God of the Still World!

What was time?

To Barry Allen, time was the river beneath his feet, a track he could race along at will, a weapon he used to save the world.

But now, time had become... a wall.

An invisible, intangible wall that was everywhere at once.

He was still running.

He could clearly feel the Speed Force burning wildly inside him. Every cell vibrated beyond its limits, driving him to one new peak of speed after another.

His body still lunged forward, muscles taut, arm outstretched, fingertips almost touching the green button that meant victory.

But he could not reach it.

The button remained less than a millimeter from his fingertips.

One millimeter.

To The Flash, that distance barely deserved to exist as a concept.

Yet now it was the greatest distance in the universe, an impassable chasm.

The faster he ran, the more solid that chasm became. The harder he pushed forward, the more clearly he felt the despair of being pinned in place.

He was like an ant trapped on a Möbius Strip, believing he was moving forward when he was only following an Infinite Loop back to the starting point, again and again.

Panic began to eat away at his reason, cold as seawater rising from the deepest trench.

What kind of trap was this?

An illusion? No. He felt every ache in his body and every roar of the Speed Force. It was all too real.

Some kind of force field? No. No energy could restrain him once he entered the Speed Force Dimension!

He wanted to stop, to change direction, to take even one step back.

He could not.

His body and will seemed locked onto a single command—"race toward the finish line." Like a programmed robot, he could only perform that one eternal motion.

Just