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- [00:12]
Edward Pendrick
For as long as he would live, Edward Pendrick would never forget that sound. The sound of the screams as the lady vane sank. A sailor running for the lifeboat he was sitting in, jumping. They all saw it. A horrible bit of dramatic irony where the audience cringes. Though the character thinks he's safe. His foot caught a rope at the last moment. He died reaching with a smile on his face. He thought he made it. The dull thud was all they heard. A spray of blood and a flap of scalp waving goodbye was all Pendrick and the other two saw disappearing into the water. He would be dragged down by the lady vane, but he would never know. He died thinking he had made it, as Edward and the other two men, the only people who had made it to a lifeboat, paddled away. They didn't know it yet. Sailor. The one who died. That sailor was the lucky one. From Jason and Carissa, the creators of myths and legends. This is fictional. Pendrick woke up and vomited. Easy there, montgomery said, gently lowering him back down to the cot. We found you out on that dinghy alone. You've been asleep for days. Thought you'd be ready for a little more than water. And yeah, I was wrong. Montgomery took a swig from his flask. You will be soon, though. Ling. Montgomery yelled. A small man shuffled into the room. Pendrick thought he was still dreaming, but he wasn't. In his dreams, he was back on that lifeboat, the dinghy, the stronger man whispering into his ear, handing him the knife when things got bad. Not if, but when they were in it together. The other had to die for them to live. Pendrick had nodded. It wasn't just to placate the strongman. He was going to do it. He was going to eat another person. He hadn't done it. In the end. The strongman and the victim had gotten in a fight and fallen overboard. The sharks took them both in a churn of red and flesh. Pendrick hadn't done it, but he would have. He knew it. He would always know it. He had lost something of himself that day. Montgomery told M' Ling to get him some food, stand up for himself. M' Ling bowed and left the room. You're welcome, by the way, montgomery said. Pardon? Pendrick sipped at the water. I saved your life. Saw you drifting. I had the captain stop and pick you up. Pendrick furrowed his brow. Oh, thanks. Wait. They were just going to let him drift also. Who was he? A yelp, muffled by the door ahead, exploded into commotion. Pendrick sat up in time to see Mling Montgomery's servant get backhanded across the face. Hey. Montgomery stood up. What was the captain doing? M' Ling was his passenger. The captain's red hair shined in the cargo hold where Pendrick's COD had been set up. Pendrick grimaced. He could smell the captain from five feet away. That thing doesn't come up to the mess hall, the front of the ship, or anywhere. If I see it again, it's going overboard. The captain took a swig from his own flask. We're paying customers. Montgomery barked again, but they wouldn't stand for being treated like this. You're something. The captain grimaced, looking Ling up and down again. This thing wasn't to come around the people again. They were a day out from Montgomery's island. They could have their meals here in the cargo hold, and if they had a problem with that, well, the captain would be more than happy to terminate their agreement and let them go on the open ocean. Pendrick struggled to rise, but then stepped forward. Come on. He had been conscious for a few minutes, but even he could see that the captain could honor his agreement with the passengers, couldn't he? He could be decent here, not beat his passengers. The captain snarled and brushed his coat back, revealing a revolver strapped to his belt. They would all stay down here. Now. That was final. Mling cowered. Montgomery nodded. Pendrick still had no idea what was going on. Like I said, he had been conscious for all of 10 minutes. Montgomery had been a physician once, or a medical student, but Pendrick couldn't quite parse it out. All he knew was that something had happened back in London. Something terrible. Seeing as Pendrick watched him take his third big swig of the flask at the 9am hour the following morning, he could probably guess what that something was. M' Ling was what was M' Ling. He carried himself wrong. Pendrick didn't know how else to describe it. His movements were almost right, like 90% of the way there. But there was something in that other 10% that Pendrick found unnerving, some facsimile of human movement that didn't quite translate. Mling rarely made eye contact with anyone, let alone him, but when he did, his eyes were almost a brilliant orange, a color that Pendrick had never seen before in an eye. He spoke to Pendrick even less than he looked at the man, but when he did, his teeth seemed big, sharp. The disgraced doctor and his not quite right manservant were overseeing the transportation of a live puma and way too many rabbits. Montgomery, the doctor fed the rabbits each morning and tossed the dead ones into the sea. Pendrick thought that that was odd, but