Heart for heart

Sandra's eyes opened to a stinging brightness, where rays of sun had slid through the hanging curtains of her bedroom window. She debated rolling over to avoid the Sun's harsh call to action, but decided she'd rather get an early start to this day. She was meeting Isaac for lunch at their favorite diner in the city, and he'd hinted he had more in store for later.

Leaving the bed, she leaned into a stretch and felt the various pops throughout her body associated only with the best of them. She must have slept hard that night, because it felt like absolute bliss to be up and moving around. There were odd little pressures all over her body that she couldn't explain away, if she'd have thought to do so. Her hand absently brushed the spot below her collarbone where she felt a slight coolness, but it never made it to the forefront of her mind.

Sandra made her way to her car, dressed and ready and excited for this day. That coolness returned, as she buckled into her seatbelt, but once again the thought was there and gone.

Parking her car in the lot closest to the diner, still a block away, Sandra started walking towards the diner. Waiting for the light to allow crossing the street, she began to search for Isaac among the crowd across the street. It was exactly like him to try to surprise her, jumping from around a corner and shouting "Boo!" Scanning the faces, she found him, but something was wrong. Not just with him, but everyone had turned to look and point above and beyond her. She locked eyes with him as his were widening in surprise. Then came a sound like nothing she'd heard before outside of a movie theater. She felt it throughout her body and within her bones. Turning she saw something massive and ablaze and falling, with many smaller pieces seemingly floating around it.

The largest of them appeared to be on a path with the skyscraper behind her. She took a step onto the street, as Isaac began moving toward her. Screams and shouts and car horns became something more than just the cacophony of a city in fear, it morphed into a physical sensation, assaulting more than just her ears, a pressure over her full body. Another step, breaking into a run towards Isaac, safety. Her mind went to that coolness from before. If she tried, she could still feel it, but had no explanation. She'd be sure to ask Isaac if he'd ever felt anything like it, once things had calmed down. One more step, but Isaac had stopped in place and thrown up his hands, palms out, shouting something she couldn't hear. The cacophony faded away to almost nothing, and she heard only the last word. "Out," Isaac finished, and began pointing to her left. The screech of tires, and then, Sandra's eyes opened to a stinging brightness--

--

A radio played nearby, a monotone drone of information filled with static, blending with the persistent beeping of the machinery before Isaac. He sat beside Sandra's bed, an ad hoc medical cot erected in the waiting room of Memorial Hospital. Miraculously, when the satellites came down, there were relatively few direct casualties. But in the chaos of a city gone wild with fear, there were many more. People fearing for their lives and feeding on each other's worries did stupid, often dangerous things. Like speeding down a street trying simply to get away, giving no thought to pedestrians or anything else in their way. This was just one sad story among thousands, and the hospitals quickly filled beyond capacity.

When the satellites fell, so did communications with the rest of the nation, and the world at large. It is assumed the same has happened elsewhere, but Isaac couldn't be sure, and had no facts to go on. There were few ways to accurately know how extensive the damage was, and even less was being shared with him. Those he spoke with suggested worst case scenarios out of the bleakest of fictions he'd read. The final World War was a scary thought, but with how quickly and efficiently communications had gone down, it could be nothing less than a coordinated, world-wide assault.

Isaac was told that while Sandra still showed some signs of life, some brain activity, the doctors didn't believe she'd ever wake up. And, even if she could, they couldn't wait for her, as the equipment currently keeping her alive was needed elsewhere on more pressing cases. They wouldn't hear his objections, about how she was clearly still alive, and clearly just needed time. They weren't giving him a choice in this matter, and now had all the military might they needed to back up their claims.

Thankfully, or not, they had given him this one last hour to say goodbye. He'd already given her the locket he'd meant to when they met at the diner, resting it above her heart, so that they made a matching pair. He opened the clasp to look upon the picture of the two of them, taken just last year. Gazing into each other's eyes, they both knew at that time what it meant to be to find a life-long love, to see themselves perfectly as they saw one another, an image reflected infinitely between them.

Eyes filling with tears, Isaac closed the locket for the last time. He'd decided she would be buried with it, love for his love and a heart for his heart.

When the doctors finally but all too quickly came to remove the machines, Isaac briefly wondered if love would even have a place in this new world, but his sorrow soon pushed all else aside.

--

Sandra's eyes opened to a stinging brightness, where rays of sun had slid through the hanging curtains of her bedroom window. She rolled out of bed and then began to drift, a silence and a darkness wrapping around her. She went to it with an excitement for the day ahead and for Isaac, thinking of that slight coolness above her heart along the way.