Dominic thought back to the fateful day when the world got to know about his existence. He tried hiding it, tried ignoring those in need around him. He even succeeded for quite a while. But when you see something really wrong, and are the only person with the power to do something about it, its hard to just stand idly by.

His existence as the world's only person with superhuman strength was revealed. And not just normal superhuman strength. Insane superhuman strength. The likes of which even comic books rarely cover. But the world saw just a glimpse of it that day.

The day flight 818, carrying 130 passengers on board including him, came crashing down.

Dominic's crazy strength was not the reason for the crash. In fact, he was able to pass by as a normal person, both in appearance and dexterity. No, it was a mechanical failure in the flight itself. Things were going smoothly, and they had just begun their descent, when the critical failure happened. Before the pilot even had time to ask the passengers to brace, shrieks and shouts filled the cabin. The flight had started descending uncontrollably.

While the rest of the passengers couldn't even think straight, Dominic's head was racing. And it was a mixed bag of thoughts. How did this happen? What could he do to avoid the certain death of his fellow passengers? And - he regretted even thinking it - should he act and in the process reveal his identity?

In the past, Dominic had given this last question considerable thought, and eventually had landed on certain options. One, he could reveal his gargantuan strength to the world in a public fashion. That would be the end of his private life. Immediately, the government would step in, regarding him as their human weapon. He would be branded a super-soldier and his country would start strong-arming their neighbouring enemy countries using him as a puppet. Deny this honour, and he would be labeled a traitor to the nation. Not an ideal option in any way.

Two, he could don a mask and costume to protect his privacy, and let the entire world wonder as to the identity of the superhero randomly appearing in a particular city, and maybe some others, and preventing crime or saving others from trouble. Even this wasn’t an ideal option in Dominic’s head. For one, any determined organisation could easily track his appearances in different places and map it to individuals who travelled to those same places during the same time windows. Besides, he didn’t want people to develop expectations from him, to believe he would always come to their rescue. The guilt of not being able to do that would weigh heavy on his shoulders.

This last sliver of thought snapped him back to the present. He had to do something. Ignoring the plight of people on the other side of the globe is one thing. Ignoring the ones right around him seemed impossible.

His was an aisle seat third row from the front. In the blink of an eye, Dominic unstrapped himself and lunged forward. Kicking the door out would surely depressurise the cabin, but hopefully that won’t lead to anyone dying, specially considering the reducing altitude and the oxygen masks which had dropped in front of everyone. He kicked out the door, and with it being removed, strong gusts of wind ruffled his hair, including the air rushing out from inside. He had to reach the ground before the flight did, and make preparations to cushion its landing. He just hoped he had enough time.

The launch downwards would itself have to be careful. Too weak and he wouldn’t have enough time on the ground. Too strong and the shockwaves would destroy the flight and the passengers inside. Even with the right strength, given the sideways position of the door, his launch downward would surely send the flight into a slow spinning motion. Well, let’s worry about that later, thought Dominic.

And then he kicked down with what he judged was the right amount of force. The entire sequence of him of him getting out from his seat and launching downwards took about a second.

Dominic propelled towards the ground at high speed, ensuring that he stayed as straight as possible to remain streamlined. He couldn’t even sneak a peak back at the flight to check if he caused any damage in the process. His only goal right now was to reach the ground as fast as possible.

The gap between the flight and the ground closed in seconds, thanks to him paddling the air like crazy, as if swimming in it. With a loud boom, he collided with the ground.

Thanks to his immense strength and durability, Dominic wasn’t affected in the least. And so he didn’t bother even checking himself. Standing in the mini crater created due to his collision, he immediately started scanning the skies for signs of the flight.

It wasn’t that hard to spot, given the smoke billowing from one of the engines. The harder part was estimating its trajectory and the point where it would collide with the earth.

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The trail of smoke helped with that. Having roughly understood where the flight was about to crash, Dominic dashed in that direction. The place where he landed was a large open farm not too far from the main city, with no one in sight around.

In about 2 seconds, he reached the zone. And now the real work started.

Dominic went into berserk mode, digging up the ground like crazy. Earth flung around him as if being ejected from a mini volcano, and the whole area immediately got covered in a dust cloud.

Since he couldn’t know with absolute precision where the flight would land, he dug up a large area. His idea, which he hoped would work, was to create a huge temporary ramp of sorts. This should make the flight correct itself and move horizontally, rather than colliding with the ground.

He didn’t think about anything while digging, just furiously going at it. The sound he was creating in the process was immensely loud, and he didn’t stop to check whether his clothes survived the ordeal. After about 5 seconds but what seemed like hours to him, he stopped to move to the next phase and, in that split second, checked on the incoming flight.

It was really close now, and the view made Dominic’s hair stand on end. Mere seconds. In about 10 seconds the flight would crash onto the ground.

