Super Ego

Evil isn’t some esoteric dark force out there, somewhere. It’s not an intangible malady needing to be reached and unlocked. Evil is part of the natural order. It is simply there. It can be found in the darkest of nights and inside the brightest of lights. Evil exists because the universe operates on homeostasis. Some might come and tell you that you have to sacrifice a few people, inside a cathedral – while the constellations are aligned to reach actual and pure evil. They might even say that evil is represented by some sort of demonic entity that will end up violating you physically and mentally for the sake of it. They will tell you pure evil is nothing like the apocryphal texts of common religion, nor anything like demonology. In fact, whatever such individuals might describe is nothing more than their demonologic fantasy. A fiction, a lie, or perhaps a misunderstanding.

Evil rests within everyone and everything. One must only open their eyes and witness it. From the naturalistic point of view, on some cosmological level, evil isn’t inherently bad. It’s just there. The ability to destroy rests in all of humanity. Everyone is absolutely capable of evil. Some are more proficient than others.

Usually, it starts small and seemingly insignificant. Like that one kitten from your childhood. The one you found on the street. The one that was malnourished and frail. The light barely hung onto its eyes. You poked and prodded and you moved it around. You terrified and abused it, unbeknownst to you. You thought you were helping the poor animal, but in fact, you were killing it. Eventually, it died, and you poke and prod at the corpse. You examined it, trying to figure out why it had died. Clearly, you could not see the stress weighing too hard on its heart. You look at the half-decayed corpse, partially consumed by other animals, perhaps even others of its kind and your smile. It feels strange, yet satisfying – that is the black flame growing inside of your heart. That is evil.

Later on, the flame grew, and it became more ravenous. It started gnawing at you. That made you feel like the world had turned against you. In response, you picked a target and accused them of a vile crime they had not committed. You reasoned that if you suffer, they must too. Then you realized just how terrible the consequences of your actions were, and you became repulsed by your own reflection, but the flame didn’t die. It never does. No, instead, you doubled down on your accusation. You wouldn’t want people to know your victim was innocent, would you? On top of that, you pondered, if they were truly innocent, they could have proven their innocence, could they not? Thus, they must be guilty, if not of one thing, then of another. That’s why you pushed forward, your position unchanging. That is evil.

Time passed, you were fully grown, and you were doing your job. You were simply following orders. However, you sure as hell wanted that promotion. You certainly wanted more profit. So, you ignored the fact that your job was to torture, burn, maim, and kill. You never thought about stopping. Leaving a trail of blood and guts everywhere you went. In your mind, you were simply doing your job. No hard feelings, no strings attached. However, you were doing your job the best you could. You were proud of your bloody work, and that is why this is evil.

Sometime later, you decided you had needed to teach the kids in your neighborhood a lesson or two about life. So, you filled their gullible little heads with ideas. Vile, terrible, almost inhuman ideas. To you, it seemed like pragmatism, like the right thing to do. To them, it was gospel. In your name, in the name of your teachings, they are now raping this world. You look at them now, every day, your little monsters, and you smile proudly. That is evil.

Eventually, you found a couple and got married, and even had a kid. But your beloved died when your child was still young. To this day you still blame your neighbor. You portray him as the Boogeyman that had killed their parent. That child doesn’t know that you’re the one who killed the love of your life. Driving drunk. They didn’t feel a thing. Lucky one, right? You have to live with the scars! Well, one day the kid will find out who the real boogeyman is and will be consumed by hatred. Now that is really evil on your part!

Your beloved isn’t the only one you’ve killed, though. You might not know about your other victim. After all, you killed her in a fit of blind rage. Well let me tell you all about that. The pain, the anger, the black flame it all became too much. Your own hatred, it caused you to snap. You couldn’t stand the sight of her and all that happiness and calm she had about her. So, you donned a mask and a cloak and you stalked her. Once you found everything about her, you tortured her. Beating and berating her. You tore chunks out of her, burned what was left and spat on her dignity. Then you violated her and flayed her barely living form. You’ve done this over and over and over again. She killed herself shortly after your last encounter. You just removed the mask and the cloak, moving on with your life, the hatred finally subsiding deep within while she choked on her own blood. Not that you could’ve known. More importantly, not that you’ve even cared, and that, that’s beyond evil.

Allow me to introduce myself. I am an angel of the abyss. I come from the primordial darkness, a place of pure and absolute nothing. A place where nothing but cold and dread survives. That said, I, we, we materialize in your world when you commit enough heinous acts of villainy. We are harmless to you, what’s the point of fixing something that ain’t broke? We let you do your own thing. You’re bad enough without us. Sometimes, however, the unlucky few, such as yourself - manage to catch a glimpse of us. You get to see our forms and that drives you just a little mad.

You see, our forms aren’t describable in the human tongues and as I’m sure you already know. We’re so painfully dark and strange it’s almost intoxicating to your feeble minds. You know that feeling you have in your chest sometimes. When your heart races and your mind is running circles in unexplained panic. The moments where your body stiffens up and your scars start hurting. That one moment when you want to crawl out of your own skin. That one dreadful second when you feel like a prisoner in your own body.

Do you know why you feel that?

Because in these moments we’re making eye contact and you see the reflection of your cold, eerie soul staring back at you.