Zedrik stumbled backward through the shimmering portal and collapsed onto the cold marble floor of the throne room, his chest heaving, his hands shaking so violently he could barely push himself up onto his elbows. The grand hall stretched around him, all towering obsidian pillars and flickering torchlight, but he saw none of it. His vision was tunneling, dark spots dancing at the edges, his heart slamming against his ribs like a caged animal trying to break free.
"What the fuck did I do wrong?!" The words ripped out of him, raw and ragged, echoing off the stone walls. He clawed at his own hair, fingers tangling in the sweat damp strands, and pulled hard enough to sting.
"I did everything right! I played the part! I was flirty, I was seductive, I batted my eyelashes and I talked dirty and I bent over and I—" His voice cracked, splintering into something shrill and desperate.
"How the fuck is it so hard being a fucking slut?! It's supposed to be easy! It's supposed to be the easiest thing in the world! You just spread your legs and moan and people give you whatever you want!"
He slammed his fist against the marble floor. The impact sent a shockwave of pain up his arm, but he didn't care. He hit the floor again. And again.
"Being a woman can't be that fucking hard! They've been doing it for millennia! They've been batting their lashes and shaking their hips and wrapping men around their fingers since the dawn of time! Why can't I do it?! What am I missing?!" His voice rose to a fever pitch, bouncing off the pillars and coming back at him like mockery.
"Was I supposed to grab his dick? Was that it? Was I supposed to be more aggressive? Less aggressive? Should I have cried? Should I have begged? What the hell does he want from me?!"
His forehead met the marble with a sickening crack.
He didn't stop.
Crack.
"Stupid."
Crack.
"Useless."
Crack.
"Worthless." Blood began to smear across the pale stone, but Zedrik kept slamming his head down, the physical pain a welcome distraction from the hurricane of humiliation and confusion tearing through his skull.
He had been so sure. So certain that he understood.
Women were objects, tools, playthings. All you had to do was act like one and the world would open its legs for you. But John hadn't even flinched. John had looked at him with those cold, knowing eyes and seen right through every simpering word, every calculated pose, every desperate attempt at seduction. How? How had he known?
"It doesn't make sense!" Zedrik howled, his voice cracking into something that was almost a sob. "I did everything they do! I copied them exactly! I watched them for years, I studied every move, every gesture, every simpering little smile! I know women better than they know themselves! So why—why didn't it work—why didn't he want me—what did I do wrong—WHAT DID I DO WRONG?!"
A soft chuckle echoed through the throne room. John materialized out of thin air a few feet away, his arms crossed, his expression hovering somewhere between pity and disgust. He watched Zedrik slam his head against the floor one more time, then spoke.
"You want to know what you did wrong? Fine. I'll tell you." John uncrossed his arms and began ticking off points on his fingers. "Number one. You're a chud. You walk like a man, you talk like a man, you think like a man. No hot woman acts the way you acted tonight unless she wants something. And you made it so painfully obvious that you wanted something that it wasn't even seduction anymore. It was a transaction. A very badly disguised transaction."
He ticked off a second finger. "Number two. You showed no emotion. Real emotion. A woman who has been beaten as many times as you claimed would not be flirty. She would be terrified. She would be pleading. She would flinch when someone raised their voice and apologize for existing and look at the floor instead of making eye contact. She would not be grinding on a stranger's lap and talking about how wet she was. That's a fantasy written by someone who has never actually been traumatized."
Zedrik stopped slamming his head. He just lay there, forehead pressed against the cold marble, blood trickling down his temple and pooling in the cracks between the stones. John's words hit him harder than the floor ever could.
"And number three," John said, his voice dropping into something quieter, something almost sad. "You just don't fucking get it. You never will. No amount of explaining, no amount of punishment, no amount of forcing you to walk a mile in someone else's shoes will ever make you understand. Because you don't want to understand. You've built your entire identity around not understanding."
