Can the word torture be redefined so that it can be practiced?
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The first test results quickly reached the scientists, who were more than disappointed.
"How is this possible? All his results are completely normal!"
"He doesn't even have the awakened mutation gene!"
"Everything about him is normal!"
The blood tests, urine tests, mana tests—all of them were perfectly normal, indicating that Kevin was an ordinary human. The worst part was that he didn't have the DNA marker that could trigger an awakening and make him a hunter. Convinced it was a mistake, the scientists took the samples again, more than five times. But nothing helped; the results they hoped to see change stayed the same.
The scientists launched into endless, empty debates born of their terrible disappointment. They were so frustrated they looked like addicts deprived of their drug. After all, they had hoped to make one of the greatest discoveries in human history.
Juda, for his part, said nothing, watching Kevin sitting in the room while the other scientists talked in an indistinct hubbub. It was true that, based on test results that had shown nothing, there clearly wasn't much they could do.
However, Juda, who had clearly felt something, wasn't ready to give up so quickly. This boy had come back from death; it was impossible that he was normal. His sick curiosity and thirst for answers told him to keep going, whatever the results. There was no way he was going to leave empty-handed; he had to find something.
"We're going to stimulate him!" he declared.
"Stimulate him?" a female scientist replied, perplexed and intrigued.
"Yes!" he answered in a cold tone that caught everyone's attention.
Kevin, who was strapped to a chair the same color as the room he was in, saw the scientists come in with an electrode device. They took off his T-shirt to place the electrodes on his chest and temples.
"What are you doing?" Kevin asked, while Juda watched through the window.
"Begin!" Juda declared.
The other scientists hesitated for a moment before obeying.
"First shock!" said a scientist near the machine.
"First wh…"
Kevin screamed in pain before he could finish his sentence, the machine sending an electric shock through him without warning. The scientists monitored his vital signs, watching for a change, but nothing concrete.
"Increase the intensity!"
The scientists increased the intensity of the shock before sending it through Kevin, who screamed in pain. They watched for a change in his vital signs, in vain.
"Increase the intensity again!" Juda said coldly.
"Please, no!" Kevin moaned.
The scientists raised the voltage, and his screams of pain grew even shriller. Screams that sent shivers down some of their spines, but Juda remained impassive.
"Sir, it's too much, we should stop," a young woman protested.
"The experiment requires that you continue. Increase the voltage!"
The woman hesitated before finally increasing the voltage to electrocute Kevin once again.
"Ahh! Stop, stop, it hurts!"
"Increase the exposure time by two seconds."
"Sir, this is…" she said once again, hesitant.
"You have no choice, Hélène, you must continue. If you're not ready to do it, someone else will."
She looked at him and, horrified, pressed the button again. Kevin was electrocuted once more, his screams of pain longer and louder because of the increased duration. After that, they didn't increase anything else, but they repeated the process for two hours straight, until Kevin passed out from the pain.
"Run tests on him. We'll repeat the same procedure tomorrow."
This was repeated for the next five days, the intensity and exposure time increasing slightly each day. On top of the electric shocks in the morning, in the evening Kevin was seized by horrible night terrors and nightmares invading his mind. The white room he was in was plunged into darkness at night, but in the next room, thanks to infrared cameras and a microphone, the scientists didn't miss a minute of the spectacle as he screamed and called for help.
"Leave me alone! Go away! Stop hiding in the dark!"
"What's happening to him?" one of the men asked.
"He has been suffering from hallucinations since his return, according to the psychiatrist's report I have in front of me."
"Shouldn't we analyze his brain activity?"
"That would be superfluous. Let's continue as we are."
A month went by, and Kevin's beautiful caramel skin began to grow pale from lack of sleep and physical abuse.
"Sir, we really should stop. It's been a month now and we still haven't found anything," said Hélène.
"I think she's right, this is torture," another man added.
"It is absolutely essential that we continue. This is not torture, it is a research necessity. For humanity—don't forget why you were brought together here. The power to conquer death is right in front of us, within reach. Are you really going to let this opportunity pass?"
The men, hesitant, came around to his view, Juda having appealed to their thirst for answers and their selfishness, as well as to their submission to authority. But one of them, Hélène, was not satisfied with this decision. After another month, they finally reached the dose of current that would kill a normal man.
"Go ahead!"
