"But so what?" the Parasite continued. "Life is life. Who cares if you understand shit or not? You just continue living and doing your thing."
"It's not that simple," Nick answers.
"How is it not that simple?" the rat asked. "Everyone's only eating and drinking to survive, and they work to eat and drink. Apart from that, people kind of just want to fuck or become rich."
"But in the end, none of that matters," the rat added. "You die anyway."
"Whether you have killed a million people or saved a million people. When you're dead, none of that matters. You're just a corpse at that point anyway."
"Whether you are alone or surrounded by family, you are just a corpse."
"A dead man can't hear their family's cries or their enemy's laughter."
Nick furrowed his brows as he kept looking forward.
In a way, the rat was right.
Nick couldn't really find a counterargument.
"Same thing with time," the rat added. "Whether you lived for ten years or a thousand, a million years from now, both of these times seem equally as tiny and inconsequential."
"Oh, boohoo, the little kids are dying everywhere," the rat spoke in an overdramatic voice. "They had such beautiful lives and hopes in front of them. Oh no, how tragic!"
The rat snorted. "Who gives a shit? Dead is dead. When billions of people die, who cares about a single child?"
"When millions of years pass, who cares about one child?"
"When all life ceases to exist, who cares about one child?"
"So, why should you?" the rat asks.
Nick just kept looking forward.
The rat's logic was sound, but it felt wrong.
Its ideology was so pure, basic, and sterile that it couldn't come from a human.
'Although, there are probably also humans that think like that,' Nick thought.
Nick could only sigh.
He couldn't get on board with that ideology.
"That seems too bleak of an outlook," Nick said.
"You're the one that wants to kill himself," the rat said with a snort.
"That's different," Nick answered. "I have control over my life. You are talking about ending the lives of others just because their existence doesn't matter in the grand scheme of existence."
"Eh, dead human is dead human," the rat said with a dismissive wave. "Why are you making things so complicated? Two dead human is more than one dead human."
"What about morals?" Nick asked.
"There are no morals," the rat said. "Can I touch morals? Can I see morals? If morals actually exist, they don't have power over me, in which case, why would I care about them?"
"Something is morally wrong? So? I'll do it anyway. Nothing will change."
Nick thought about the rat's words.
Then, the Dregs appeared in Nick's thoughts.
With that mindset, the existence of the Dregs actually made sense.
Was it morally correct to take advantage of the poor people like this?
Impossible.
And yet, that was still what happened.
'Morals only have an effect on people who care about them,' Nick thought.
This made the world appear even more desolate and grey to Nick.
Everything seemed so rotten.
It was like the world had been created by some sadist.
Everything Nick could see was shit.
"So, you feel better?" the rat asked.
Nick was pulled out of his thoughts as he looked at the rat with furrowed brows. "Why would I feel better?"
"We talked, right?" the rat asked. "People feel better when they talk about their problems."
Nick looked away again.
He didn't want to admit it, but for some reason, he actually felt a bit better.
Instead of just lying in bed while constantly thinking about his regrets and guilt, he was actually thinking about the world.
Even more, Nick felt more annoyed and disgusted than depressed right now.
"It changes nothing," Nick said.
"Why not?" the rat asked. "You humans constantly kill yourselves because you feel sad. If you don't feel sad, you won't kill yourself."
Nick sighed. "But the cause of the pain is still there. Also, I feel bad about feeling good. I stole Horua's happiness."
"Who?" the rat asked.
"The boy that was here."
"Oh, statue boy, got it," the rat said. "Back to that topic, are we? I thought we already solved that issue."
Nick closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm down. "We solved no issues. I killed Horua. I killed an innocent child who trusted me."
"You killed a guy," the rat said. "You killed many guys. What makes this one different?"
"He was an innocent child," Nick said with a bit of aggression.
"So? We already went over this," the rat said.
"It's different," Nick said.
"Dead human is dead human!" the rat stated with conviction.
Nick wanted to argue, but he stopped himself.
"You won't understand. You're a Specter."
The rat scratched the side of its head with annoyance. "Okay, so statue boy is different from some other dead humans."
"Let's presume that statement holds true," the rat carefully said. "Let's presume that statue boy is somehow more valuable than one dead human."
"How much more valuable? How many dead humans do we need to equal one statue boy?" the rat asked.
Nick furrowed his brows. "It doesn't work like that."
The rat groaned in annoyance. "Would you rather kill a thousand people or one statue boy?"
"If the thousand people are murderers and rapists, I would kill the thousand people," Nick answered.
That surprised the rat a bit. "What if they are not?"
Nick furrowed his brows as he looked down.
A thousand strangers or Horua…
Nick thought about the Dregs.
In a way, Nick felt like he would rather kill the thousand people, but his mind was telling him that he wouldn't go through with it.
Killing Horua for a thousand innocent people…
When the rat saw Nick thinking so intensely, it only had one thought.
'Damn, statue boy is that valuable?'
In the end, Nick sighed.
"I would probably kill Horua, but I would feel horrible," Nick said.
CLAP!
The rat clapped its tiny hands. "There you go!"
"What?" Nick asked with annoyance.
"Go save a thousand people," the rat said. "Save a thousand people, and you will have repaid your debt."
"Makes sense, right?"