A resounding voice from above shattered the heavy silence surrounding Nina and Nathaniel. From afar, the suspended figure of the person who leapt looked like an angel who had lost its wings. She was at the complete mercy of gravity.

It was agonising to bear witness to her impending death. Let alone listen to her voice full of despondence.

Am I making you uncomfortable? The distant voice asked.

"He...Hello." The man placed his open palm on his stomach, hoping it would be enough to prevent his churning stomach from spilling its contents. "My name is Nathaniel. It's nice to meet you, Miss...?"

From a glance, he could tell that Nina had not transformed into someone else's form.

Nina stared upward at him before looking towards the owner of the other voice. This person does not yearn to see anyone.

Hello, Nathaniel. My name is Lailah.

I don't know anyone with that name. Is it possible that you are working in this building?

"No. I'm not from around here." His eyes shifted left and right, trying to cough up more words.

I see. How about the woman beside you? I feel she's just staring at me with empty eyes, which is very off-putting.

"She means no offence. It's just the way Nina looks. She is not judging you or anything."

Nina nodded. She stood perfectly still as if bolted to the floor. The blue flame crept back inside the lantern, seeing it could not entice the soul with its brilliance.

That appears to be true.

As for you, Nathaniel. You have a lot of things to say to me.

Suddenly, the ground began to tremble, causing the glass windows to creak. Nathaniel instinctively bent his knees to lower his body and protect his head from falling objects. However, nothing shattered.

His face was a few centimetres away from Lailah's when he looked up, causing him to jolt backwards. Still suspended, she was about six feet away from hitting the ground.

"She changed the instance, Nathaniel," Nina explained as she helped him up. "Time moved forward a few seconds."

The people in their surroundings also changed poses. Eyes filled with shock and horror filled the faces of those who noticed. The contents of a spilling cup remained static mid-fall as a businesswoman used her hands to cover her face. Many lives will forever change when the music restarts.

Lailah looked like she was in her early twenties. A tangled mess of brown hair covered much of her face and her foundation was blotched from her profuse crying. Her eyes were closed, and her right arm looked like she had dug her fingernails into her beige skin. She was missing her left shoe, which must have flung off her foot as she fell.

The man considered himself lucky not to have ever witnessed a suicide before. His mind rapidly cycled through shock and horror, intense anger and disbelief. He wanted to punish himself for his powerlessness. His blame needed to find something or someone. It needed to make sense. However, such instances lack clarity.

The potent mix of poisonous emotions encroached on his heart.

"Do you still want to talk, Nathaniel?" Lailah's mouth moved despite appearing asleep.

"Aren't you afraid?" She jeered at him. "Can't you see that it's too late to talk? You can't save me. My head is going to hit the floor."

"You can offer your pity to me with everyone once I'm dead."

Nathaniel felt Nina hold his hand tightly. It seemed to ground him, insulating his heart from the sudden surge of negative emotion. It reminded him of their purpose.

The man closed his eyes for a moment. I feel all these emotions because of the loss of life. It saddens me. This woman is so young. She has so much ahead of her. It hurts that I care, yet I don't know how to change the situation. In reality, this has already happened. I do not like it yet; I can do nothing but listen.

Unknown to him, Nina had an amused smile on her face. To her, Nathaniel had already saved Lailah.

With a deep breath, he began:

"I bet I can tell you the same thing, Lailah. You're not the only one here that's dying." His eyes showed a soft warmth instead of fear.

Lailah smirked. " Haha! How amusing! Were you stupid enough to jump down from somewhere as well?"

"No." He could hear her scoff. "I have late-stage cancer. My doctor tells me I've got, at most, two months to live ."

"..."

Lailah was caught off-guard by his directness. Nathaniel told her of his fate, yet there was no indication of needing her pity. "I can't see you. My eyes are closed. I fainted halfway through falling."

"That's fine. There is nothing to see but the ghost of a man in a bag of bones. Let me tell you, I used to have long, wavy hair. Now, I'm all bald and shrivelled up."

Thanks to Nina's quiet support, Nathaniel realised that he could do no more than help Lailah's soul accept her fate. "Neither of us can't be saved at this point. You don't need to try and scare me. I am plenty afraid and saddened by what you did, Lailah."

"..."

"Lailah, do you know that cancer in its late stage hurts a lot?"

"So, I've heard. I'm not close to anyone who has or had cancer."

"Well, the treatment -sometimes- also hurt a lot. I sometimes lie in bed, unable to move. I can't eat. I can't drink. It hurts to swallow my saliva. The pain keeps me up at night. "

"..."