none of this really made sense, so he just kind of went with it. The ship slowed around sunset on the following day. They had arrived. The workers on the ship struggled to get the puma cage aboard the smaller waiting boat while Montgomery and M' Ling stacked the boxes of live rabbits. Good riddance, the captain said. In the wind, his hair looked more and more like fire rising up from his head. Pendrick waved goodbye to Montgomery and Mling and turned, but found Captain Davis and two of his men blocking Pendrick from going below deck. Where do you think you're going? Oh, back to my ship. Well, Mr. Man of your word, I thought about it and I don't have an agreement with you. Get on the ship with the doctor. Montgomery, who had been watching the situation with Pendrick, and the captain, spoke up. He can't come to the island. Oh, I don't care where he goes, but he will not be staying on my ship, the captain proclaimed. His breath stung Pendrick's nose. I'm sorry you can't come with me, montgomery said and moved quicker, loading the rabbits. A shadowy figure sat at the wheel of Montgomery's ship, but he seemed to be getting worked up with the confrontation that was slowly building between Pendrick and the rest of the ship. Pendrick felt a shove and then he felt the heat of panic creep up his spine. The dinghy he had been rescued from. They had been towing it. No, no, no, no, no, no, pendrick said. The wet, hard sound of the man's head hitting the side, the big one handing him a knife so they could kill and eat the third, the bloody chum. He couldn't go back there. Montgomery, please. Montgomery wouldn't make eye contact. The captain shoved Pendrick and he landed hard in the boat, splashing. It was half submerged. He didn't even have oars. This was a death sentence. The men on the boat unhooked the ropes and let them fall in the water. The dinghy began to drift. The island, the boat, it all began to shrink. Pendrick didn't notice it, though. He only felt the waves, heard the water, remember the isolation, the terror. He sat back, his heart beating so fast it felt like he was going to explode. He prayed to God. He prayed to God for death. Get in, montgomery said. Pendrick was huddled underneath a seat, face half submerged. What? Yeah, we heard you weeping. Get in, Montgomery repeated. Pendrick sat up. He saw Montgomery and Ling, the halves of them illuminated by the lantern. Montgomery was rescuing you again. Please, Hurry up and don't make me regret it. Pendrick scrambled off of his half sunken dinghy and into Montgomery's rowboat, sitting next to M' ling. Together they took off for the island. It felt a lot longer than it actually had been. The big men were still lurching up the hill, taking the iron cage with the puma. Montgomery had apparently smashed the rabbit cages and tossed a few more corpses into the ocean. Pendrick would ask about it later and learn that the rabbits were the food source. They didn't have any natural predators on the island, so they would be fruitful and multiply and all that. Pendrick made it to Montgomery's house. All the time up the path through the jungle, he heard sounds. He looked out and saw eyes looking at him from the darkness. Are there people on this island, natives? Pendrick asked when he saw a woman with gray hair realize that she was in the lantern light and dip back into the darkness. Yes and no, montgomery said as they made it inside the wall. He told the big men behind the cage to take the puma to the lab to the house. A shudder ran through the workers, but they nodded and kept hefting the cage up toward the enclosure. The main house was something between a hut and a mansion. Some parts were solid wood and planned, some were sticks and obvious additions. After whoever had done the first construction had left, Montgomery diverted them to a few different rooms connected by a hallway. Those were actual huts. A few more workers were clearing out the hut across from Montgomery's. We've been using it for storage, but the rainy season is over, so we can keep the boxes outside until we build another, montgomery said. He waved and another worker lurched over, bringing a lantern. Pendrick said he was grateful for the help, but he would leave with the next ship. No worries. He wasn't staying a long time. Oh, you will. Yes, you will be leaving with the next ship, Montgomery said. But honestly, who knew when that would be? They weren't on any shipping lanes. They had no scheduled arrivals. Heck, they weren't even on most maps, so they relied on any ships that happened to chance upon them. If Pendrick was lucky, he would be there for three months. Sometimes the summer winds got unpredictable and sent a sailboat their way. More likely, though, Pendrick would be their guest for the better part of a year, if not longer. Their record between spotting ships was 13 months. So settle in a year, pendrick said. What was he to do for a year? Read? Montgomery gestured to the shelf that was more dust than book. Can you read Latin? They're mostly Latin, Pendrick said. Not well. Well, here's your chance to practice. We'll be busy though, so