John sighed, a long, tired sound that seemed to come from somewhere deep in his bones. He looked down at the broken, bleeding man on the floor and felt nothing. Not satisfaction. Not anger. Just a profound, bone deep exhaustion.
"I'm done. You can't teach a rapist womanizer the struggles of women. It's like trying to teach a rock to swim. I've wasted enough time on you."
He snapped his fingers.
The throne room dissolved. Zedrik felt the floor vanish beneath him, and then he was falling, tumbling through empty space, his stomach lurching into his throat. When he landed, it was on soft, sun warmed grass. He gasped for breath, his head still ringing, his forehead still bleeding, and scrambled to his knees.
He was in an open field. Rolling green hills stretched in every direction, dotted with wildflowers and the occasional gnarled tree. The sky above was a perfect, cloudless blue, and a warm breeze ruffled his hair. In the distance, about a mile away, was a wandering merchant's cart, a colorful little wagon with a striped awning and a placid horse grazing beside it. Further beyond that, maybe two or three miles, loomed the walls of a city, tall and white and gleaming in the afternoon sun.
John stood beside him, his silhouette stark against the bright sky. "Here's the deal," John said, his voice calm and almost bored. "You have a fifteen second head start to reach that wandering merchant. If you get there, he will protect you. He will hide you in his cart and smuggle you into the city and you will never see me again. That's your one chan-."
Before John could even finish the sentence, Zedrik was running. He bolted down the grassy hill with the desperate, frantic energy of a man who had finally, truly understood that he was going to die if he didn't move fast enough. His legs pumped beneath him, his lungs burning, the wind screaming past his ears. The merchant's cart bobbed in the distance, getting closer, closer, almost within reach—
John chuckled softly and raised one hand. The air beside him shimmered, and Mariannetta appeared, her crimson eyes gleaming with anticipation. Her long dark hair cascaded over her bare shoulders, and her lips curved into a hungry, predatory smile.
"How can I help you, Master?" she purred, her voice dripping with eager devotion.
John pointed toward the distant figure of the cart and the man running toward it. "See that woman? The one running? Kill her."
Mariannetta's eyes widened with pure, unfiltered delight. A shiver of pleasure ran through her entire body, and she let out a soft, breathy moan. "Thank you, Master. Thank you so much for this opportunity. You are too generous. Too kind." She paused, tilting her head, her smile turning coy. "May I... toy with my food? Just a little? Before the kill?"
John shrugged. "Sure. Have fun."
Mariannetta's smile stretched into something feral. She raised one hand above her head, and the air around her began to warp and ripple. Crimson energy coalesced in her palm, condensing into a massive spear of blood, longer than she was tall, its tip wickedly sharp and glistening in the sunlight. She wound her arm back, her muscles coiling like a snake preparing to strike.
Zedrik reached the cart. He grabbed the side of the wagon, his chest heaving, his legs screaming, and looked up at the merchant. "Help me! Please! There's a—there's a monster, she's going to kill me, you have to hide me, please, I'll do anything—"
The merchant didn't move. Zedrik's words died in his throat. He stared at the figure sitting in the driver's seat, at the painted face and the straw stuffed hands and the empty, hollow eyes. It wasn't a person. It was a doll. A straw doll dressed in merchant's clothes, propped up to look like a real human being from a distance. There was no shelter here. No protection. No escape.
Zedrik's legs gave out. He crumpled to the grass, his back against the wagon wheel, tears streaming down his face. "Please," he whispered, his voice cracking into something small and broken. "Please, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything. I'll change. I'll be different. Just please don't—"
The blood spear hit him square in the chest. It punched through his ribcage with a wet, crunching sound, pinning him to the wagon wheel like a butterfly to a board. Zedrik's mouth opened, but no sound came out. His eyes went wide, then glassy, then empty. His body went limp, blood soaking into the grass beneath him, and Mariannetta's delighted laughter echoed across the empty field.