The day the realization had come to him that it had all just been an act, gestures of false pity not made in truth for his sake but for the sake of her own ego, to make her feel like a good person, somehow a good person by being fake, his trust in people had died. And any hope that it would ever return was laid to rest when she’d chosen to punish him for the grief she had caused him by revising history to suit her need to placate others, again for her own benefit. It died when she chose to lie, lie to try and destroy him. And she got away with it, because all people were liars, base, soulless, and self-interested, following their own biases instead of doing their jobs. They all deserved to rot in eternity, but they faced no repercussions either.
And that fatal stab to his heart, aimed by one he had loved, had truly cared for, in error, took away any chance for him to ever enjoy the world again, as he watched her continue her inauthentic existence with soulless people, predicated upon lies, as if all that mattered was what was meaningless. It was what everyone claimed was worthless when waxing moralistic, but they all chased it anyway because none of them were really moral. It was untrue that a belief in God bestowed morality, because it was those who claimed it the most loudly who had none, like her.
She had murdered him.
He cared for no one, beyond the fact that they were human and worthy of a modicum of respect, when and if they deserved it, which was increasingly rare, and he never would again. He would never care for anyone else more than as another face, not another heart or soul, neither friend nor blood. He trusted no one, and never would again. And he did not care anymore that he never would. The world was owned by the dishonest, the fraudulent, and the greedy. It was not a world worth existing. He refused to give up his soul for money. He had never deigned to play the game that would have brought him her love, or the ruse that passed for it, and he never would. His constitution forbade it. He did not know how, and would not have if he had. He closed himself to everyone for the rest of his life.
His only desire that remained was to see her ruin herself, which she would do, as she had done before. Because she deserved it. She deserved it for the lies she told and for the low people she chose to share herself with. She asked for it, almost literally. It would not make him happy, however. He would never be happy again. It would only lend him a moment of schadenfreude, some sense that she had gotten what she’d earned, though he knew that there was every possibility that, in her shallowness and illness, she would refuse to recognize that she was miserable again. She was a master at self-deceit, after all. She could choke on her diamonds.
But he could hope, hope for her pain, since she had refused to free him from his. When he had cared, he had been charitable, and wanted only the irredeemable to suffer, but now he had no charity. She had stolen it, and she was, herself, irredeemable, by choice. So he simply waited, and would wait for years for her to reap her karma … and it would come. She had no heart left to save herself with.
He was still moral because he valued self-preservation, but he did not love. He did not hate. He did not care any longer. He had no interest in anything else, and barely any in that. And there was nothing but that … nothing moved him. He would not use anyone, as those she placated did. But he was left to witness human depravity increase exponentially, turning to greedy savages. And they deserved it, as she deserved to be used again. The emotionally-depraved she favored would call him weak for not getting over it, but they were weak … weak of mind, weak of spirit. Sociopathic users, fake, badly-endowed men. He had been robbed of his capacity to feel forever by a black heart, with a stab in the back, a casualty of the new world of pure greed. And that had been all he had. And that was the end of his compassion.