we can't help you with anything. I'll bring you food. You're free to wander around here. Main house is off limits. It'll be locked. You can leave the enclosure. It's just jungle and them out there. I wouldn't recommend it, though. Over the next few days, Moreau and I will be in surgery. Montgomery's eyes widened. Pendrick said, why did that name Dr. Moreau? The vivisectionist? Montgomery said. What? Hendrick said they had been here for 10 years. Yeah, that's about right. Oh my gosh. This is his island. Montgomery didn't answer. He sat there in the mistake he had just made. Yet if I remember from the papers, he was a vivisectionist. He was doing something really off the charts, just really different. Terrible. I can't remember what exactly, but he had been doing something to the animals. Whatever it was, he risked losing his license if he kept at it. But then he just disappeared. Montgomery evidently saw that there was no use in keeping it from Pendrick. They were all going to be roommates, or at least neighbors for a long time. He told Pendrick that he wouldn't go into it, but the doctor could have given up his work. He could have closed his lab and stayed in London, but his work was too important. He chose exile than to give in to the country's closed minded superstition. So Moreau packed it up. He sold everything and found this island. It had nothing when they arrived. Even the animals had to be shipped in. And what of you? Pendrick asked Dr. Montgomery. Montgomery thought back to a rainy November night, to the drink that filled him with confidence but sapped his skill, the hand holding the scalpel swaying back and forth, a slurred, half remembered talk with a wailing family. He said he had made mistakes, but he also was able to practice his profession. Montgomery said the man should get some sleep. He left Pendrick, but before he did, he stopped at the door that led deeper into the enclosure and he locked it. Pendrick couldn't help thinking of vivisection. Animals being dissected alive. That was bad enough. What had Moreau done to take that gruesome business a step farther? The following morning, Pendrick gasped awake to the noise in the doorway. It was Mling. Pendrick rose. Mling's wild eye, studied Pendrick before setting the tray down and mumbling something about breakfast. Pendrick, though his stomach folded over on itself in hunger, barely noticed the food he was focused on Ling. On the ship, Ling had been cloaked. Pender could only see Ling's face here, though he saw m' Ling's whole head. The hair was almost fur. It didn't stop at the ears, but it crept in from all directions until it fringed the face. His ears were pointed. His arms were equally hairy. What was he? M' Ling stood, waiting for some sort of acknowledgment, but shuffled off when Pendrick recoiled. There are ads now. Part of being able to work on fictional is trying to justify spending time on it that could be spent on projects that actually make a living for me and my family. I've tried to just do it when I have extra time, but as you can see, that leads to not a lot of fictional. So there will be ads.
- [16:30]
Richard Karn
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- [17:26]
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Richard Karn
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- [17:39]
Edward Pendrick
When Pendrick heard the cry, he he almost wished he was back on the doomed dinghy. It sickened him. It was a full throated shriek, a raw guttural primal scream. A reflex to the worst type of agony. Later on that night, Dr. Montgomery sat across the table from him, his button down flecked with blood. Montgomery said they were a necessity and to not ask again. The doctor finished his meal, rose and said he needed to get back to it. Mling would see to Cleanup. Montgomery unlocked the door not 10ft away and a cloud hit him. A stench. Rot and the thick iron reek of blood. Pendrick pushed away his plate of rabbit and vegetables. A day passed. The shrieking continued. The nights were a slow and mournful howl. Montgomery drowned himself in whiskey, so he was a less than ideal conversation partner at night and hopelessly hungover every morning. Day three of the screaming and Pendrick had to get out of there. He was gonna go take a walk. The scenery was nice. Coming from the civilization of the enclosure gave the wilderness a serene cast. If he had found this island in his previous state on the dinghy, starving and abandoned, it would have taken a different tone. It was strange how the things we viewed in life could take on a different hue depending on their circum. Wait. What was that? A man. One of the workers was down on his hands and knees, drinking out of the river and not scooping it up with his hand, lapping it like a dog. That wasn't something you saw every day. Pendrick might have survived a harrowing journey at sea and was essentially trapped on this island, but he was still an English gentleman. He wanted to be polite and didn't want this man to notice him. But he nudged a rock and sent it rolling. The man's head popped up and he bounded off into the