How do you break a human being?

Oh, of course, that question has been asked by warriors, generals, torturers, and evil Men.

Once or twice, even good Men tried to answer it, as to establish what they should never do.

I thought I had experienced it, everyone does at some point, life has its way of trying to put you down, but I had the folly to believe it had tried harder with me than with many others.

In my world, I was somebody, neither good nor bad. Not a nobody, I was a man like many others, but not like everyone else.

How do you break a human being?

I don’t know if you could describe him as a him, or if his human flesh was merely something plastered on the monster. Nonetheless, he was probably the one closest to ever finding the truest of answers.

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A man of body would respond, it’s bones. When all are broken, then so is the human. Simplistic? Maybe, but it is close to the truth.

A man of mind would tell you, it’s the heart. A human is only truly broken when you crumpled his hopes, when you crushed his past on top of his future in front of his present eyes, when the only light in his pupils is the reflection of a flashlight you flicker in front of them. And this too, even though more complicated to put in place, is simplistic, this too, is close to the truth.

Now the mad man doesn’t care about any of that. He doesn’t care about the things to break, the things that matter and the things that don’t.

He’ll just tell you that a human is broken when it’s broken.

The only thing you need is to know what a broken human looks like, then act until you see it happen.

If the mad man is a scientist, then he’ll use trial and error until he finds appropriate results.

And that kind of man, if you let him, if his motivation is strong enough, will find the best answer to this most horrible of questions.

My name was Daniel Templier, and I am number 247.