Unsaving The Woman Who Betrayed Me

I spent three years trying to rewrite the ending of a tragedy. My mission was simple: save Nancy, the beautiful, obsessive doomed girl of this story, from sacrificing her life for a man who didn't love her.

But when the hero of this world finally returned, she still smiled as she crawled through fire for him.

By the time I reached the underground fighting pits, the air was thick with the copper scent of blood and the roar of the crowd. Nancy was there, kneeling in the dirt at his feet. A gold victory medal was clenched between her teeth, and her long, dark serpents tail was coiled listlessly behind her.

Silas, the man I was supposed to keep her away from, leaned over her. He ran a sharp, manicured nail over the raw, jagged wounds on her back. She didn't flinch. She didn't resist. She just looked up at him with a terrifying, hollow devotion.

Silas used the tip of his expensive leather boot to tilt her chin up. He offered a thin, mocking smile. "I heard a rumor you got married, Nancy. Do you actually love that husband of yours?"

Nancys lips curled into a faint, ghost-like smile. "No."

Silas arched a brow, amused. "Oh? Then why marry him?"

Her answer came without a second of hesitation. "Gratitude. He saved my life once. I was merely paying a debt."

The sound of Silass sharp, cruel laughter was the background music to my death sentence. In my mind, a cold, mechanical ping rang out: [Task Failed. Host life-support sequence terminated.]

Looking at the two of them, no one would believe that just last nightthe night before Silas returnedthis same woman had been shifted into her half-beast form, her black scales shimmering as she wrapped her tail gently around my arm. She had looked at me with eyes bright with what I thought was affection and whispered, "Cade, youll stay with me forever, right?"

Now, I finally had the answer for her.

There is no "forever" for us.

With the task failed, my terminal condition was no longer being suppressed by the System. I had exactly twenty-eight days left to live.

Silas leaned back against the arena railing, his voice dripping with the casual arrogance of a man who knew he was worshipped.

"Nancy, go get me the second gold medal. I want the set."

Nancys dark, fathomless eyes locked onto him. She nodded once. "Anything for you."

Her opponent for the second half was an avian-shiftera hawk. In the world of predators, the hawk was the snake's natural nightmare. Nancy was at a devastating disadvantage.

I watched from the shadows as the hawks talons, sharp as surgical hooks, tore into her abdomen.

The moment her flesh was ripped open, her entire body convulsed. Her tail coiled in a violent spasm of agony before lashing out. But she didn't stop. She didn't even slow down. She used the momentum of the strike to lung forward, her fingers clawing toward that meaningless gold token.

Every time the hawk dived, it took a piece of her with it.

I stood there, watching the body I had spent three years painstakingly piecing back togetherusing every hard-earned point I had to heal her scars and mend her bonesget torn to shreds by her own choice.

Finally, she gasped, her fingers closing around the medal.

She dragged herself back to Silass feet, trembling, and forced a bloody smile as she held it up. "The medal... for you."

Silas took it, tossing it lightly in his hand. Then, with a sudden, sharp grin, he raised his boot and ground his heel into her mangled tail.

Nancys face went paper-white. A strangled, muffled groan of pure agony escaped her throat as cold sweat broke across her skin. Silas pressed harder, his weight crushing the bone beneath the scales, until a fresh pool of crimson began to spread across the dirt.

Suddenly, chaos erupted. Someone had left a cage door open, and one of the wilder beasts broke loose.

Nancys instincts kicked in instantly. Ignoring her crushed tail, she surged upward, wrapping herself around Silas, using her own back as a shield against the screaming crowd and the charging beast.

A shard of glass, shattered by the stampede, whistled past my arm. I barely stepped aside. I wanted to move toward her, to pull her out of that hellhole, but my feet felt like they were bolted to the floor.

The System was right.

Shifters have instincts a thousand times sharper than humans. I had been standing there for two hours. I had watched her bleed, watched her offer up her soul, watched her throw her life away for a man who enjoyed her pain.

And in those two hours, she hadn't looked at me once. Not even a glance.

A sharp, stabbing migraine hit me out of nowhere. My vision tunneled into blackness. I couldn't hold myself up anymore. With my last shred of strength, I whispered to the void, "System... get me out of here."

I woke up curled on my bed, feeling as if a colony of fire ants was gnawing at my marrow.

My "illness" was a side effect of the transmigration. Three years ago, I had accepted this mission to save my own life. When I first found Nancy, she was a wreck. Her scales were scattered like broken glass, her flesh torn from tail to hip, her white bones peeking through the red.

