She felt her heartbeat rising, her breath drawing faster, her fingers tingling. She saw the red and blue lights painted on the paved road beneath her, standing out against the darkness of the night that enveloped the dying city. A bitterly cold wind disturbed her light brown hair, as the snipers took their positions and a tear trickled down her face. Her hand shook, perhaps from the cold, as she reached down into the pocket of her strikingly green jacket. The distant screams from below barely registered in her mind, but she felt the pulsing fear raging in the men below. She lifted her hand again, enjoying the texture and energy that flowed from the glowing spherical object, the object that spelt doom - or salvation - for those last people that remained inside this city of death.

He whispered quietly to himself, his dry lips and tongue unable to produce more than that, as his steady hand kept the long barrel of his lethal weapon trained on the girl above. The fear of his comrades was reflected in their faces; his heart felt peaceful, even content, immune to the gripping despair that this cursed city had to offer. His death was imminent, no doubt, but even death had to be better than anything this life had to offer. The smell of a rotting corpse floated into his nostrils, and he watched as the girl overhead revealed the detonator. He tightened his grip on the trigger.

Their matching brown eyes met - a brief moment in time, over a long distance - but it was enough. Pandora's box opened for them, and hope flooded into their lives. She felt his peace, he felt her passion, and as their minds dissolved into confusion, she dropped the detonator. The snipers killed her instantly - but her passion now lived on inside the one man who had never felt passion in his life. Her legacy, his life, and hope combined. The city lived on.