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The kid, the kid, and the kid again. Unless I had omniscience that the kid is gonna turn into pure unadulterated evil, the kind that isn't going to come back, I'd save the kid.
Letting the kid die is vengeance and it sounds like in this case for transgressions not commited against yours or your own, saving the old man is a very weak kind of karma, doing good unto the good, but undue punishment more than cancels the good karma of that by not choosing the kid. And take someone that lives by a short sighted kind of selfishness and show them what they're going to percieve as benevolence despite past actions, and (I hope) most of the time they're gonna turn a new leaf and be worth the skin their in. If they don't, then I don't want anything to do with them anymore, and if they force their way into my life, I'll force them right back out.
Thats from a mix of an eye in the sky perspective and my own, as an outsider answering a hypothetical.
From the kids perspective, judging on past actions, he's gonna hold it against you if you don't save him. Not that it really matters with him dying unless the afterlife is some weird kind of ill will of other people coming back to haunt you, but thats a little beside the point.
From the old mans, he's lived a saints life, he's gonna understand. Even if the kids gonna be hitler and he knows it, a true saint would lay his life down for him, to make the point to the populace that everyone, everyone, everyone is loved from on high. I think thats me adding a little bit more to the lived a saints life than you mean though. If the old man doesn't know about the kid, he's gonna go with the kid, and if the old man does know about the kid and still think he should be saved, he's speaking from fear of impending death, or he's being selfish from a societal point of view. Not that I blame him, but... no. Ain't gonna happen.
As for the hiroshima twist, that isn't really a twist. Do you know the bombs gonna be dropped, did anyone know that except for those that ordered it and those that followed orders? Suppose you did, and you knew you had time to save one of them, and survive the bomb. Kid, still. Suppose you couldn't save anyone but yourself and if you tried to save one, you died in the impending bomb blast. Then, you aren't really saving anyone, "saving" them is trading years of your life for minutes of theirs. Not happening. Basically, it all ends up being save the kid and yourself, just yourself, or try to ignore them getting run over by a train while you appreciate the last few seconds of life you have, if you have knowledge of the bomb and your all gonna die no matter what. Saving them would be giving a kind of false hope, which isn't really a disservice, they'd be rather happy, but your trading your happiness for theirs. Not happening, at least for me.
A more interesting twist would be suppose the old man is a millionaire, hasn't declared an heir, and your pretty sure your getting the money if you save him and he'll be dying soon irregardless of if you save him or not.
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