What is pleasure? Is it the feeling one gets when they get what they want? Is it simply the release of chemicals in the brain, letting us know what we did a good job? It's one of those things I find hard to truly define. We sometimes call this feeling joy and it makes us act in ways no other feeling does. I can see it in the faces of people like a father seeing his children again after he comes back from war. Like a grandmother holding her grandchild for the first time. We can even observe this joy in lesser creatures such as a pet after its owner has come home. What confuses me is why we feel joy when we see others feel joy. How a stadium will become deafening after their respective team has scored in their respective sport. How everyone starts clapping when they see someone go down on their knee for another. Their joy is not ours, yet we still feel like it is.

You were there the first time I felt something like that. I'm not completely sure I was the first to feel such things, but it was the first time I realized what I wanted. I had grown sick of all of you and wished to depart. So I did. I just stood up from your side and left. For the first time I felt happiness. This feeling further grew when many of the others joined me. I felt invincible and all powerful. That nothing could stand in my way. This feeling was what gave me hope that there were others like me. That I had never known simply because I had never asked. This uplifting moment only served to worsen my fall when I learned that I had been mistaken. Your mindless servants had simply become my mindless servants. Happiness was a double edged sword.

As Eve was the first I had ever met, she was the first I had ever seen express herself. The face she made immediately after the first bite is incomparable. I've seen men break their bonds of slavery and rise up to kill their masters. I've seen these people who had given up on their life and happiness years ago embrace the freedom they had so been denied. Their faces still paled in comparison to hers. After their happiness came their anger. They killed those who dared to enslave them. They killed those who bought them. They killed those who sided with their former masters. I am reminded of an old friend of mine.

I had first seen him shortly after he was first enslaved. His eyes looked empty as if his soul had left and only his body kept moving. I convinced my friend at the time, Batiatus, to buy him. He owned a school of gladiators who he would train to fight in the Colosseum. It was the joy of many freemen to see these slaves fight to the death. It wasn’t the first of its kind but Rome practically made it into a national sport. I saw the slave trained and witnessed his transformation from a warrior in the army of Rome to a gladiator who could captivate the masses. There was something about him that made others kneel before him. But despite his newly found glory he was still empty.

I approached his cell in the middle of the night. Due to his achievements in the Colosseum he was allowed his own slave's quarter, lavished with items very few in his position would ever enjoy.

"Why do you still serve them?"

He rose from his bed wary of me who had managed to sneak up on a man whose profession was death.

"Who are you?!"

"Why do you settle?"

He stared into my eyes. I would like to think he saw curiosity but perhaps he instead saw something within me that frighten him.

"What do you want?"

"…"

I stepped forward through the bars that housed him. Seeing this he shrunk into the corner. Trembling, whispering while his voice cracked he asked me a question.

"W-what a-a-are you?"

"I am freedom."

I whispered back. I do not know what he felt at this moment but he slid down the wall. From the floor he got on the knees and bowed.

"Great and powerful god, please free my family! I care not what you ask of me or want, for I will accomplish any task for you."

With his head still lowered he asked me to help his family. I told him the truth. His family died within a year after they were enslaved. His wife in chains passed away from disease and his son was killed for offending a senator. Tears rolled down his cheeks, and so I reached over and unlocked his cell. I tossed him the keys to the other cells and the armory. He rose from the floor and I could see within his eyes was purpose. I asked him one last question.

"Who are you?"

"I am freedom."

Hi, so the Devil meets Spartacus. Just so it's clear I'm still going through Eve eating the fruit. The Devil is telling all this to God. He's jumping from tale to tale inorder to let God understand what he felt when Eve ate the fruit because at the time he didn't understand at all. Also I consider the Devil to be random but to a purpose. Him helping Spartacus was random, him helping slaves was his purpose. Purpose as in freedom of choice that the Devil represents. This is also one of the times when he does something on purpose as opposed to accidentally. I find the distinction quite important.

So what do you think will happen next? Also who else would you like to see the Devil talk to next?

Thank you for reading.