‘We breathe, we live, we die.’
‘The human life broken down to into the most basic of explanations. But rarely does anyone ask how, rarely does anyone ask why.’
‘Because humans are basic and primitive. They don’t care to understand how they got to where they are, how their species evolved. They just simply care that they are in that moment. Like a child with a balloon, there’s not a care for the balance between helium and oxygen. That basic child is simply happy to be there, holding that balloon.’
‘Breathing.’
‘They don’t care for the science behind it. They live, they breathe, they die. And that’s enough for most of them. Though some, some do seek more from this life. They wish to truly understand, to grasp how they came to be. They seek information, they gather knowledge, use their powers of deductions all so they can proclaim themselves Intellectuals, look down their noses upon others.’
‘But is real intelligence defined by circumstance? Is the boy who lived atop the terrariums and became a doctor smarter than the self-made mobster from the depths?’
‘Living.’
‘The attainment of knowledge is like a drug to those who seek it. Each of them wanting to be the first to discover a new scientific breakthrough. Each of them wanting to brag to the other ‘Intellectuals’ about their newest accolades.’
‘I once knew a man who suffered from this addiction, he was a doctor determined to cure cancer. His life’s work was dedicated to this and he was failing into his later years. The Doctor would treat his patients and secretly testing them for this illness. Those who did have the treacherous disease, they would eventually disappear only to end up on the doctor’s table, being dissected and tested upon in the name of science. The Doctor, he rationalized this in his skull by telling himself, they were doomed. Destined for death.’
‘He would rob them of their last moments. Their final peace.’
‘Dying.’
‘This Doctor made a grave mistake. The wife of a Mobster ended up upon his table unbeknownst to him. This mobster then came to me, in search of answers. I showed him to the Doctor.’
‘I stood in the room watching silently as the mobster exacted his revenge upon the Doctor. I still remember the screams of the doctor as he laid upon his own table like so many had before him. When the mobster was done the doctor was left breathless… lifeless… dead.’
‘All that knowledge, all the intellectual power he had attained in his lifetime was useless in the Doctors final moments. Those basic, primal instincts he lacked.’
‘Stubbins Doom, you may think you’re the Doctor in all of this, because you’re a man of science, a man of intelligence. You’re also a man who lacks the basic and primal instincts to survive in my world…’
‘But the truth?’
‘You’re just simply holding a balloon.’
‘The last piece of knowledge you will attain is…’
‘The true face of vengeance, is the skull.’