are washing dishes," Niall was laughing, shaking his head. "Though, not that often as I recall."

"The phone's going to ring," Marie whispered.

The phone rang.

"It's, Joe, wanting to meet down the pub," she went on.

Niall narrowed his eyes, "How..?"

"Just answer the bloody phone, Niall."

He picked up the handset as ordered.

"Hello, ye, hi. I'm in the middle of something, can I call you back?" he hung up.

"Joe?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied slowly. "You two taking the piss, was that planned?"

"Someone's going to knock the door, it's going to be a policeman looking for information about a break in downstairs," she was shaking now, full of adrenalin and fear, staring at the door.

Someone knocked the door. Niall flinched.

"Fuck me, Marie, this better not be the police."

He made his way to the door, hesitantly looking through the spyhole, exhaling loudly as he saw the distorted face of their land lady.

"It's only, Joyce, probably up for the rent," he said.

Niall swung open the door to reveal Joyce, and standing beside her, a policeman.

He turned slowly to Marie, a quizzical look on his face.

"Bloody hell," he blurted.

"Christ, Niall, I know I don't have my make-up on but I don't look that bad." Joyce said, turning to the police officer, adding, "Do I?"

The policeman ignored her.

"Sorry, Joyce, just wasn't expecting you," him on the other hand Niall thought I was, kind of.

"Mr?" the officer asked.

"Marsden, Niall Marsden."

"There's been a burglary in the flat downstairs, I was just wondering if you heard anything last night," the policeman asked scribbling in his notepad.

Niall stared blankly at him, before realising what he was doing.

"Er, no," he replied, shaking his head. "No, we were at a house party in Glasgow last night, only got back 15 minutes ago."

"Are you ok, Mr Marsden?" the officer asked.

"Sorry, ye," he quickly replied,"got a stinker of a hangover, really need to get more sleep."

"Well, thank you anyway, if you think of anything get in touch," the policeman turned, heading to the flat across the landing. Joyce followed, giving Niall a little wave.

He slowly closed the door, turning to Marie. She was standing next to the sink, dishcloth in hand, dripping soapy water onto the floor.

"And for your next trick, the winner of the 4.45 at Doncaster is?" Niall questioned, hands spread.

"This isn't fucking funny, Niall, I'm seriously freaked here. I also know Joe's going to call back wondering why you haven't got back to him, no patience that guy, you're gonna slip on that puddle of water on the floor and bang your head on the cupboard door."

"Ah, well, there you go. Just bend down, wipe up the puddle and voilà, no slippage," Niall said triumphantly, wagging his finger in the air.

The phone rang. Marie grabbed it. "No we are not coming to the pub, Joe," she slammed the handset back into its cradle. The jolt dislodged a cup from the draining board which fell to the floor. Instinctively Niall lunged for the crockery, slipping on the soapy puddle and careering head first into the sink door. He sat on his rear, slightly dazed, looking at his knees; the cup, still whole, slowly spinning to a halt beside him.

"What the fuck is going on, Niall?" Marie was starting to sob.

"What, no are you alright? I've just clattered my forehead." He said, rubbing the front of his head.

"You still haven't got it, have you? I know you're fine, I don't need to ask," and she went back to her sobbing.

Niall slowly got to his feet, skidding again on the wet floor, and made his way to Marie who was now sitting on the arm of the couch, tears streaming down her face.

"It's not going to be alright," she said. "That is what you were about to say, wasn't it?"

Niall opened his mouth but just nodded.

"Right, lets look at this rationally, you are predicting the future," he stopped. "Ok nothing rational there then. How about this, how far into the future can you see?"

Marie thought for a few seconds, drying her eyes on her cardigan sleeve.

"Cammy is going to lose his job next Friday resulting in Josy leaving him for a guy that works in a Bank. Dawn is gonna go for the X Factor auditions and get laughed off the stage, stupid cow. Brian, he'll get some news from the doctor that's gonna make you lot laugh hysterically but you won't tell the girls what it is. And you are going to get flattened by a runaway elephant."

Niall looked at her in horror.

"That last one was a lie," she added, "answer the phone will you?"

The phone rang.

"Fuck off, Joe," he slammed the phone down again.

"Ah, that wasn't Joe this time, it was your mum," she smiled at Niall. "Sorry, should have said."

Marie sat up, cocking her head, eyes wide. Niall half expected a light bulb to appear above her head.

"This isn't real is it, I'm dreaming, I'm still lying sleeping on that grubby floor in Matt's flat; maybe a hangover from last nights pills."

"Well, I'm real enough," interrupted Niall, "I think." Patting himself down.

"You would say that, wouldn't you." Marie snapped at him. "And if this is my dream, I should be able to do anything."

"Whoa now, just calm down, no jumping out of windows or turning water into wine. Well maybe the wine thing but no jumping," Niall was making his way to Marie, arms out.

"Stop," she commanded, and he did.

"Er, what you doing?" Niall asked, unable to move.

"Whatever I want it appears," she replied.

"Marie, I don't like this."

"Oh shut up, Niall, you're not really here anyway."

"You sure, I feel real," but he wasn't convinced himself now.

