As they did not care to know God, God handed them over to their debased minds to do what is not fitting. They were filled with all kinds of wickedness, evil, greed, and malice. They were full of envy, murder, quarrels, deceit, and malice. They were gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent new ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, and no mercy. Romans 1:28-31

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POV Kevin

"Is evil and cruelty the true nature of man?" (Kevin)

At first, these men and women felt remorse about electrocuting me. Their arms trembled, their faces contorted, and when I cried out in pain, their faces were horrified.

Yet, their remorse did not stop them from electrocuting me over and over again. The pain was unbearable, violent spasms coursing through my frail body. My poor muscles contracting upon themselves again and again.

The worst part was the excruciating burning sensation, as if I were engulfed in flames. My eyes burned as if thousands of needles were being plunged into them. I felt as if my body were coming apart, about to explode. I soiled myself repeatedly, begging them to stop this torment.

Each shock was more horrific than the last as they increased the intensity. Despite my pleas, they never stopped.

Then something began to change. Their hands stopped trembling. Their faces ceased their constant contortions. I saw a growing sense of detachment in their eyes.

They started to gaze upon my suffering, observing it with curiosity. Curiosity turned into suppressed pleasure, and small, malicious smiles began to emerge on their faces. Suppressed pleasure turned into overt enjoyment. Eventually, that enjoyment turned into excitement, then delight.

They reveled in every one of my cries, in every one of my pains, no matter how terrible.

A torn nail:

"Don't be such a crybaby; it'll grow back."

A knife wound:

"You'll heal; behave like a man."

The worst was when they cut off one of my fingers to see if it would regrow.

"Oh, well, too bad, it doesn't grow back."

I cried, screamed, and wailed as my severed finger lay on the floor in a small pool of blood. It continued relentlessly, not to mention the horrific nightmares that prevented me from getting any rest.

I was trapped, caught in this infernal cycle, and gradually, my mind began to break. I entered periods of psychosis or vegetative states. I stopped sleeping to avoid my nightmares, but they lurked in the shadows.

In the end, I started clinging to the only thing that remained with me. The only thing that reminded me I was alive, the only thing that kept my mind from shattering.

I became attached to the pain, my sole companion on this journey. It was paradoxical because the pain was destroying me, yet I clung to it. Like a lifebuoy, for I was lost at sea in a storm. It became my companion in misfortune and fortune alike. This horrible, horribly salvific pain consumed my every thought, every day, every hour, every minute, every second.

Then I no longer know, for I had lost all sense of time and place. I heard Judas' confession before he pressed the button that would bring me death.

I had already understood, from our first interactions, the vile nature of this man, just from a single glance. Just from his arrogant way of speaking and his gaze. A gaze that did not see me, but the benefits and answers he could extract from me.

He was a greedy and covetous man in search of answers, just like the men around him. In their insatiable thirst, they subjected me to the worst tortures, tortures they eventually grew to enjoy.

They were human beings just like me, but they only had the appearance of it. Had I harmed them? Had I taken something from them?

Not in the slightest. It was pure monstrosity. They were monsters in human form. Inflicting torment upon a defenseless human being and finding pleasure in it is anything but humane.

It is inhuman, but what makes a monster inhuman is that they are human. However, these men are humans who justify their monstrosity by using the human faculty of reason to give meaning to their inhumanity. They have managed to turn evil into an instrument of good, turning vice into virtue and virtue into vice.

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Finally, it happened. This shock was the most horrific of all. I was paralyzed, seized by the pain, feeling my skin burn. The horrible smell of my own flesh turning into a piece of steak being grilled.

Then, nothing. No more pain, no more smell, no more light. Just me with myself and absolute darkness.

I quickly thought back to those men, no, those monsters. I understood through their actions and what I experienced that a monster is not devoid of humanity; it is an entity in which humanity and inhumanity coexist.

Did they lack empathy towards me? Empathy is being sensitive to the fate of others, recognizing one's own image in the other. Yet, they did not see themselves in my suffering. So they are not empathetic and, consequently, they are insensitive?

No, if the absence of empathy manifests as indifference to the fate of others, then they are not indifferent. They took pleasure in seeing me suffer and agonize like a dog.

It is not empathy that these men lacked, but rather compassion and pity. They are devoid of kindness, which, when combined with empathy, forms compassion and pity.

They are emphatically sadistic individuals, but were they always like this?

I believe they were. It was simply buried deep within them. So, in the end:

"If evil and cruelty are the true nature of man, should we fight against them or let them express themselves?" (Kevin)

The realm of the dead and the abyss are never satisfied, and so are human eyes never satisfied. Proverbs 27:20

I found myself falling once again into that endless void, inevitably losing my mind once more. Losing all sense of time and space, my mind began to shatter into pieces like a puzzle.

The only difference from last time was that I had a body. And then I remembered that pain had saved me from madness. So, I did what I had to do. I needed that pain that was absent and tormenting me.

I began biting my wrists until they bled, feeling my teeth penetrate my own flesh and tear pieces of skin. The most remarkable thing was that my mind focused solely on the pain, clinging to it.

The wounds healed, and I could start again. But at least my mind could focus. One could say it was cannibalism since I was eating myself, but it didn't matter.

Suddenly, a loud noise echoed through the void. I turned my gaze downward and saw enormous black lightning bolts and mist, and I was falling towards them.

When I entered that zone, the lightning struck me. The pain was greater than anything I had endured. They struck me again and again while the thick black mist entered through my nose and mouth, filling every inch of my body and preventing me from breathing.

I was suffocating, unable to even cough. I was literally drowning, unable to make a single sound. The lightning grew more violent, and the mist thicker as I fell.

Could one die in death? That was the question I pondered. How long did this new torment last? I do not know. Once again, I did the only thing I could do: cling to the pain.

Continuing to fall, now being struck by lightning and suffocated by the mist, it all felt like an eternity. In the end, the mist ceased to penetrate me, and the lightning ceased to strike. I thought I had been set free, but then a gigantic black lightning bolt struck me, ten times the size of the previous strikes.

My body burned, black flames appearing on my convulsing body. The mist no longer prevented me from breathing. I screamed, yelled so loudly that my voice echoed in the endless void.

But my cry was quickly overwhelmed by a horribly more atrocious voice. The same voice I had heard the first time. It made my body and the void tremble.

"Once again, through this second descent into the abyss, the dark work continues." (???)

"Who are you!" I exclaimed, gathering all my strength.

There was no response. The darkness completely disappeared, and as I opened my eyes, I saw Juda on the ground, smoke emanating from his body. He looked as if he had been struck by lightning.

I looked around at the frightened scientists before raising my gaze. I saw a gigantic hole in the ceiling, revealing the outside where I could admire the beautiful blue sky and hear birds singing.