She was huddled in a rainy alley, looking more pathetic than I felt.

I held an umbrella over her and knelt in the mud. "Beg me," I told her, "and I'll save you."

She had looked up at me then, her dark eyes cold and defiant. She bit her bloodless lip and turned her head away, choosing pride over survival.

I had laughed. I told the System, Shes the one. Lets do this.

During her recovery, she watched me like a caged wolf. Once, while I was changing her bandages, she bit my hand so hard I bled.

I just sighed, looking at the wound. "You have to cooperate if you want to get better, Nancy."

She had frozen then, her pupils slitting into thin vertical lines. She stared at the blood on my hand, then at my face, a flicker of genuine confusion and guilt crossing her expression.

After that day, the walls came down.

She went from cold silence to soft responses, and eventually, to a suffocating dependence. Ive always been a magnet for bad lucktripping, getting sick, minor accidentsbut for the three years Nancy was healthy, I didn't suffer a single scratch.

She would tilt the umbrella toward me in the rain. She would spend months crafting gifts for me. Once, in a car accident, she threw her body over mine, using her strength to create a pocket of safety in a heap of twisted metal while she bled out.

The System warned me: [Host, remember this is just a task. Do not invest real emotion into the target.]

But I wasn't a professional. I didn't have the cold, clinical detachment of a long-term jumper.

So, when she looked at me with those shining eyes and clumsily presented a ring she had polished from one of her own shed scales, stuttering through a proposal...

I nodded. I said, "Yes."

The pain in my chest intensified, blurring my thoughts. Habit took over. I reached for my phone and dialed Nancys number. I just wanted her to bring me my meds.

But the phone, which she used to answer on the first ring, just kept ringing.

I remembered the way she held me every night, her eyes watching me in the dark. I remembered the cool touch of her scales against my skin when she was being affectionate.

It was all just "paying a debt."

The pain finally dragged me under, and I spiraled into unconsciousness.

I was jolted awake by the thick, metallic scent of blood.

As I came to, I felt something shifting inside me. The System had told me that my "illness" wouldn't just kill my body; it would erode my personality, stripping away my capacity for emotion until there was nothing left.

I looked up to see Nancy standing by the bed. She was swaying, barely able to keep her balance. There wasn't a patch of clean skin on her. She looked like shed been put through a meat grinder.

I frowned, feeling nothing but a sharp, biting annoyance at being disturbed.

She didn't notice my coldness. She reached out, grabbing the hem of my shirt with trembling fingers. Her voice was a raspy whisper. "Cade... I'm hurt."

I nodded curtly. "I can see that. Im not blind."

She flinched as if Id slapped her. Her dark eyes, clouded with pain and blood loss, searched mine in confusion.

After a few seconds of heavy silence, she tried again. "Cade, Im in pain... tell me a story? Like you used to?"

I looked at the bloody handprints she was leaving on my shirt and felt a wave of disgust. I pulled my clothes out of her grip.

"I didn't do that to you," I said, my voice flat. "If you're in pain, why is it my job to entertain you?"

The air seemed to leave her lungs all at once. The last bit of color drained from her face. She stared at me for a long time, her voice trembling. "What... whats happened to you?"

I wanted to tell her nothing was wrongthat I just couldn't stand the sight of herbut a fresh wave of agony hit my head, stealing my voice.

My sudden pale face and gasping breath terrified her. She panicked, reaching out to hold me but afraid to touch me, her voice shaking. "Cade? What is it? Where does it hurt?"

The medical tech in this world was primitive. Painkillers were the only thing that worked for what I had. I stopped caring about the blood on her hands and grabbed her wrist. "Get... get me the medication... the strong ones..."

I lied to cover the Systems involvement. "My migraines... theyre back."

"Yes! Yes! Right away! I'm going!" she cried. She threw on a coat over her ruined clothes and vanished into the night.

I waited for hours. I drifted in and out of consciousness, the pain a dull roar in the back of my mind.

She didn't come back.

Eventually, the pain leveled off enough for me to throw on a jacket and head to the clinic myself. I didn't expect to find Nancy there. And I certainly didn't expect to find her with Silas.

Nancy was strapped to a cold metal surgical table, her wrists bound by heavy iron chains. Her tail hung limply off the side. She was hooked up to a dozen machines and tubes I didn't recognize.

Silas stood over her, holding a syringe filled with a glowing neon fluid. He was smiling.

"First injection, Nancy. Lets see how you take it."

