“Would you die for me?”

“Again?” She stepped back.

The soft breeze brushed through her long hair. Some of her usually light brown strands turned golden white from the sun behind her.

He couldn’t see her face clearly, framed by soft waves and hidden in the shadow.

Nobody else was there in the pumpkin patch. Her reply seemed to take forever has the sun slowly dipped below the horizon.

A chill gradually settled into his skin, but his heart was too cold to feel it.

His black leather gloved hands slowly emerged from his jacket pocket, along with his gun.

She turned from him, facing the sun for the last time. Her shoulders shook slightly- due to crying or laughing or the cold he didn’t know. Some white wisps of warm breath faded beside her. Then she turned back with a light smile on her lips. Her expression was unreadable.

Those golden eyes could have been loving,

or pitying,

or resigned,

or sorrowful,

or lonesome,

or kind.

He never took the time to read her before, and he didn’t now.

Her eyelids fluttered shut. Her last moments would not be of him, but of darkness. This is what she had chosen as his punishment.

“Sure.”

His piercing eyes observed her carefully. No more words were exchanged. The pumpkins on the ground sat still; even the wind had settled down. It was only them two.

The orange light from the fading sun painted her face with a gorgeous glow. She was beautiful.

Then she was gone.