The woman took a rapid breath of her cigarette, the flying embers brightening for the fraction of a moment, before dimming.
She leaned forward playfully as she watched me with her two dark ocean-blue orb-like eyes, her eyes blatantly scanning me without any reservation whatsoever.
Her cigarette, already faintly lit on her lips, touched the front of my cigarettes, lighting it. The familiar orange color appeared at the edge, gradually turning the cylinder's tip into white ash.
I raised my eyebrows at her unexpected actions, taking a step away from her.
I inhaled the nicotine, its effects slowly seeping into my veins, as my turbulent mind found some calmness in this familiar act that I had been doing for the past few years.
Really, I couldn't ask for a better Birthday gift than this. Did I forget to mention Today was also my Birthday?
Well, it's not like it matters anyway.
Celebrating our birthdays is like celebrating each day we take to approach our eminent demise. Not the most pleasant celebration to celebrate out there.
"So, what brings some here like you?"
Bringing me out of my chain of thought was the curious, yet smooth voice of a woman. Startled, I raised my head, looking at her and blinking in confusion.
As if confirming that she was talking to me, I looked around me, only to find that there was no one around in the area. Oh well. It looks like she meant me?
"... Were you talking to me?"
I asked without hiding my confusion, but placed the cigarette back between my lips, as if I couldn't understand her thought process. Out of nowhere, this woman came out with her so-expensive cigarettes that it was too expensive to even imagine smoking one, offered me one, gave me an empty lighter, and lit mine up with her own cigarette.
If I had to surmise her personality that i've compiled so far-
'She looks like she's got more than a few screws loose' I concluded.
The fragrant taste of juniper berries and rich tobacco filled my mouth, as I inhaled the taste and savored it passively.
Hm... not bad. I should try to treat myself to this if I ever get rich.
I ignored her, and sat down on the cold flooring that had a light coating of snow.
"You don't seem to talk much," she said eventually, exhaling a stream of smoke that seemed to spell out the words, her hands waving away the smoke leaving her lips and nostrils.
I didn't answer, instead, leaning my head on the cold rails and watching the swirling dark clouds in the sky, making an odd looking grey-dark color that didn't match that in the sky in the summer.
I faintly closed my eyes.
A dark sky suitable only for that of the early winter.
How cold. Of the world. To let me live my day by day like this, so cold indeed, so indifferent.
The woman let out an odd sounding chuckle at my lack of response response.
How tiresome.
The silence between us soon returned for a few moments, before it was broken by a sudden sound.
Click.
I heard the metallic slide of a gun, the click audible, as the door in front of me got pushed open for a fraction of a second, the shadow of a figure stepping out appeared before me.
Behind him, the orange light of the internal building lit up for a moment, before disappearing with a creak, as the shadowy figure pushed the door, and adjusted its collar, moving forward.
The door looked pretty durable despite how rusty it appeared with the passage of time.
"Looks like you have a guest"
The woman muttered, as she leaned her back against the rail, throwing the rest of a cigarette in front of her, no bothering on stepping on it, as she pursed her lips, her eyes shifting towards him, observing him.
I didn't reply to her remark, merely satisfying myself by slightly moving my eyes towards the now approaching figure. It moved with somewhat measured steps that seemed to be balanced and yet imbalanced.
I once more lazily shifted my eyes to the hem of my jacket.
"Hm..."
Pushing it back slightly was an old, basic analog black watch that I had bought as a gift for myself today.
They had given a 55% offer on all of their liquidation products since holidays were just around the corner, and I had spotted this watch in an opened box near some LED lightings on a shelf in perfect condition.
An ideal watch for an ideal man.
I squinted my eyes at the cold screen, barely making anything from it in the darkness of the night.
I let out a sigh. Seems like I wouldn't even be able to tell the time that I die at. What a romantic way to die, that I do not doubt, Romeo would have envied.
Wait, didn't Romeo die a romantic death in the play?
Jogging my memory, I attempted to recall the play that I had heard from my sister quite a long time. To no avail.
Hm, can't recall now. Well, whatever.
Its just too ironic for me to comment at this point.
And its not like I did anything wrong anyways. People just misinterpreted my actions. Feeling a headache coming along, I shut my eyes,`
"Aren't you going to do anything? The man seems intent on putting a holiday gift bullet in your gut."
Hmm.... now that I think about, he somewhat strikes me as one of those discount homiciders, or rather, killers, since there are many discounts on the holidays.
"Duunnoo"
The type of person who needs to kill people to make money, and get a gift for himself.
"You don't know?"
She asked, raising an eyebrow, as if she wasn't convinced of my answer.
Fuck, why is she so annoying? Can't she find someone else to bother?
My brain feels foggy.
Isn't she concerned she'll get shot, anyways? Why she even here?
Anyways, where was I ....
Ah.
Who is to say killers can't be discounted as well? You just need to find the correct marketplaces to find them, pay the right price, and voila! You pay them fifty before, fifty after, and you have your DIY, cheap killer. How much would it cost to hire-to-kill?
2k?
5k?
Not much.
Now that I think about it, I should have gotten that limited 35% discount on the 5kg drumstick box they had at Wollmart this Friday. Let's make a mental note to remember doing that after dealing with this unfortunate guy.
Still, I wonder if he would miss the shot, if he shot from where he is standing.
Hm ... hm?
Stroking my forehead, I felt my head throbbing.
