"No, you don't really love me. If you really loved me, you wouldn't do this."
Gamora shook her head. Tears slid down her face and scattered in the wind.
"Precisely because I truly love you, I have to do this.
"The Soul Stone's rule is to sacrifice the person you love most. If I didn't love you enough, I wouldn't be qualified to obtain the Stone."
He walked up to Gamora. His massive body blocked the wind, the light, and the entire world.
He lowered his head and looked at her, her green face reflected in his amber eyes.
"I love you, Gamora. More deeply than any father has ever loved a daughter."
He reached out and lifted Gamora from the ground.
His huge hand gripped her arm and raised her over the edge of the cliff.
Gamora's body dangled over the void, the black abyss beneath her feet.
"No!!!" Gamora's voice broke.
Her tears scattered through the wind, and her body trembled.
Her hands struggled, but the Inhibitor made every struggle meaningless.
She looked at Thanos, at the man she had called Father for twenty years, and into his eyes.
Tears welled from those amber irises and ran down his purple cheeks.
Thanos was crying.
He shed tears silently, like a melting iceberg, like a dying star.
His lips trembled. His hand trembled. His entire body trembled.
But he did not let go.
"I'm sorry," Thanos said.
He released her.
Gamora fell.
Her body passed through the black void. There was no sound, no light, nothing to prove that she had ever existed.
Like a stone thrown into a well, she vanished into the depths of the abyss without even leaving an echo behind.
Thanos stood at the cliff's edge, head lowered as he stared into the black void.