She had never been kissed before, and neither had I. It was one of those cold, crisp nights, the kind where you can see your warm breath rising, dissipating into the midnight sky. We were standing on an old wooden bridge, staring upon a small pond, the glassy surface reflecting the moon so perfectly that we could see all of its craters and blemishes.

She stared at the moon's reflection and asked me if I thought that we go somewhere after we die. I told her that I hoped we end up somewhere beautiful, in constant pursuit of the things and people we love most. I could hear her smiling at this. Though I'd never kissed anyone before, I knew that this was one of those perfect moments for such a thing. If I turned into stone after we kissed, it would be worth it.

When we looked into each other's eyes, what took place was soul extraction. She smiled while her being poured into mine, and mine into her's. We were scared to blink; we didn't want to disturb the perfect flow of our souls seeping into one another.

We both had no idea what kissing each other would feel like. But together we were brave enough to try anything. When I moved in to kiss her, sparks flew and it felt as if my insides exploded into a thousand burning pieces. My heart was pounding so hard that my ears were ringing. She quietly whimpered, and when I separated myself from her lips, my insides still felt as though they had been entangled from the excitement. I could barely stand. This first kiss felt amazing.

With a strain in her voice she asked me, "What just happened?"

Her eyes looked empty. I asked if everything was alright, but she didn't answer. She fell into my arms lifelessly and my hands caught her sides in a squishy mess of her blood. Someone had shot her. That explosion was the sound of a gun, not the pyrotechnics of our first kiss.

I had been shot as well. The bullet went clear through her heart and into mine, like Cupid's arrow gone ballistic. Probably her blood was now mixed with mine, but I wasn't scared at all. Though my shirt was quickly staining with more and more blood, I was fearless. My love was dying in my arms, but I was still invincible as long as I knew that we were headed for the same place. Whoever fired the gun was not my concern; the important thing was that we were dying together. No one could hurt us now.

She blinked one last time, and let out a final exhale which materialized into a fog and rose to the sky in a white mist against the black sky. I could feel the moisture of her last breath upon my lips. And I stood with her as long as I could, never letting go of her until, finally, I started to lose my strength. A teardrop fell from my face onto hers, then into the pond, disturbing the perfect reflection of the surface, creating a ripple that seemed to continue on forever. The final image of her lifeless face burned into my eyes and my last breath formed into a fog, rising to the crisp midnight sky, the remnants of my soul chasing hers toward the craters of the moon, in a constant pursuit of the person I loved the most.