I left my apartment that morning thinking about slides and deadlines, not destiny. It was an ordinary Tuesday, the kind you forget before it’s even over. Traffic roared. Construction echoed. I kept my head down and walked.
Then the sound came.
A sharp crack above me—glass exploding. I looked up just in time to see a fifth-floor window collapse inward, fragments raining down like glitter. For a split second, I assumed it was debris.
Then I saw the child.
A toddler, falling.
There was no time to think. No courage to summon. No hero fantasy. My body moved before my brain could object. I dropped everything and ran. The street narrowed into flashes: brick, faces, screaming, gravity doing its worst work.
I reached the spot just as the child came down.
The impact was brutal. His weight slammed into my arms and drove us both to the pavement. Pain detonated through my back and skull. The world dimmed, tilted, threatened to disappear.
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