Evil

Inspired by the Holocaust and the fact that one man managed to convince millions to commit a terrible atrocity.

Evil

Joseph Chapman

 

It was morbid, scary, disgusting, and wrong what we did. Manipulated by the food they gave us. As soon as you took that first bite they had you. It was like a vice, you could not ever leave. You were addicted. They told you to do something and you did it. They said play around with it and you did. I never thought about what we were doing. It never crossed my mind that it could ever be wrong, but it was. I’m better now, I know that what I did was horrible and I am ready to pay. We took something that was intensely personal and twisted it like DNA. We were like kids in an amusement park. We could do anything. It started small, I’m talking like a mouse. First we gave it an extra leg. No big deal, that’s been done before, so we gave it three brains, then two more lungs, after we had our sick fun we killed it, slowly and painfully. We were sick and twisted.          

The man sitting across from me eyed me steadily, “What exactly did you do?”

 

            I felt a shiver run down my spine. The dark around us seemed to press in, the single light burned its way into my soul. I felt the pressure rise as I panicked,

“What didn’t we do?”

            The man in front of be folded his hands on the desk and shoved his face under the light. His brow wrinkled and his black moustache bounced as he uttered two horrible words that would cause me to have to relive the tragic past of pain I’ve endured and caused,

“Tell me.”

            “It felt like it was just yesterday when they had me, the company. They had me in a lock and I couldn’t escape. It was my first day on the job and I wanted to make an impression. They requested specifically that I don’t eat for at least twenty four hours before coming. When I did they offered me that food. That sweet food. They shoved it in my face begging me to eat. I could tell something was wrong but I suppressed it. It was such a nice job nothing could be wrong. I ate it, forced under peer pressure and I felt it drive me. It forced me to do things. I craved that food. They put stuff in it. Terrible stuff, it took a hold on your mind and moved your hands even when you didn’t want to. They brought it in. a batch of human stem cells for us to use. They threw them down and yelled in our faces. They wanted a thing. Anything just make something. They promised more, more food. This drove me, I knew that it was wrong but I dived in. like a rabid animal I groped at the batches of cells, I wanted to create. I wanted to play god. I started small, I wanted to create a beast that could stand anything. We all wanted to express our creativity. The food, oh that sweet food! Just when you start to realize something is wrong they would bring it in. it diminished all desire to sleep, to think, to stop, it just kept you going. People who tried to fight it were carried away by giant men in black armor. I didn’t want to fight it, I wanted to stay, to taste the food, to let it wash over my brain and take control. I craved it. The food made us sick, we would create and torture. The screams of our unfortunate victims would echo the halls. They were deformed beasts capable of rational thought. I’ve had one speak to me. After I taught it English and had it set up to torture it spoke in its gnarled wet voice it said one word,”

            “Evil.”

            “It stopped me cold, it wiped the food out of my mind and forced my humanity back from the dark depths of hell. I thought clearly for the first time since I’d arrived there. I let my creature go and broke through the door. But I could not break the hold the food still had. They tried and almost had me. It took everything I had to resist the urge to go eat. They brought the food in and stared right at me. Waiting for me to eat, to make sure I was back in their control. When I refused I became the very thing I had witnessed. Men in black armor came and took me away. The forced me away and covered my head. I remember being locked up, thrown into a cold cell and ridiculed for not eating. They wanted to know why I wasn’t hungry, why wasn’t I eating? They wanted to know so they could improve their drug, to improve their hold on everyone who worked for them, to reduce the number of people who could break free. I didn’t say anything. They grew frustrated and beat me, they ripped off my legs and broke my ribs. They kept me alive just so they could torture me. They asked me how it felt, how did it feel being one of them? One of my twisted experiments? I begged them to let me go, I told them I didn’t know what I was doing, that it was the food. I screamed it at them, I would eat now, I would go back to work. They laughed at me and spit in my face as I lay there on the cold ground broken. I couldn’t go back, they would not let me. With a final blow to the back of my head they left me there in a daze. I felt men come and pick me up and throw me into a truck along with others like myself. It drove off and dumped us in some god forsaken ditch and left us to die. Thats when you came. A singular stroke of luck you found us. You were our beacon of light at the end of the tunnel. An escape, an opening in which to expose this evil corporation for what it is. They trick their work force into doing horrible things.”

            The man sighed and unfolded his hands.

“do you know how long you were in there?”

“No.”

            The words felt thick in my throat. The man shifted in his seat,

“Eight years.”

Like a blow from a semi truck, I reeled, Eight years? It was the food, it kept you tricked into a delusional reality where time speeds by and days feel like minutes. It’s a prison that’s impossible to break without a push. And that’s all I needed, a push. A push from the very abominations I created, tortured, and killed. This made me think what exactly did I do? What did I create in those dark labs, what did I do while I was in my delusion? The man pushed a vanilla folder at me and opened it. It contained hundreds of pictures, seized when the military raided the labs. My eyes began to swell with tears as I looked upon the horrors I had taken part in. beasts strung up and killed, monsters butchered, intelligent beings lied to and spat on, and me. I stood proud in front of a newly beaten creation. Me. I was responsible for untold deaths and pointless torture. There HE was. The creature that broke me from my trance. Its face was gnarled and twisted, bones stuck out from under its skin, its eyes burned into my soul, pleading for death,  I could feel its pain as the pictures grew worse. I was ripping its arms off and pulling at its hair. I was sick. I threw the pictures at the wall and slammed the desk with my fist. I wanted to scream but I couldn’t, I wanted to hide my shame but I can’t, I wanted to die but I’m locked in. I wished I could go back in time, refuse the job, give my past self a warning, but I couldn’t. I’m Evil. That what I was, that’s what I am. Evil. 

Author's Note

This was largely inspired by the Holocaust. I was enthralled by the fact that someone somewhere managed to get someone to commit a terrible act of evil without the use of force. It just blew my mind and made me want to write.