"I just carry on with the treatment because it helps my daughter cope. It gives her hope that a miracle can happen. I don't tell her, but it hurts so much that I want to die."

"..."

"So why, Lailah?" Nathaniel felt the tears pooling in his eyes. "What is this pain that hurts you so much that you want to die?"

"..."

"..."

"Everything. Everything hurts."

"Being alive hurts, Nathaniel."

"Being a burden hurts. Being a failure hurts. Being alone hurts. Being unwanted and left behind hurts."

"It doesn't get better. It just keeps going on and on."

"This world is cruel. It makes monsters out of everyone."

Lailah's bitter words did not surprise Nathaniel. Most young adults struggle with accepting reality. The world imposes unforgiving challenges and seemingly bitter truths. It is a right of passage to build resilience. Some achieve radical acceptance, while others become cynical. The problem arises when people start wearing their cynicism and jadedness like it's a medal of honour.

People are less than ideal. People could be better.

Nathaniel sighed, "What did you do that made you feel you lost your humanity?"

"I had to let one of my clerks go. She didn't deserve it. I had no choice."

"What was her name? And what exactly is it that you do for work, Lailah?"

"I do sales and merchandising with a team of ten other people. The staff member I had to let go was Thalia. She was older than me by a few years and had children to feed."

"Business wasn't doing very well, I take it?"

"It's doing reasonably well despite the economy's slump. The problem is that upper management is so detached from reality that they give us ridiculous targets to achieve."

She continued, "The market is already mature, making it difficult to drive and meet the high sales targets. The company is trying to downsize to reduce costs. The board told me to reduce my team size by three."

I've been driving myself insane these past few weeks, but I managed to convince them to change the reduction from three lay-offs to one."

"Isn't that an admirable feat, Lailah? You did well, and you must have sacrificed a lot. Did you explain the circumstances properly to your team?"

"I tried my best without complete transparency."

It was not difficult to infer what she had meant. At face value, laws are established to protect people. However, certain individuals have more influence on the nature of the laws passed.

Humans are less-than-ideal creatures. Therefore, laws created by them are imperfect. Complexities and loopholes exist, and those with resources can exploit them. It is a vicious cycle.

"How am I supposed to tell Thalia I fired her because she took the most childcare leaves? She uses up her entitled benefits. She took nearly a year of maternity leaves combined for her two children. That was all within her rights."

" Nothing was wrong with Thalia or anyone else with my team. Their work has always been immaculate."

"Thalia was doing the back-end admin duties that the others and I were too busy to do. We didn't mind her being absent at work because she always made up for it. It's not like she was using her children as an excuse either."

Nathaniel reached for Lailah's hand and held it the same way Nina held his. "It must have been hard for you, Lailah. I wouldn't know how to act given your situation."

Lailah's face was red and scrunched. Tears were streaming down her face to the pavement.

"She screamed at me, Nathaniel. She doesn't know how hard I fought for everyone. I tried my best. I fought for the best severance package we could give her and wrote a recommendation letter for her."

"You've done splendid work, Lailah. You should see that. She was just in pain. Getting laid off is extremely stressful. My wife got retrenched before. It was hard on us. She felt very discouraged because she felt that she let our family down. She doubted her worth to society and to our child."

"I know you've done what you can. What more could you give? It was a difficult decision, and you know that more than anyone."

"I don't know anymore." She sobbed uncontrollably. "My head just keeps replaying the things she said to me. Ultimately, I'm a monster who chose to save myself."

Nathaniel stood there and listened to Lailah cry.

"You know, Lailah. You are quite caring for a monster."

If anything, compassion. Everyone needs compassion.

"You should be proud. You were strong enough to make difficult decisions."

Just as businesses need talent and profit, the human spirit needs empathy and compassion to flourish.

The world around them began trembling again.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No.No.

"Lailah, what are you doing?!" He quickly went underneath her, using both hands to keep her in the air.

"You cannot change this reality, Nathaniel."

It was Nina who spoke.

In the blink of an eye, Nathaniel was back at arm's length from Lailah's body.

"We haven't finished talking, Lailah! Stop this!"

Nina watched the man persistently approach and try to raise Lailah's body. He would revert to an arm's length away from her every time.

Lailah was now three feet away from the hard pavement.

"I should've known better. I told myself that I wouldn't become like my mother. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

Without beating around the bush, Nina asked, " Was your mother a monster?"