forest. Pendrick sighed. That went well. He turned and his foot nudged a soft mass. He stopped. His body was screaming out in horror while. While his mind tried to catch up with what he was seeing. Then the shape found definition. Pendrick shuddered. A rabbit. One of the rabbits from the ship. Someone had twisted its head off. Pendrick didn't know where the head was and he didn't want to know. He put his ear to the wind and could still hear the cries of the puma. Back at the enclosure, he skirted around the body of the creature and. And made his way deeper into the forest. Hendrick returned to the enclosure well after dark. With scratches, yes, and blood. But not his own. Someone, something had followed him into the forest. Pendrick didn't realize it, and until he was already too far in, that wasn't even the strangest thing. As he crouched in the woods, trying to keep an ear out for the footsteps that trailed his own, he saw something. The something was like if a hairless cat also didn't have teeth. It had strange human like eyes. The little ball like homunculus rolled over, propelled by its one nearly vestigial leg and started biting him. Or trying to. If the thing did have teeth, they were too small to do any damage, so it was more like a hard, deliberate gumming. Hendrick recoiled at first from the fleshy softball, but then just sat there, confused as the saliva smeared his leg. Weird. A few more rolled or limped out, each grotesque in its own unique way, and tried to attack him, but really just left him spitty. Then Pendrick heard it. He heard the sound of his pursuer. With his left hand he picked up a rock. With the right. He grabbed one of the things and tossed it off into the brush before bolting in the other direction. He ran, but the pursuer pursued. No surprise there. It got closer. It breathed like a man. But Pendrick heard other sounds. Snarling, snapping in the sky ahead, what he could see through the black trees that stretched and cloaked the starlight. Pendrick glimpsed the glow of the enclosure. He wasn't going to make it. The thing was faster. He would have to fight. Pendrick would like to say that he was a great fighter, that he turned and challenged the thing and beat it fairly. In truth, he was very, very lucky. He turned and with one hand covering his eyes, struck down with the other. The skull rang loud and the thing went limp. Pendrick didn't know who it was, but he wasn't about to wait for it to wake. He squinted, trying to study his pursuer. He saw the human outline of the man lying prone, but he also saw fur. He turned. There was no more time to wait. He ran as fast as he could toward the light and the puma screams. He walked into his room and Montgomery started berating him. Pendrick imagined something about not staying out so late or keeping to the enclosure. Pendrick didn't know. Pendrick wasn't paying attention. He saw Montgomery's bottle of brandy, grabbed it and took a swig. Montgomery stood there and grinned, then stopped. The man. Hey, he was a teetotaler, right? He should really slow down. Also unrelated, but Montgomery was a deeply dependent alcoholic and by definition they had a limited supply. He wasn't above drinking the prison wine he made, but he didn't prefer it. He snatched the bottle back. What? What are they? Oh, so you saw more of them in the daylight? Yeah. Montgomery trailed off. They're not people, pendrick said, staring at the wall. Montgomery shrugged. What are people? Smart, self aware animals by definition. Montgomery swayed himself. He said, look. Think of them like Buggles. Like ghosts. He laughed. Oh yeah, ghosts. That's what we're doing here, right? Pendrick? Pendrick? The exertion and the brandy hitting him all at once. With snores passed out next to his bed. You. You'll be good. You. You. You'll be good. You'll feel better in the morning, little guy, montgomery said and stumbled back to after guzzling way too much brandy for the first time ever and passing out on the floor, the 30 something Pendrick was not feeling better in the morning. Why did his brain feel like it was trying to escape his skull through his eye sockets and his back? Ugh. He stared up at the ceiling for the first time, realizing that the they were the timbers of a ship. Laying there was anguish, but moving would be worse. Then he smelled breakfast. Oh, hey. Rabbit and bread again. Montgomery or M' Ling must have been in early. He didn't usually sleep so late. He drank the water, which helped some. He took a bite of food. Nope, that wasn't happening. Not yet. He heard footsteps in the wood outside and looked up to his open door. You okay? Pendrick said. No. His head was pounding and he felt like vomiting. Why was the sun so bright? Was it always? Had it always been this bright? Montgomery breathed. That's what happens when you drink alcohol. It's terrible and no one should do it. All right? I'm super busy. You'll be fine. Maybe don't go outside today. Stay here and read. We have some scan the bookshelf. Books in Latin. Do you read Latin? You'll figure it out. Stay safe. Montgomery turned and headed toward the main room of