‘You have nothing left to lose.’

His voice was calm, mellow. A velvet song whispering against her ear. ‘You act as if they’ll miss you- ‘
‘They will miss me.’ Her voice held such conviction it made him grin.
‘You hope they will,’ he corrected her, ‘and you hope they won’t forget you- ‘
‘But they will.’ She finished quietly. ‘That’s okay, that’s what gravestones are for. To remember the dead when no one else will.’ She paused for a moment, glancing at him. ‘It’s a lonely feeling to be forgotten.’
He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment and then leant back on his hands, their legs hung messily over the edge of the building and she kicked hers absentmindedly.
‘One day,’ he began in a long distant voice, ‘all that will be left will be gravestones. Billions of cold rock slabs, billions of names, and not a soul to read them out. You’ll all be forgotten then.’
‘That’s okay too,’ she smiled at him, ‘because then we won’t need to remember the dead, we’ll all be together in the great beyond.’
His laugh rang out across the city and the sound played a melody with her cells as this ancient creature sat beside her, his face alive with laughter.
‘Such a curious creature you are,’ he breathed, looking at her again. ‘Do you have hope that your great beyond will be pleasant? Do you believe everyone’s will be?’
‘I have no idea,’ she shrugged, ‘but I have hope.’
‘Hope in a pleasant life after death but not hope for a pleasant life while you’re alive?’
She studied her fingernails as if they held the secrets to the universe and he laid a hand gently over hers, ice trailing over her skin at his touch.
‘It’s alright, we both know how this will end.’ He soothed. ‘You’re here because you’re destined to be, and I’m here to collect your soul.’
‘So you’re saying this wasn’t my choice?’ she asked, her voice tiny against the thrum of the world around her.
‘No,’ he agreed, ‘it was fate, and fate is something you can’t run away from.’
She looked at him then for the longest time, her eyes burning into his memory and her blood humming under her skin.
‘Have you ever tried?’
He blinked in confusion as she stood up, teetering on the edge of oblivion. Without thinking he grabbed her hand.
‘What do you mean?’ His brow furrowed in confusion. ‘Have you?’
She smiled at him then, really smiled and he thought he’d never seen something so bright since the day the sun was born.
‘The beauty of life and death,’ she laughed softly, ‘is that in the end, in all the possible ends, no matter how ****** a choice, it will be my choice.’
He stared at her. Was she stupid? This was her fate, this had always been her fate, since the moment her life had been woven into the world’s story he had known what would happen to her. What choice did she have? What choice did he have?
‘In this world,’ she continued, gently laying a hand over the top of his,’ I may not have had the chance of being killed in an accident, or of old age, but I’ve always had the choice of killing myself. My one last vestige of control, my parachute, my safety belt, all that jazz, you know?’
Slipping her hand from his grip she gestured to the skies around them. ‘Whether today, tomorrow, or fifty years from now, no one, not even you could make this choice for me.’
Silence sat heavily around them as they looked at each other, her at peace and him feeling something tug in his chest for the first time since The Beginning.
‘You’ll be dead before you hit the ground.’ He said numbly. It was the only thing left he could think to say. ‘You’ll run out of oxygen.’
‘That’s okay,’ she said one last time, ‘then I’ll die flying.’
She might have been an angel then, spreading her wings to the highest heavens. The cold night air burning her lungs as she breathed in deeply.
‘Besides, you said it yourself.’ The grin on her face was blinding as she tipped forwards, arms falling softly through the air.

‘I have nothing left to lose.’