The moment the fluid entered her veins, her body arched violently. The veins in her neck and forehead bulged, and her black tail convulsed in a rhythmic, agonizing spasm.

Silas watched the monitors with a predatory obsession, taking notes. He picked up a second syringe. "One more to go. Can you handle it, or are we done?"

Nancy was gasping for air, her face a mask of sweat and agony, but she forced the words out. "It's... it's fine. Keep going."

Standing in the doorway, I remembered what the System had said. In the original story, she was the "Martyr." She willingly let the "hero" dissect her and experiment on her in the name of "medical progress." Silas would build his entire career on her mutilated body, becoming the star of the medical world while she withered away.

I should have turned around. My emotions were nearly gone anyway. But the sight of her like that triggered a lingering spark of logic. I pushed the door open.

"Stop it. What the hell are you doing?"

They both froze. Silas looked at me and blinked. "Doing an experiment," he said, his tone as casual as if he were making coffee.

I took a deep breath, glaring at him. "Shes in agony."

Silas let out a sharp, condescending laugh. "What do I care? She volunteered." He looked at Nancy. "Besides, even if she dies here, its for the greatness of medicine. An honor, right, Nancy?"

Nancys pupils constricted the moment she saw me. She looked at me not with relief, but with a cold, piercing warning.

"What are you doing here?" she snapped. Her voice was ice. "This is none of your business, Cade."

"Get out."

"Don't interrupt Silas's work."

I stared at her, the absurdity of it all hitting me. I let out a short, dry laugh. As I turned to leave, the very last tether of affection I had for her finally snapped.

I shut the door firmly behind me. The Martyr? I thought. More like a masochist with a death wish.

The System chimed in: [Well, look on the bright side. Your emotional decay makes dealing with toxic people a lot easier.]

I didn't answer. I went home, took my meds, took a hot shower, and buried myself in my blankets. If you want something done right, do it yourself. I only had twenty-eight days left. I might be dying, but I was going to die comfortable and clean.

I was half-asleep when a cold body pressed against my back. A heavy weight wrapped around my legs.

I was too tired to process it at first. I just clutched my pillow and rolled to the far side of the bed. But she followed, her tail coiling tighter around my ankles. The cold, reptilian sensation made my skin crawl.

I slammed my hand onto the bedside lamp.

Nancys face was inches from mine. She looked pathetic.

"Cade," she whispered, her voice cracking. "Today, I..."

I didn't let her finish. I grabbed the heavy brass lamp and swung it at her with everything I had.

"Get out!"

She didn't move. She didn't even flinch. The lamp caught her in the temple, and a streak of blood began to travel down her pale cheek.

I pointed at the door. "This is my house. Who gave you permission to be here? Get out before I lose my mind!"

She looked at me with those wide, wounded eyes. Then, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled, tear-stained box of pills. She held them out to me.

"The medicine... I brought it. Are you still hurting?"

I looked at the boxthe meds she was "too busy" to bring because she was being Silas's lab ratand I felt a wave of pure, unadulterated loathing.

"Im hurting," I sneered. "Looking at you makes me sick. Are you leaving, or am I calling the police?"

She stared at me, stubborn as a mule. "Im not leaving."

She reached out to grab my sleeve, a gesture that used to be sweet. Now, it was the final straw.

The "illness" was taking over my brain. I couldn't control the rage. Why did she get to be a martyr for him and a victim for me?

I lunged forward, grabbed her black tail where it sat on the floor, and yanked. "Get. Off. My. Bed!"

She tumbled to the floor, looking up at me in shock. "Cade, don't be angry. Im moving, Im moving..."

But I wasn't finished. I stepped down, hard, with my heel on the most sensitive part of her tail, grinding my shoe into the scales.

She froze. Her fingers clenched into the carpet. She looked up at me, her eyes filling with tears of shock and betrayal.

What are you crying for? I thought. You seemed to love it when Silas did it.

I ground my heel down again. And again.

I didn't stop until I felt the floor become slick and wet. When I looked down, Nancy was huddled in a heap, and the rug was stained a deep, dark red.

I felt a sudden dizzy spell. The anger drained away, leaving only a hollow exhaustion.

Nancy slowly looked up. She forced a tiny, twisted smile. "Are you done?" she whispered. She turned her face away. "If not... you can keep going."

She was trying to play the guilt card. She was waiting for me to apologize, to gather her in my arms and cry.

But the dizziness turned into a black void. I pitched forward, losing consciousness before I hit the floor.