TM-191: Twenty Years
Where do you see yourself in 20 years?
[Private Entry]
My greatest fear is that I will become a monster - a beast in a literal sense. However, for the most part, this fear takes the form of a general nervousness about my possible devolution - a fear of losing my higher mental functions and being forced to rely solely upon predatory instinct. It is primarily a fear of a loss of self, not a fear of what I would do, as this monster. Though the guilt would be - and has been, on the occasions that I’ve experienced it - immense, I would not truly be to blame for any horrors I committed in such a state. Animals simply don’t know any better.
Dark Beast - the man from an alternate universe who shares my name and my former face - is every bit as monstrous as the creature I fear I will become. But he is a monster in a far more sinister way. His monstrosity is not a failure of higher mental faculties; rather, it is a failure of compassion, morality, and goodness. Where an animal relies solely on instinct, he relies solely on reason. And that is all the more terrifying.
I tell myself that he isn’t really me, but the justification is weak, and based primarily on the intangible idea that I, unlike him, possess a soul, and a conscience. On a genetic level, we’re identical. As far as science is concerned, the man who calls himself Dark Beast is who I could have become, under different circumstances. And my new fear, creeping and insidious, is that circumstances will yet conspire to turn me into him.
The horrors he has committed… I can’t detail them, even in this private entry. But I can still see them, clearly, in my mind’s eye - because I allowed him to pour those memories into my brain. And I agreed to follow him to these laboratories. And now, I have agreed to travel with him to do the unthinkable - grave robbing.
The project I am working on is important - more than important. It is the salvation of my species. Some rules must be bent. Some sacrifices must be made. And I believe I have retained most of my moral boundaries. I have not fallen completely under his control. I have yet to kill anyone. I have yet to perform an experiment on an unwilling subject. And I managed to lie to him, after all, when he asked me if Jean was alive.
But was that the protection of a friend? Or was it simply more evidence that my morality is beginning to falter? When one of my primary moral successes is a successful lie, where does that leave me? How far have I gone already, and how much farther will I go, before this mission is done?
How much of my soul am I willing to sell?
You’ve asked me what I will be in twenty years, and my answer, truthfully, is that I don’t know. From the evidence of the life I have led, I have learned that attempting to predict the future is an ultimately futile exercise.
But whatever I am, I hope to God I am not him.
[Private Entry]
My greatest fear is that I will become a monster - a beast in a literal sense. However, for the most part, this fear takes the form of a general nervousness about my possible devolution - a fear of losing my higher mental functions and being forced to rely solely upon predatory instinct. It is primarily a fear of a loss of self, not a fear of what I would do, as this monster. Though the guilt would be - and has been, on the occasions that I’ve experienced it - immense, I would not truly be to blame for any horrors I committed in such a state. Animals simply don’t know any better.
Dark Beast - the man from an alternate universe who shares my name and my former face - is every bit as monstrous as the creature I fear I will become. But he is a monster in a far more sinister way. His monstrosity is not a failure of higher mental faculties; rather, it is a failure of compassion, morality, and goodness. Where an animal relies solely on instinct, he relies solely on reason. And that is all the more terrifying.
I tell myself that he isn’t really me, but the justification is weak, and based primarily on the intangible idea that I, unlike him, possess a soul, and a conscience. On a genetic level, we’re identical. As far as science is concerned, the man who calls himself Dark Beast is who I could have become, under different circumstances. And my new fear, creeping and insidious, is that circumstances will yet conspire to turn me into him.
The horrors he has committed… I can’t detail them, even in this private entry. But I can still see them, clearly, in my mind’s eye - because I allowed him to pour those memories into my brain. And I agreed to follow him to these laboratories. And now, I have agreed to travel with him to do the unthinkable - grave robbing.
The project I am working on is important - more than important. It is the salvation of my species. Some rules must be bent. Some sacrifices must be made. And I believe I have retained most of my moral boundaries. I have not fallen completely under his control. I have yet to kill anyone. I have yet to perform an experiment on an unwilling subject. And I managed to lie to him, after all, when he asked me if Jean was alive.
But was that the protection of a friend? Or was it simply more evidence that my morality is beginning to falter? When one of my primary moral successes is a successful lie, where does that leave me? How far have I gone already, and how much farther will I go, before this mission is done?
How much of my soul am I willing to sell?
You’ve asked me what I will be in twenty years, and my answer, truthfully, is that I don’t know. From the evidence of the life I have led, I have learned that attempting to predict the future is an ultimately futile exercise.
But whatever I am, I hope to God I am not him.