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In the moments that Dakota Fell, he had a strong sense of fulfillment. Yes, he knew he was seconds away from hitting the concrete, and with luck his neck would snap fast enough that he wouldn’t feel what it was like to die, but he was doing what he always wanted. He held his friend close, feeling the racing beat of her heart, and thought that he— some scrawny, soccer playing, freshman of New Haven High School— could be a hero. He could protect her from the blow of the sidewalk with his own body, and she would be okay.
Eventually, he opened his eyes; something he didn’t expect to do again. When he did, he found out that he had been wrong. He wasn’t enough of a shield, he wasn’t strong enough to keep her safe, and now that regret would be with him constantly.
“Don’t let go,” he’d beg of her in his dreams, but she never listened.
In the moments that William Fell, all he had were regrets. He never should have been out here camping. He never should have followed that wisp into the woods. What would his friends do when they found him missing? How would his parents react to seeing his lifeless body against the woodland soil? Would his mark on the world as a whole be etched in stone as the weird kid from the weird town who went and fell off a cliff?
Eventually, he opened his eyes; something he didn’t expect to do again. He sat up, drenched in blood that spilled across the grass and sticks, and he felt amazing. Maybe it was the adrenaline rush, but he felt no pain. Exhilarated, he laughed and began to rush back into town. He was alive. He had never felt more alive.
“You’re here, I can see you,” a good friend told him a long while later, and he could genuinely believe it.
Dakota and William were very different people, but there were a few things that they had in common. They had both Fallen, and they had both gotten back up. They both had their regrets, and they both had their euphoria. Against all odds, they were together now; two souls who defied nature itself just so they could cross paths.
Was it fate? Destiny? God’s will? Maybe, or maybe it was just happenstance. Maybe the two boys were just lucky, and their simultaneous flaunting of death was a lottery like no other. Either way, the people who died from the Fall were not the same when they woke up, but they woke up all the same. That was when they finally met. It was possible to argue, then, that their meeting was inevitably stitched into the very fabric of the universe.
Laying on the couch in the Prime Defenders’ home base, Dakota and William slept peacefully. They took in each other’s presence like the world would collapse if they didn’t. And who knows? Maybe it would. The world had certainty wanted them together after the Fall— maybe that was because it could feel its impending doom, and its only savior would be these two souls having a gentle embrace.
Eventually, they opened their eyes.