Carl gazed down from the top of the hill. The overgrown feline looked magnificent in the bright daylight, walking slowly and majestically.

He did everything he could to prepare himself for this fight, but his nature was just too strong. He was afraid and hesitant.

It was like that first bungee jump – if you're a coward, well … you know you want to do it, but you're going to attempt it over and over, always freezing right before the final step, making a fool of yourself in front of everyone.

And this was at least a million times more difficult.

“Are you ready?” Jin woke him up from his reverie.

“Yes.” That wasn't actually true, but Carl wanted to believe it.

“Yell 'stop' if you want it to end, or if you can't then tap out. If all else fails, say 'stop' in your thoughts. Remember your training. Don't think in abstracts, but of the commands you send to your body. And please – don't push it too far. I really don't want to be zapping you or sticking that horrifying needle into your chest if your heart gives out,” Jin advised once more, referring to the defibrillator and the adrenaline shot.

“Don't worry. The document and the recording are–”

“Stop! Please, say no more. This isn't funny. No matter how much you want it, those are not legally binding since you're still a minor. And even if no one else blames me, I will blame myself if you die. So don't you dare!” Jin interrupted sharply and pointed a finger at Carl threateningly.

The boy merely smiled, dismissing it. “Relax. You're taking this way too seriously. We will all die one day,” he winked at Jin. “Now go, I need to compose myself.”

Jin sighed and shook his head. “Alright. Good luck.” He patted Carl on the shoulder and left.

No such thing as luck, Carl's inner voice argued. He appreciated the sentiment, though.

Now that he was alone, he needed to hype himself up. He put on some epic music, and then tried to go berserk in order to drown out the fear. Heroism, valor, courage, honor. All the virtues he cherished and worshipped passed through his mind and elevated his spirit. So beautiful, so blissful, so terrifying, so awesome. So …

… foreign to his pathetic existence.

Emptiness. He tried charging down, but the conclusion was inevitable. Nothing. All those glorious values vanished from sight the moment he took the first step. He hit a wall. All the preparations were in vain. Frustration and anger overcame him.

Move, you coward! What are you waiting for? Fear is meaningless, just ignore it! Go, you piece of trash!

The internal struggle continued for a few minutes. Beating himself up didn't help, either. Ultimately, he loosened up from the painful tension.

He had lost.

“Useless filth,” he muttered with resignation, drooping his head. That's what he was, after all. Ugly, disgusting, and vile. He dove to the abyss of despair.

Crush me, rip me apart, burn me to ashes and scatter them in the wind!

After what seemed like an eternity, Carl sighed very slowly, blandly, dejectedly …

… and he finally let go.

“Die, worm,” he ordered himself quietly. And then he started walking, his head low, like a convict. Unhurriedly, with no emotion. Once he got into a rhythm, a sad smile appeared on his face. He looked up and saw the huge lion running at him already. He made a few more steps and stopped once the beast was almost upon him. He gazed at the sky for the last time, exhaled, and closed his eyes, only hearing the impending doom galloping towards him.

Get this over with …

Pain jolted him abruptly, stinging like a hail of bullets.

The giant feline's maw bit at him from the side, immobilizing Carl's hand and sinking the huge fangs into his torso with the strength of a hydraulic press. The sudden shock momentarily quashed his senses, before they exploded like hellfire. If Carl were to imagine what being burned alive felt like, this must have been pretty close.

He couldn't breathe or tell up from down. He felt his bones crack and shatter, and his chest cave in. The searing pain was mind numbing, and his entire body convulsed. Death wasn't instant, since the lion did what cats so often do with their pray – it walked away leisurely.

Carl's whole mind and body were screaming, but he desperately held on to his sanity.

He had reached his goal at last!

Now that he was finally embraced by the infernal vices of damnation, his fighting spirit unexpectedly flared up, and then …

… it ignited with blindingly white flames.

This … isn't so bad, is it?

Sure, the suffering was unimaginable, he could barely keep his thoughts together and the worst was yet to come, but he was no longer impressed.

