Falling
It's a stupid way to go, I thought as the wind whipped my hair into his face, but with him. It won't be so bad. His arms were strong around me, his heartbeat steady, despite our velocity. His bare chest was warm and his hands were tight around my waist. His eyes were closed and his breath was being pulled up by the wind so fast that I didn't have a chance to feel it, the only thing that assured me he was still alive, for now, was his heartbeat. I pulled my ear away from his chest and he held me tighter, as not to let me fall, that is, let me fall alone. I wrapped my arms around his neck and leaned in. As my lips brushed his ever so slightly, his eyes flew open. They were a shining turquoise, the blue of the sky shining off of his normally green irises. Long, black lashes trimmed his eyelid and made his eyes seem even larger and tragically beautiful. The things that flash through your mind when you're falling from eight-thousand-four-hundred-eighty-four feet are things that you don't expect. I didn't see my whole life flash before my eyes, I didn't think about whether or if I would choose rebirth, or what I'd last said to my friends, or how I wanted more time. No, I only felt thrill. A horrible, terrifying, exhilarating, totally awake, yet almost asleep, fiery thrill. The kind of thrill that's like your first kiss added to a roller coaster, hell's flames, the love of your family, paradise, and torture put into a single breath that is multiplied by trillions. The thrill was directed at one thing, and one thing only, him. Percy Jackson, my true love, the boy who gave me everything I needed, the man who grew up with me, the love who promised he'd be with me to the end. And here we were, falling from the six hundredth floor of the Empire State Building, falling from the place we saved, falling from the home of our ancestors, falling from Olympus itself. His eyes were full of the thrill that filled my heart, a 'this is the end' kind of moment, a 'it'll never be better than this' look. And the tragic beauty of his eyes was poured into me as he turned a slight brush of our lips into something magical. He used one arm to pull my head closer to him and he kissed me. It was the best way to go down. A stupid way to go down, a totally unheroic trip up, but a tragic and lovely end. An end with him. And as all those thoughts poured into my last kiss, I felt as if it had been hours, but my calculations told me that those long feelings had been only a matter of seconds. As the ground grew closer, I closed my eyes, letting him pull me close, feeling his heart beat faster, feeling mine join his tune. Love, thrill, and terror coursed through me, making me feel as if we were the only ones in the world. Our lives would end soon, very soon, but it didn't matter, because there was a flame now. Our lives were short, but they were bright and loud. We were in love till death, and not even that could stop it.