A click was heard.

Everyone was silently staring at me.

Another click was heard, the sound of some gas-like thing could be heard. A glass was raised protecting me and the plate.

“YOU IDI-” Not even the time to finish that phrase that the entire room became a hell of flames and screams. Hands and faces desperately try to broke the thin glass that protected me from the flames. I closed my eyes and shouted my ears. Took a fetal position to protect me from… them. Cried as loud as I could so not to hear their voices.

…

A glove touched my hairs, I opened my eyes and saw a captain with a few other soldiers behind him.

“It always ends up this way, always. I don’t understand why they always do it.” One of the soldiers said.

“They would have died anyway, so I don’t see the harm” the other replied.

“Silence!” the captain shouted, he looked in my eyes.

“How do you feel?” he asked gently, like a mother.

I wanted to shout at him, I want to struggle him! “How do you feel?” seriously! But I hadn’t the strength.

I just let my body collapsed on its legs, I wanted to die after that. I had seen and done too much, at least too much to live peacefully with oneself.

I think that I stood there for some minutes, the commander started patting my head. I didn’t respond to it. At that point, I was totally passive.

The trap door was now open, I was led with other prisoners down a hallway. Everyone there looked down, everyone there looked traumatized, no one talked, no one moved even a muscle if the guards didn’t tell us to.

I entered another room, there was a glass, behind it two people, they told me to sit on a strange chair, a metallic one with handcuffs, I did so.

“It’s only a quick test, nothing more,” they told me.

“Your name now is Silvan-993, your family now is us, the old deities are death you now worship the only and true gods, your aim in life is to serve them and free your minds from the narrow confines of reality and reach illumination.”

Inside me, I could barely realize what the speaker was telling me, I could barely realize that the speaker was telling me something. What you mean now my name is? Free our mind and reach illumination? What are you talking about?

“Have you understood?”

I was barely listening to them, images in my mind of horrors that just happened still haunted my mind.

“What isn’t clear?”

“What... gods are we speaking of?”

“They will talk about this latter, for now just know that they are powerful entities governing our reality”

I nodded

“So we will ask you some questions, feel free not to respond”

I nodded

“What job did you have before joining the militia?”

I looked down in shame, I was jobless.

“I… I didn’t- the crisis- Th- The- thing… I- I lived in- my-. my- parent hom- basem- basement.”

The man beside the speaker put a mark on a page.

“Did you had any hobbies?”

“N- No, I… I… I am not sp- speaking cle- cleary.” My breathing became heavy and I became paralyzed, I was having a panic attack. Despair filled my mind again, this time was different, there was no safe place for me, there was no hiding place.

“Calm down you just have... four more questions to answer. Have you ever meditate or take an interest in philosophies of illumination?”

“I- I onc- once, wanted t- to… No, I never did.”

“What you were saying?”

“Nothin- nothing.”

“Complete the phrase, please”

“Some- sometimes I wished to be freed fr- from my routi- routine. I wished fo- for more…”

“What happened then?”

“Not- nothing… I did- didn’t have the stren- strength to… to… escape it.”

“Did you think that everything is matter or do you think that there is something beyond it? Something greater?”

“I- I… I don’t know.”

“What is your chief aim in life?”

“I- I… how many questions are left?”

“Just another one, we are nearly done.”

I paused and though

“I guess happiness...?”

“In your own words-”

A tremendous scream was heard followed by a few shots. The scream was close.

“What was that?” I asked

“People who refuse to cooperate” he cleaned his throat “in your own words describe what is God to you.”

“I never th- I mean… I don’t believe.”

“This is not a question of belief, even if you don’t believe that something exists you must have an image of it.”

I paused again, this time for longer.

“A bulb of light who gives happiness and destroy evil.”

The researcher near the paper raised his eyebrow.

“Ther- there is something wrong with that?”

“No. We have finished here, thanks for your cooperation. You can leave this room now.”

The door was opened. I could hear a comment, a whisper “for once we didn’t had to use[…] measures.”

The room opened into a large square full of people and guards. Many people were traumatized and could barely walk, others hide their eyes and laid in a corner, others yet talked with the guards like old friends. Most had heavy injuries.

A guard came to pick me and a few others, they closed us into a room with a video. The video spoke about the government and the cult. At the start the video was normal, it talked about some historical events and treaties.

Then my vision became blurry and confused, the video became stranger and stranger, I looked at my left side only to see a screaming woman bleeding. I looked at my other side and saw a man vomiting.