Is that all you've got?

Carl decided to put up resistance. He tried to attack the eyes with his free hand, but it was futile. He was rapidly losing blood and there was no strength left in his limbs. They might have as well been made of jelly at this point, and each time he made an attempt, the beast would just shake him around, causing another wave of pain so acute the boy's vision blurred for a while. But he wouldn't give up.

Come on, bring it!!

Emboldened, Carl kept giving his all, irritating the lion and eventually causing it to drop him. Of course, he couldn't even stand up if he was left alone now, so he just kept wiggling around to stay face to face with his annoyed enemy.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Unfortunately, this effort was short lived.

The feline pressed its massive paw on the boy's belly, piercing him with the karambit-like claws, and ignoring the hands that tried to stop its incoming jaw.

Carl saw the looming teeth and he knew that was it.

Go on, destroy me!!!

He resolved himself and burst forth with a last hurrah, fighting off the oppressive horror of death, which tried to thwart him and extinguish his soul. It was so unlike anything he had ever been through, that he couldn't even begin to place it, and could never aptly describe that dreadful feeling he was now fully submerged in. It just …

… felt like an intangible mountain collapsing down on him, as the beast closed its jaws around his head.

It only took a fraction of a second to crush it.

…

After the darkness, a sharp light erupted, and Carl's vision promptly returned.

He blinked a few times and felt his body, now fully drenched in sweat. His heart was still racing, though it was already slowing down from exhaustion after the initial adrenaline rush.

“You are crazy, Carl,” Jin shook his head again. “Properly mad. Well done,” he congratulated simply. His worries were over, but his scowl yet remained.

“Thanks. Let me catch a breath,” the boy stated calmly after confirming he was fine. “I'm going again.”

“Are you retarded?!” Jin goggled with disbelief. “You're in shock, and your heart is close to palpitating! Rest up and get out of here! I don't want to see you for the next week!”

“Okay, okay. Chill. How long does my heart actually need?” Carl asked in an appeasing tone.

Jin was taken aback. He viewed the boy in a new light. Was this really the same person? No happiness, no euphoria, no exclamation of 'I did it!' or something similar, nothing. After all those preparations, excitation, fervent talks, nerve-wracking apprehension, 'woahs' and 'wows', not even a smile?!

It was as if Carl just did his regular training routine and was getting ready for another session.

“What happened to you, kid? Seriously.” Jin was fascinated.

Ever since he joined his academic advisor as an assistant on this project to gain first-hand knowledge and collect material for his thesis on the perception of reality, Jin saw the reactions of many men. Real men. Men with jawlines so pronounced that craftsmen could use them to measure angles. Men with facial hair that could cut the razor blades used to shave it. Men with innumerable scars commemorating life-threatening wounds. They even had battle-hardened commandos in here.

And yet, without exceptions, they all expressed their feelings exuberantly after the experience, often vocally and animatedly describing their ordeals, as if the staff didn't see it all on their projectors. They were all like little children that just came back from the scariest ride at the amusement park. Physical pain didn't intimidate them much, it was the illusory nightmare of mutilation and death that got them.

They knew it was just a virtual simulation, and their pride and manliness were on the line, so they all tried to one up each other – and still, they all subconsciously struggled to reject that fake reality and couldn't help their senses overwhelm them. Human instincts were not that easy to override. For many of them, what was supposed to be a liberating conquest of fear, ended in a severe trauma instead.

Jin still remembered the first time he met Carl as if it was yesterday. The weird, emaciated boy came to the university's lab with Jin's younger cousin during open doors two weeks prior. Apparently they didn't even know each other, they only went to the same school. But when Carl overheard a conversation about the experiments, he convinced the other teen to introduce him to Jin in exchange for solving his math homework for a month.

Immediately upon arrival, Carl started pestering the whole staff for all the information pertaining to overcoming fears, strengthening character, VR games and real-life repercussions of extreme exposure to stressful stimuli.

