novelraw Chapter 21
Chapter 21
"Catastrophe"
The girl was led into a room reSambling a movie theater. In the middle stood a soft leather sofa, and in front of it was a gigantic white screen on which some film was being shown.
– Well, are you ready for the session? – asked Anton LaVey, who was sitting on the sofa holding a small remote control.
– What session? – Lina asked back.
– The cinema session, of course. We have prepared several educational films for you. I hope they will make the necessary impression. So, why are you standing by the door? Sit down. I think we will spend at least the whole day on this.
The girl closed the door behind her and cautiously sat on the edge of the sofa. She felt uncomfortable in the small room with an adult man. However, there was no other choice.
As soon as she did, the light went out. The man pressed a button on the remote, and a scientist's face appeared on the white screen. The voice from the speakers began:
– Extraordinary situations related to natural disasters, accidents, and catastrophes are constantly arising in the world. Wars, diseases, famine reign everywhere, and note that the Middle Ages are long gone. But let's look into the roots of these problems. Humanity. The creature from which it all began, and through which it will all end.
The sphere of human life has virtually become the whole planet. Previous ecological crises were only a prelude to the modern universal tragedy. The causes of the modern global ecological crisis are: irrational, consumerist attitudes of humanity toward nature; pollution of human consciousness with false ideas; militarization, and also subjection of scientific research and inquiries to these goals.
The old type of relationships between society and nature has completely exhausted itself today. Humanity is faced with an alternative – either to transition to a qualitatively new mode of interaction or, by destroying nature, destroy itself as well.
If you think this doesn't concern you, if you follow the principle: "my house is on the edge – I know nothing." Then I invite you to watch a five-minute video about what happened in the world this summer.
The scientist disappeared from the screen, replaced by an image of our planet. First green, blue, colorful, then yellowed, dried, and dead.
The video shocked, struck to the depth of the heart. Facts that cannot be disputed or falsified:
"South America - the largest tropical forest on the planet is burning. The Amazon rainforests produce twenty percent of the oxygen on the planet.
Siberia - the largest forest fires in Russia, the fire has destroyed an area the size of Belgium.
Australia - snow fell for the first time in thirty-five years.
The States - sixty powerful tornadoes swept through in just a few days; this is anomalous even for the USA.
Mexico - one and a half meters of snow fell in the capital; the snow did not melt even in thirty-degree heat.
Japan - the most powerful typhoon in the last twenty-five years, it swept away cars and roofs like matchboxes.
Romania - stone hail fell.
Greenland - loses two hundred eighty-six trillion kilograms of ice each year.
Europe - the hottest summer on earth has been recorded.
Deforestation continues on a massive scale, provoking floods and the greenhouse effect.
Do you still think climate change does not concern you?"
Lina’s body was crawling with goosebumps; she was glued to the screen, barely holding back tears as she watched the images, each more horrifying than the last. She couldn't understand how so much suffering and problems could be caused.
Although the viewing had just begun, she already felt changes within herself. The next films impacted her even more. Nightmarish wars in which millions died. Children, women, so many innocent souls. It would have been one thing if they were dying from a bomb or something similar. But no – what humanity did to humanity was several times worse. Horrific tortures, abuse, for the sake of entertainment. Rape, the pleasure taken from the suffering of weaker people, people of different faiths or races.
And what about the Crusades, the Inquisition, or how Christianity supplanted paganism? How could a religion that advocates love for one's neighbor and goodness allow such horrific things?
When the film about animals began, and what humans did to them, the girl couldn't take it any longer. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and her heart ached with pain.
At plants, atrocities occur. To all, without exception. While cows convulsed, hanging upside down, they were already scalded with boiling water. No one cared that they were still, even, not dead. That, damn it, they were in pain! That they were suffering! And chickens, crammed by dozens into one cage? And dolphins? Damn barbarians, capturing one individual on board, already knowing that his whole family would swim after him to certain death. And kittens and puppies, thrown out into the street by their own owners? Do people realize that if a captured animal stays too long in a shelter, it will be killed? And not always humanely, as lethal injections cost money. It's much easier to shove all the animals into a gas chamber and poison them there.
The images changed, the stories told were filled with pain and blood. Lina had never felt so much hatred and disgust for people. Intentionally or unintentionally, but everyone who lives or has lived on this planet is complicit in the death industry. And with every second, the girl’s heart hardened more. Doubts dissipated, compassion vanished.