Soon the entire room was filled with screams. All the sudden I found myself unable to leave the chair, the video became more and more violent, more and more sadistic. Many part didn’t make sense; others were just very disturbing. The speakers started speaking a strange language.

All the sudden I was not there anymore, all the sudden I wasn’t myself anymore. I was a lamb on an altar being sacrificed. I was a man being wiped to dead. I was a soldier bleeding to death.

I am not sure for how much I was there, for all I knew I could have been there for days or weeks. The next clear memory that I have was I in a corner crying and reciting, over and over again, what the speakers said.

Even though I have read dozens of books and memoirs about this, even though I have read journals and biographies of all kind of people being involved, from the poorest and illiterate prisoner to the arch-priest, I still wonder why?

Why this madness? Why this violence? Simple answers like “it’s just human nature” and “there were just following commands” are not enough for me. Even counting in all the physicological and philosophical reasons this is not enough for me.

There was no why, this was just madness, the madness of a person who believed in speaking to gods. I don’t care if he really spoke to them if what he was saying was true, false or a mix of the two. I just wonder why going to such lengths for such a thing? Why take that route of all of them? Why?

Another guard came to me, this time he had to handcuff hands and legs and bring me as one brings a potato bag.

I was brought into a big room with some windows, put into a bed and given something, I believe a powerful narcotic, and sleep of the deepest of sleep.

…

When I woke up I was no more in that room, I wasn’t even in a structure. I was in some sort of forest far from any civilization, the sun was high and from afar I could hear a river.

I stood up unsure of what to do. I had a look at myself, I had a stick, a sac and some very simple clothes, nothing more. With those things, I wouldn’t even be able to survive the night.

I begin to wonder, confused and still a bit traumatized, but in this forest, there was something strange, something relaxing. Those haunting memories, those visions, appeared so far now… a dream remembered and immediately forgotten. I was relaxed, joyful. Even though I was walking barefoot the earth didn’t bother me. I wasn’t thirsty or hungry, I wasn’t tired, I was just… happy.

I wondered for a long time, there was nothing but trees and the far sound of a river, a river that I didn’t seem able to find. Sometimes I would hear some distant echo, a laugh, a word, a whisper out of nowhere.

I noticed that a rabbit and a crow were following me, I don’t know why. They followed me like a shadow follow the man. Always behind, rarely visible.

The forest didn’t have any fruits or plants, it was bare. Just grass, green and trees that didn’t have anything but leaves.

If at first, this was liberatory, soon it became frustrating. What was I supposed to do? What was I to do? While I was wondering the tail of my eyes caught a dark figure, high, prideful, secure, covered with all sort of clothes and bandages.

It told me to follow it. I felt some kind of respect, no that is the wrong word, I felt some kind of deep reverence towards it. Like when one sees a masterful painting depicting horrors, the vision is horrific yet it evokes something profound in you.

All of this rambling to say that I followed him, it led me to a temple deep into the forest. It looked exotic, japanise even. He sat on a tree and begin to meditate. I emulate him.

Breath in, the cold air coming into your body, breath out, warm air leaving your body. For the first time in a very long time, I was focused. I was doing one thing at a time. No mind weeps and thoughts, no more back thinking, nothing. Just pure focus. Nothing…

When I opened my eyes twilight was coming, the light of the sun was leaving the forest giving way to threatening shadows. The dark figure made me a gesture to follow him. We walked again on a path. Making little noise as possible, walking on our feet, keeping our mouth shouted. I didn’t understand what this silence was for, but I emulate him anyway.

Soon strange creatures started emerging. Drunk, noisy and dirty creatures. They ate and drank while they blabbed something. Always accompanied by female figures. They looked excited, they had completely lost every contact with reality at that point. They were overwhelmed with pleasure and ecstasy, they were violent, cruel and

. I was scared of them. They were giants, they could kill me tightening their hands.

The dark figure led me to a house dig under the earth. It was a very poor place; it didn’t have decorations, it had barely the essential. I went to bed feeling great tiredness. The dark figure gave me a kiss on the forehead and I went to sleep happily.

…

When I woke up I was again in that structure. The bed was different but the walls were the same. My head was about to explode by how strong was the headache; my body barely responded to my movements, my vision was offuscated.

Soon someone came

“How was your first section?”

“Egdò… gre..” I ramble incoherently

“The effect of the drugs are still too strong for you to wake up. When you will find the truth and the strength you would be able to stand up.”

“Eh...?”

“Don’t worry about this now. Continue to sleep.”

My eyes closed again and I was again in the deepest of sleep.