Under normal circumstances, the moment that hand made contact with her she would have flipped the stranger over and kicked them in the stomach for good measure.
But when that trembling voice reached her ears and plead for her time, something inside her changed.
Something shifted, and the feeling of being unsettled that had floated around her in her 19 years of living this mundane life had been blasted away with just two words shouted towards her by a desperate stranger. She knew that the moment she turned to see who had dared to grab her, she would be done and she would fall once again. Maybe this time, she would fall and find peace at the bottom.
It was beyond being late for class, beyond making her father proud, beyond everything she had done in her life up until now.
In fact, this moment was beyond all the lives she had lived since she was a monster, and it was this moment that she had waited for in every one.
It was different than someone simply catching his eye. When he saw her, the world flooded over. Light scattered and his body felt the what it the immensity of 26000 feet. But all the pressure was a feather in her presence, and he knew that if he did not reach out to her then, he would never breathe again.
She had killed almost everyone, she had so many chances to kill him. She had destroyed everything.
But he knew, he knew, that he would not be able to live unless she was the one who held his life.
It had to be the last time. He had spent too many lives in a haze and now, when the moment that he made contact with her it was flying up and taking a breath, it was the sun finally exposing itself to him, and he couldn't go back.
And when she finally turned to look, after the excruciating number of lives separated, after the final hesitation borne from insecurity, their eyes locked and the dissonance in their souls realigned.
The sight almost knocked the knocked the air right out from their lungs, yet in the same moment it was finally breathing for the first time.
As the world clicked back into place, and the tears spilled over from relief, from love...
From finally talking a hold of the happiness they deserved.
Running through their minds was the answer that finally freed the millennium old question. Would we ever meet again?.
notes:
'death zone' exists 26000ft. from the earth surface. at this point there is not enough oxygen in the atmosphere to stay alive.