The Final Test came without warning.
The room changed — or maybe he did.
Suddenly, he was strapped to the Obelisk — a vertical restraint that held him upright, arms wide, legs bound, nothing to protect the sensitive, pulsing cage now swollen from prolonged denial. Mistress Seraphine donned a new mask — all black, featureless, with a narrow slit at the mouth.
She whispered the word:
“Pain is proof.”
Then came the ritual tools.
Not blades. Not fire.
Rubber batons. Weighted gloves. Boots.
Each strike was methodical. Not wild — never wild. She knew the exact force to bring him to the edge of blackout, but not beyond. Each hit to his restrained, locked, aching body forced his breath into ragged sobs.
But he did not beg.
He did not cry for release.
He thanked her — after every hit.
“Thank you, Mistress,”
“Thank you, Mistress,”
“Thank you…”
His voice was barely a whisper now. She struck the cage again. Harder.
Something broke.
Not the device — not the flesh — something deeper.
A snap, silent and total. His thoughts scattered. He was no longer a subject with a Mistress.
He was an object.
A thing owned by the Vault.
The body was no longer his.
It was a machine — waiting for instruction, pleasure irrelevant, only obedience remaining.