One of the scientists, his hand trembling, finally pressed the button after a brief glance at Kevin. The shock lasted seven seconds at over 120 volts. Kevin screamed at the top of his lungs, a piercing scream that made everyone in the room shiver and gave them goosebumps—everyone except one person. During that short span of time, burns began to form on Kevin's body from the current running through him, spreading a smell of burning through the room, while his body and muscles contracted violently.
After the seven seconds, Kevin stopped moving completely.
"Is he dead?" asked a frightened scientist.
Another scientist urgently checked his vital signs, but Kevin's heart was still beating. They were relieved they hadn't killed him when a phenomenon occurred. All the burns on Kevin's body began to heal by themselves.
The men were perplexed, but above all astonished at what was happening before their eyes.
"At last! Quickly, run new tests!" Juda declared.
What was proving to be a success for them was going to be a long ordeal for Kevin, because now that they had results, what would stop them from going even further?
As long as we accept that man can be inhuman to man, as long as we go on living in a world of wars, tyranny, terrorism, torture and senseless violence, we are all victims of the ripper's night. Robert Bloch
After receiving the results, the scientists were once again completely perplexed: nothing, there was still nothing.
"How is this possible?"
A huge hubbub erupted in the room again; they didn't understand the situation. Juda sank into deep thought, trying to understand the phenomenon. But nothing helped: neither the machines nor the tests could explain it, and neither could they. So Juda could only persist with what had worked.
A hellish cycle set in between night and day: by day, there were the violent electric shocks, and by night, the night terrors. Kevin didn't sleep, not even for a single second, and it had been going on for several whole months. The scientists said it was impossible; that much sleep deprivation should have killed him long ago. But this time, on top of the electric shocks, they tore out his nails, blood running onto the white floor. And they made light cuts on him with blades.
With each nail torn out, Kevin howled:
"Ah, stop! It hurts! How can you do things like this?" he screamed, blood running from his fingers.
Unfortunately, his nails grew back shortly afterward and were torn out again: it was an endless cycle of pain. A good part of the white floor beneath Kevin turned red. Five more months passed, during which Kevin endured and suffered. His skin, once caramel, had turned a pale white. Despite his physical and mental deterioration, the scientists kept going, driven by their thirst for knowledge.
The burns and physical abuse kept healing by themselves, and the tests still showed nothing, so the scientists finally began to lose heart. They stopped to confer, rereading the test results over and over, producing theses and hypotheses. This time, instead of electrocuting him, they ran pure mana through his body to try to get a reaction, but nothing worked. All of this lasted another month, plunging the scientists even deeper into discouragement.
That was when Juda decided to share the terrible idea he had been nursing for a while:
"We know he heals from minor injuries like burns, superficial cuts, torn-out nails. But in all this time we haven't found the slightest explanation for it. We're here to understand how he came back from death, so, as a last resort, wouldn't it be better to kill him and see if something happens?"
There was a heavy silence in the room. They who had tortured this child—were they ready to go that far? Over the months, watching Kevin scream, they had grown used to it, so much so that pressing the button had become a game. Their darkest inclinations had been laid bare by their insatiable thirst for knowledge and answers. All these months without the slightest progress? All this wasted time? No answers to their questions?
Give up? Out of the question. And besides, they weren't the ones suffering, and in the end the end really does justify the means, doesn't it?
They hooked Kevin up to the machine one last time and raised the settings so that the shock would kill him; all that was left was to press the button. But this time, it was Juda who entered the room. He looked at Kevin before speaking:
"I think you were right. I'm a selfish hypocrite who tries to justify his actions by hiding them behind virtues. But I think all these months with you have also made me a sadist," he said, pressing the button.
A shock of more than 300 volts ran through Kevin, who howled as if all the pain in the world were in his voice, his body racked by violent contortions and convulsions. After ten slow, atrocious seconds, the screams stopped. All that remained was the sickening smell of burnt flesh. Several long trickles of blood ran from Kevin's eyes and ears; a few scientists vomited at the sight and the horrible smell in the air.
"Last time it took thirteen days. Let's see how long it takes this time," Juda said with curiosity, while Hélène left the room.
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Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only creature for whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is a form of amusement. James Anthony Froude
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ADDITIONAL INFO:
The Milgram experiment is a psychology experiment published in 1963 by the American psychologist Stanley Milgram. It assesses the degree of obedience of an inhabitant of the United States in the very early 1960s to an authority he considers legitimate, and it makes it possible to analyze the process of submission to authority, particularly when that authority induces actions that raise problems of conscience for the subject.