Naturally, Jin drew the short stick, as he was the only undergrad on the project at the time and was thus the most accessible. He got thoroughly vexed in the end and rudely told the boy off. But then the withered little fellow apologized, looking so miserably that Jin actually felt like he was the one at fault.

Taking pity on the kid, he inquired about the reason for Carl's interest in this field of study. And the boy's answer made his intent abundantly clear – “Well … 'cause I heard you need statistical data, and you're not getting enough subjects.”

Took a while to explain to him that despite no legal restrictions had been set in this matter yet, and they were theoretically allowed to insert temporary microimplants around his brainstem and spinal cord if he had parental consent, the lab policy was to specifically examine mature people with strong psyche and physiology in order to avoid accidents. Before they could get a green light, a whole plethora of tests had to be done on the applicants, and those were designed solely for adults, so in practice this meant children were prohibited from making attempts.

But the little pest wouldn't take no for an answer. He even asked Jin's thesis advisor, and the woman's hearty laughter with an admission, that the boy would never make it through the screening tests, only further fueled his resolve …

… because evidently, the professor never said he wasn't allowed to try – she merely hinted it would be a waste of time.

Eventually, Jin relented, if only partially. He gave Carl links and access to online tests for the standard, unintrusive virtual cabins, promising to let him take the real ones at the lab once he passed the cut-off point. But he didn't expect to hear back from the passionate boy in just a week.

Hardly anyone could afford a traditional VR gaming cabin, since even the cheapest ones cost as much as a good car, and the more realistic price was closer to that of a new house. It turned out, however, that Carl was a top student and had earned a ton of credit he could use in the school's computer workshop to log countless hours, persuading the faculty it was for scientific purposes. He soon met the cut-off point and visited Jin again with a wide grin, eager to go for the real deal. After failing a few aspects at first, mostly related to low thresholds of pain tolerance, he did some training at home, came back, gritted his teeth, and … passed.

Jin was flabbergasted. Was suffering really so much fun?

Unwillingly, he brought Carl to the brain expert on their team, who was the only one qualified to oversee neural implant insertion – a semi-automated procedure conducted by robotic nano-tools with microscopic precision and negligible tissue damage. She seemed to think the kid was there for a different testing, and Jin kept his mouth shut to avoid complications.

Subsequently, Jin let Carl into their state-of-the-art, full-immersion cabin that hijacked the entire sensory input, to face their ultimate experiment – knowing his position was on the line if the boy got hurt.

The outcome, however, was the extreme opposite of all those mighty men before him – while Carl's weak body almost shut down from shock, his psyche was … untouched. Like he just took a walk in the park. And Jin saw all the detailed readings, and he saw Carl's expressions. The boy transitioned from an initial horror to ultra-focused gameplay.

Mid-agony!

If it was that easy to reject one's senses and trust one's beliefs instead, then why did all the other men fail in that regard?

Jin knew he had struck gold, and not just him. Carl was precisely what their whole team had been searching for. Now, he only needed to break the news to his superiors, and somehow get them on board for further testing.

Yeah … if only it was that easy to admit he was experimenting with lethal procedures on an ill minor he smuggled into the lab …

“It just wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. Well, maybe at first,” Carl admitted honestly while sitting up. “The paralyzing pain was problematic, but mentally and emotionally it was manageable. After all, it's just a simulation, and the realism isn't at 100% yet.”

“Yes, but …” Jin was nonplussed.

Was this kid for real? Or were all those previous subjects neutered?

“Even if you feel fine after an hour, the stress will accumulate,” Jin insisted. ”You need a lot of rest now, as in days. But I'll tell you what. I'll have my lunch now, and you can join me. You may then go back in with the pain turned off. Get a weapon and fight the lion, or do whatever you want. Just try to relax and unwind.”

“Oh yeah!” Carl grinned happily and cupped his fists forcefully several times, producing loud claps. “Let's teach that dumb bag of meat who's boss!”

Jin was mesmerized by this skinny little warrior.

So the prospect is more exciting than the accomplishment itself? Huh …