Wasting no more time on being scared, Dominic immediately started piling all the dug up earth to essentially create a miniature hill. This was more difficult that he anticipated, as not only had he ended up flinging some of the soil too far, but also pushing the huge volume of soil with just his 2 human-sized hands was not easy. He needed something which could act as a big shovel.

Through the dense dust cloud,  Dominic noticed a group of trees nearby. In the blink of an eye, he reached one and uprooted it whole from the ground. Using the tree as a huge shovel, he rapidly piled the loose earth closer together. Seconds ticked, and the flight got closer. It became harder to see it after a few seconds because of the dust floating in the air, but Dominic didn’t stop. The loose soil piled up to a good height beside the dug up area, and then the flight hit.

Due to the spinning motion of the flight, which Dominic was partly responsible for, the flight landed at an awkward angle, as if falling on its side. With a loud sound and even more dust clouds created, the flight careened off. Dominic couldn't even see what happened, as the dust hindered all visibility. Waving his arms rapidly, he tried to get rid of the dust in the air. When it cleared a little, he got to see what happened.

The flight was standing far away, smoke billowing from it, one wing completely broken, and huge pieces of aluminum metal missing from its base. For two seconds, Dominic just stood there, taking it in. Then he shook his head and darted in the direction of the flight.

He jumped and yanked open the back door. Inside, people were in different stages of consciousness, slowly coming to terms with what had happened. Some were shouting, some were in shock and others were knocked out. The smell of blood and vomit lingered in the air. It was a sight you hope you never have to see in your life.

Dominic again stood still for a second, then shook his head. He knew he had to help these people, and quick? But how? Where to start? Should he individually take them out of the flight and onto the stable ground? But the movement could exacerbate any injuries people would have sustained, if he wasn't careful. Not to say the time it would take to do so. Maybe something like this was best left to the rescue workers, who... would be coming soon?

There was no way the sight of a huge airliner dropping out of the sky would not have alerted the relevant authorities.

The only thing Dominic could do now was wait, and check up on people individually.

So he got to doing just that. A quick check on himself revealed he was shirtless, and his jeans were a tattered and dusty mess, not used to high amounts of friction. His face was caked in dust, and his hair had trapped a good amount of those particles. It seemed like a trivial detail considering what had happened, but people who were still conscious might not cooperate with him considering his appearance.

And later, it might be harder to explain how he got to such a sorry state, even inside a crashed airliner, said a small voice in his head.

Picking a bottle of water and one of the many bags strewn about, he quickly got outside, washed his hair and face, and wore whatever clothes he could find, which were quite loose on him. Then he jumped back in and, without overthinking, first started removing any strewn baggage and other things lying around, which would impede movement when help arrived. 

He checked up on those still conscious, asking if they felt any pain. He used makeshift arm braces from baggage straps for those who clearly had fractures. He used bottled water to wash clean any gaping wounds people had on their forehead, to avoid blood seeping into their eyes. While doing all this, he cursed himself internally on never taking the time to learn basic first aid training, or even something advanced. That could make the difference between life and death for some of the injured passengers here.

The siren of ambulances could be heard in the distance. The rescue team would be here in a minute. That made Dominic think again… had he covered all his bases?

No, there was still one thing left to do. But he had to do it in a very small span of time. Jumping out the back door, he darted off in the direction where he had landed.

Eventually, the rescue team arrived, though Dominic was done before then, and had returned. He wanted to stay and help, but he was told he might have internal injuries, and was moved to an ambulance. Not wanting to appear anything besides normal, he complied. He also thought he would get in the workers' way if he tried, and his insistence might concern them even more. He let a doctor inspect him, who was surprised to find nothing physically wrong with him, except a little shaken up, which was partially due to Dominic mimicking that effect. In the midst of all the people shouting orders and ambulances arriving with sirens blazing, he could hear journalists describing the scene animatedly. Hearing their accounts, it seemed that the rescue operation was going well and so far there were no deaths. However, there were people in critical condition who had to be quickly moved to nearby hospitals.

A little while after that, his ambulance also made its way to the hospital.

The days following the incident, the news of the crash was played repeatedly on television and covered in news articles. Surprisingly, there had not been a single passenger who died, though there were some who still remained in critical condition. Also, investigations were being carried out to ascertain the reason for the crash.

But it wasn’t hidden from the world that something, or someone, had caused the flight to be saved. News outlets had shown the dirt ramp that had caused the flight to change its angle and slide, instead of crashing on the ground. Many considered it divine intervention, as a dirt hill appearing just before the crash and cushioning it couldn’t be due to human efforts. But those with a more rational mindset were trying to get to the bottom of it, specially the air crash investigators. And it was for those people that Dominic had left some clues in that last minute pointing to external help, such as a trail of footsteps with wide gaps, from the nearest road to the dirt hill. And he also brought back the front door which he had kicked open, and placed it near the flight just before the ambulances got in his field of vision.

Yeah, let them think a superhuman, seeing the flight about to collide with earth, ran towards the about-to-be crash site and created the miracle hill.