"If you could do anything you wanted, what would you do?" Marie asked.

"Unfreeze me?" Niall asked, with pleading eyes.

"It was more a rhetorical question, but hey ho, your free."

There was a knock at the door. Niall looked at Marie who shrugged, shaking her head.

Apprehensively, he went to the door and peered through the spy hole. On the other side was what appeared to be a nurse, dressed in pure white and holding a clipboard with the word SLOW embossed on the back.

"Know anything about her?" Niall asked, flicking a thumb towards the door.

"Who?" she replied getting up from the couch. "I honestly don't know who's there."

"It's a nurse," another knock at the door.

"Well, let her in, for fuck sake," Marie exclaimed.

Niall opened the door and the nurse strode confidently in, ignoring him completely. She walked over to Marie, glancing at her clipboard.

"Mrs Marsden, I'm Nurse Riley, we seem to be having a problem, I would like you to come back with me now and we'll sort everything out," said Nurse Riley.

"No, I'm not Mrs Marsden, we're not married," Marie replied. "My name's Murdoch."

The nurse glanced at the clipboard again, "Mrs Marsden, I would like you to concentrate on my voice, in a moment you will start to feel very heavy, just lie back and relax."

"I don't want to..." she could feel a tingling in her fingers and her head began to swim. Nurse Riley caught her as she started to fall and guided Marie to the couch.

"Niall," she heard herself say, reaching out but as she did he seem to dissolve, blown away like ash in some non existent wind. The room darkened and she felt a constrictive, heavy weight on her chest; she started to panic.

"Please relax, Mrs Marsden, you'll be fully awake in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1."

Slowly, painfully, Marie opened her eyes. It was as if someone had turning the light on, waking her from a deep sleep. She could feel thick warm liquid enveloping her, not unpleasant but still disconcerting.

"Mrs Marsden?" Marie's eyes fought to bring the figure into focus. Nurse Riley was leaning over her, smiling, she had a small flashing metallic disc stuck to the side of her temple, the once clipboard, now an iPad. "Give it a couple of minutes and the confusion will go."

Her whole body ached, every movement was accompanied with shooting pain along her limbs. She lifted her hand to her still bleary eyes and gasped; it was withered, ash white with dark spots, it looked old.

That's because she was old, over a century. She remembered a big party, it was a special birthday, she was going on a trip, no, not a trip, SLOW, she was going to sleep. In a moment her memories flooded back filling the void with faces, names and places. Marie Marsden, 104 years old, married to Niall, also in SLOW. Three children, six grandchildren, one great grandchild and another on the way. She remember their penthouse with the astounding views over Edinburgh and hills beyond; a retirement gift from Niall's firm.

With their ageing bodies making life harder every day, Marie and her husband made the decision to enter SLOW, the Sleep Linked Online World. Their metabolism slowed to such an extent they would age at a fraction of real world time in the hope, that someday, technology could reverse the ageing process. While linked in the chamber they would have their own virtual world, you wouldn't even realise it was a simulation. Evidently something had gone wrong.

A man in an expensive suit appeared next to the smiling nurse.

"Mrs Marsden, on behalf of the SLOW Corporation we apologise deeply for this small glitch in your Story Path. The engineers are working on it now, shouldn't take more that a minute or two."

"How long?" Marie tried to speak but it came as a dry rasp.

"Don't try and talk, we removed the breathing tube before you were fully conscious, your throat will still be dry," the suit informed her. "I take it you want to know how long you've been under, it's coming up in six years three months, not long."

Marie relaxed back into the gel. There were pipes and tubes for various purposes plugged into her in assorted places and she didn't want to disturb them to much. She had been told this may happen from time to time, either because of a malfunction or a medical problem; she was just glad it was the former.

A white robed technician came into her view and gave the thumbs up to the suit.

"Ok then, Mrs Marsden, we're good to go. You may feel a little disorientation at first but that will pass quickly, let's hope we don't see each other again for a while," and he was gone.

Nurse Riley poked at the touch screen next to the sleep pod.

"Good night, Mrs Marsden." Marie's eyelids became heavy very quickly, then nothing.

She woke up in the passenger seat of their Ford Fiesta, drool pooling on her sleeve. Yawning, she rubbed her gritty eyes.

"Back with us I see, lazy cow," Niall joked.

"Christ, how long was I asleep," she asked, stretching.

"We're nearly home, so about an hour."

Niall had to park the car round the corner from their flat as there was a police car in his spot and they ferried their bags up the stairs. As Marie opened the door she was hit by the smell of two day old curry; they had rushed to get to Glasgow in time for the Matt's birthday party, leaving the half eaten meal on the table.

"Man, that's stenching," Niall said, shoving the half empty food cartons into a carrier bag.

Marie collected the crusty plates, filling the kitchen sink and by the time Niall got back from the rubbish bin the dishes were nearly washed.

Marie felt a strange chill, something wasn't quite right.

"Shit, I've done this before."

"What, you having a bit of déjà vu," Niall asked, he was drying some plates and stacking them on the counter.

She shrugged. "Ye, hate when that happens, put the kettle on will you."