Saving someone else's life.
Picture it. A beautiful girl is talking urgently on her phone, and accidentally steps in front of a speeding sports car. I jump in front of her, push her out of the way, and the car plows through me. I roll over the top of the car and then tumble to the asphalt, my bones shattered and my organs mashed to goo. In a haze of shock and pain, I see the girl run up to me and fall to her knees beside my broken body.
"Oh my god, you saved me!" She'd say.
"It... *cough* it was nothing." I'd struggle out.
Tears would start to stream down her cheeks, "I could never repay you, never."
"You could repay me by giving me one last kiss, one final moment of warmth before I pass from this world." I'd say. And she'd immediately lower her face to mine, and the last sensation I'd feel in this life would be the sweetest lips in the world pressed against mine.
(Camera pans out, violins play)
And then she goes on to cure all forms of cancer, because it turns out she's a genius biochemist and she's come up with a chemical formula that selectively attacks all types of tumor cells, and she was talking so intently on the phone because her lab assistant was asking her about the settings for the final round of tests they'd be doing. They had to get that experiment right, otherwise decades of work would go down the drain. In the end, the formula is successful, and cancer is eradicated. And it turns out a brief adjustment to the chemical composition also turns it into a cure for AIDS and it also dissolves cholesterol deposits in arteries. She goes on to be wildly successful, rich, and famous. She writes several books. But only at the end of her long and fruitful life does she write her own autobiography. And on the dedication page, apart from acknowledging her family and loved ones and mentors, at the very bottom it also says, To that mysterious hero, who saved me so long ago, thank you. None of this could have happened without you.
(Of course, given my luck, it's more likely I'd end up die saving some random child smuggler or something)
