Johan had won. Everything he had set out to do, he had done. The town was broken. The people who had once walked its streets with purpose now wandered in a daze, uncertain, fearful, and lost. The mayor was gone. His family was in ruins. The town’s leadership was in disarray. Businesses had closed. Families had fled. Trust had become a relic of the past. Johan had proven that a society could be undone with nothing more than whispers and doubt. And yet, as he sat by his window, looking down at the wreckage he had created, he felt nothing. No joy. No excitement. No sense of accomplishment. Only emptiness. It was a strange feeling. One he had never truly confronted before. For as long as he could remember, his life had been a game of control, of bending the world to his will, of testing how far he could push people before they shattered. But now that he had done it, now that he had torn apart everything around him… What was left? Johan was no longer a child. Not in the way that other children were. They still played. They still dreamed. They still believed in things. Even after everything they had been through, they still smiled. But Johan? Johan had transcended those things long ago. He had seen too much. Understood too much. Innocence had never been a part of him, and now, it was something he could barely even comprehend. The idea of hope, of love, of simple happiness. It all felt so distant. As if it belonged to another world. A world that had nothing to do with him. And yet, there was something unsettling about that realization. He had spent years shaping the world to his will. But what if the world had also shaped him? As Johan walked through the town, he saw himself in everything. In the fear in people’s eyes. In the distrust in their voices. In the brokenness that lingered in the air. This place had become a reflection of him. Cold. Hollow. Empty. A perfect mirror of the void inside his chest. He had thought that power would bring him something. Whether it be satisfaction, fulfillment, or meaning. Anything. But instead, it had only amplified the emptiness. The more he controlled, the more he destroyed, the less real everything felt. Like a game he had already won. And what was the point of a game if there was no challenge left? For the first time, Johan questioned everything. Not his actions, as he had no regrets. Not his nature, as he understood exactly what he was. But he questioned the very concept of control. He had always believed that control was the key to everything. That if he could control the people around him, he could shape the world in his image. But now, he saw the flaw in that thinking. Control was temporary. No matter how much he manipulated, no matter how deeply he broke people, something always remained. Some ember of resistance. Some scrap of humanity that refused to die. And that… that was infuriating. Because it meant that control alone was not enough. Not if the world could still rebuild itself. Not if people could still piece themselves back together. And so, Johan made a decision. He no longer wanted to just control the world. He wanted to break it completely. The decision to leave was not a dramatic one. There was no hesitation, no sentimentality. Johan simply knew that he had outgrown this place. It had been his playground, his laboratory, the site of his greatest experiment. But it was too small now. There was nothing left for him here. He stood at the doorway of the house he had shared with his mother. Věra did not ask him where he was going. She did not try to stop him. She only looked at him, her expression distant, unreadable. Perhaps she had known this day would come. Perhaps, in some part of her mind, she had always understood that Johan had never really belonged to her. That he had never belonged anywhere. He did not say goodbye. Because what was there to say? She had stopped being his mother a long time ago. And he had stopped being her son even before that. With a quiet step, Johan walked away. And he did not look back. As he left the town behind, Johan felt something he had not felt in a long time. Not fear. Not sadness. Not hesitation. But anticipation. Because now, he was truly free. The world stretched before him, vast and full of possibilities. And he was ready to see how far he could push it. How much chaos he could create. How much suffering he could inflict before the world finally shattered. He did not know what lay ahead. But that was what made it exciting. For the first time in years, Johan felt a spark of something real. And he would follow it to the ends of the earth. Until there was nothing left to break.