I pressed my hand against my temple.
I don't feel well.
What am I even saying now? Its like I am talking from third person.
Hahaha.
What discounts?
My clouded eyes turned back to the figure that stood in front of me, without a word.
I couldn't tell of his features in the darkness. My eyes lingered on him for a while, searching his face for any identifiable features. As if understanding what I was trying to do, the man took out an object of his pocket, and turned it on.
Oh, his phone. His phone illuminated his face to reveal that of a middle aged man with a light beard, his right pupil white, while his other dark brown eyes scrolled his phone.
Odd, he looked shorter than what I thought.
"... Are you Noel I. Alden-Dabar-Ran?"
I didn't answer, but my half closed eyes spoke volume.
"That is quite a long name for a person. How did you end up with that kind of name? Are you from some kind of long ancestory family?"
"Hm"
"Do you have any siblings, or relatives alive, per chance?"
I shook my head at his question in denial.
"I see."
He remarked, finally removing his gaze from his phone, closing it and putting it back in his pocket, and inserting the magazine into his handgun.
"Well, its a shame that the end of your long ancestory is today. Don't you agree? Its quite a romantic weather to die today. The first day of the year where it snows."
He let out a grunt.
"Well, weather forecast isn't consistent. It is most certainly that it is not something to know. Perhaps tomorrow it'll be a sunny day."
Although I agreed with him, I didn't answer.
Instead, I slipped my hand into my damp pocket that dampened from the white flakes of snow that kept falling down from the sky, my fingers moving here and there as if in search for something.
The man took note of this, but didn't put much reaction to it, instead took a small walk and looked over the rails for a moment, keeping an eye at me at the same time.
"Be quick"
Ah, my fingers finally caught hold of the piece of paper I was looking for.
"Here."
Giving him the piece of paper from my spot, the man stared at me for a moment, his gaze unreadable, before he took out a bowie knife in his other hand that was strapped to his inner jacket, and extended his hand, taking it from between my fingers.
He spread the wet piece of paper, and locked his eyes onto it for a moment before crumbling it.
"What is that?" His voice akin to the movement of a machine.
"A therapist's number. I thought you would need some help like me. The therapist has free sessions in case you don't know. But there is something to keep track of. He can sometimes be quite irritatable at times, so you have to a bit broad minded with his unexpected statements.,"
I stated honestly, not a single grain of bad intention in my heart as I rubbed my hair to warm up my freezing hands. "I think your eye needs some help. Looks white than my mothers milk"
"I see"
The man didn't comment further on my geniune antic, and instead pointed the pistol to the center of my head and pressed it on my forehead, about to pull the trigger.
However, right before that, I pressed the side of the barrell.
"What?"
I looked towards the women who was leaning her chin tiredly, and looking at the appearance of the city below.
".... Why did you decide to kill me now?" I asked, as if genuinely puzzle by her decision
She obviously had more than one occasion to kill me, many of which were more suitable.
So why now?
That was the question that plagued me the most.
The woman's ethereal eyes moved to meet mine, blinking her colorful eyes, dead like the dead see.
She let out a simple smile.
"Why, because I felt like it."
I see. Because she felt like it.
My hazy mind was incapable of forming any other logical reason other than that.
It was a pathetic, yet undeniable reason. It didn't make sense to me, but it actually somehow did.
And so I nodded my head, but visibly flinched suddenly.
Snapping my hand in the cold air, I noticed that I had forgotten the cigarette I was given in my hand, making it burn to the filter.
"Oh," I whispered.
Then is this the end?
.
.
.
I guess it is(?)
Still, the weather is incomparably beautiful, to die while it's snowing.
Hm, what else was there to think about right before death?
I can't really remember. During life, I had a lot to think about everyday, but somehow, its like I have nothing in my mind to think about when I am about to die.
Hypocrite.
Sigh...
If anything, the thing I thought about with the barrell pressed against my forehead was the game I was playing, the choices I was left with after I completed the good ending, which made me gag. I personally liked bad endings, but since the good ending was the difficult one, I decided to go with it.
The only man, out of the millions of players, who achieved the difficult ending.
I had received a notification on my phone after completing the game, which had made me cautious at the time. I mean, how would they know my phone number unless they had my IP or MAC address? And MAC changers where everywhere nowadays.
Well, it doesn't matter now. I was given a simple message from a weird email with a weird domain that ended in xyz:
======================================
From:
To:
Date: Dec, 5 12:23 AM
Subject: Congratulatory
[You've reached the end… or perhaps, the beginning.]
From your first uncertain steps to the final trial, you shaped this world with your choices, your courage, and your resolve. Few made it this far, few continued the path. Fewer still walk away unchanged.
If you could transmigrate- start again, from zero, in another form, in another world- would you?
A new life. A new cycle. A new mystery.
[Yes] [No] [Ask Me Again Later]
Whatever you choose, know this: You mattered here.
— With gratitude,
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The D e v s]
=====================================
It was nothing too long, nothing too short
The thought had intrigued me at the time, and as a second nature to me, I had selected [Yes] without thinking much about it.
Heh.
Why is this coming up to mind right now? Eh, really no idea.
Its weird in all due honesty.
Looks like no Wollmart discounts in sight, huh.
I closed my eyes, not out of fear, but because they were dry from the wind.
I just wanted to sleep.
However, an important question came to mind.
'... Wasn't homicide illegal?'
BANG
A sudden sho-