the enclosure and about 20ft from Pendrick shut the door behind him. Pendrick waited a few seconds, but there was silence. Every time. Every time Montgomery closed the door to the main enclosure, the lock clicked behind him. He was in so big of a hurry he had forgotten to lock the door. Pendrick stared at the door. Hmm. He shouldn't, right? They told him not to. They locked that door for a reason. Why? Why should he listen to a disgraced doctor and his sidekick who needed to guzzle brandy to get through the day? Pendrick knew what vivisection was. He had heard the cries of the puma. He had accepted the worst about what was going on there. Why shouldn't he know? Pentrick had to know what was going on. What were those screams? He found himself at the door, turning the handle and then figured, well, should really turn this the rest of the way. The next moment he was in an anteroom, a prep room. Glass bottles of liquids, soap, soaps, disinfectants. They lined the wall, coats hung, gloves kept in heaps, scalpels and saws soaked in vats. That's not what caught his eye, though. What caught his eye was the blood. Footsteps, bloody footsteps, formed a trail between his room and the next, formed a path to where the puma lay on the vivisection table. Being so close, Pendrick could hear the animal clearly now. It sounded less like a snarl, more like a moan. Like it was weeping. Pendrick's foot stuck to the trail as he made his way into the next room and saw him. The puma. But it wasn't a puma lying on the table, legs and arms splayed open with a person hunched over, picking at it with tiny tools. It was a human. A man. Hendrick turned on his heel and bounded for the door. Face blanched. Pendrick, wait. Montgomery cried out after him. But Pendrick didn't. In an instant, he was back outside. He heard two sets of footsteps follow. He saw they. They were working on a person. Pendrick, we can't explain. Montgomery held up his hands, stained with the person's blood. The other one. The man was not so talkative. He swiped his hair back, smearing the white with red. He looked Pendrick up and down with a sneer, muttered something about ruining the work of a lifetime, and shoved him backward. Pendrick hit his bedroom floor hard, and the other man slammed the door shut. Pendrick heard something scrape the wood outside until the door lurched. He was trapped. He was trapped on an island where they were dissecting people. It all made sense now. They were doing something. Making people into animals. That thing that chased him in the forest. The strange people of the island. They were combining them somehow. The people and the animals. Pendrick looked around the room. He didn't survive the Lady Vane to die here. He wasn't going to be next. The Latin books. No, too bulky. The breakfast tray was too flimsy. There had to be something. Then his foot found a squeaky floorboard. Montgomery almost got a nail to the eye when he opened up the door, claiming he was trying to reason with Pendrick. But Pendrick knew they just wanted the next subject for their table in there. And he wasn't going to go quietly. He'd take his chances out there with the beast folk, which is what he did. He saw that Both Montgomery and Dr. Moreau had revolvers on their hips, but neither of them fired as Pendrick ran. As he flung open the gates and bolted for the forest. For the beast folk. As he did so, he took consolation in the fact that whatever the forest held, at least this day, couldn't get any stranger. Pendrick looked on the village of the beast folk. Chanting their laws. Well, he was wrong about this day. Not getting any stranger not to go on all fours. That is the law. Are we not men not to suck up drink? That is the law. Are we not men not to eat fish or flesh? That is the law. Are we not men not to claw the bark of trees? That is the law. Are we not men not to chase other men? That is the law. Are we not men? They swayed in the dim daylight that came in through the cave entrance. The place smelled like a monkey cage. Pendrick had stumbled onto two of the beastfolk when he was a mile or so away from the compound. He ran into an ape like human and shuddered. The man. The thing looked at him with such a blank gaze, it pointed at Pendrick and said, man. Man from boat. 5. Pendrick couldn't make heads or tails of that. 5. 5. The ape man held up his gnarled and malformed hand. He had four fingers. Five. Pendrick grimaced, holding up all of his fingers. Five. Yeah. He was the real deal. If he was to survive this island, he needed the help of the beast folk. He asked the ape man for food, heard something about the Hutts, and followed. Now he was watching whatever this was. His is the house of Pain. His is the hand that makes his is the hand that wounds. His is the hand that heals. It was a religious ceremony, obviously. Pendrick had a pretty solid idea who he was. And all this was messed up is what it was. They were probably shipwrecked sailors or something before this. Now they worshiped Moreau like a God. There were all types in here. Most of the people were an amalgamation of various different animals, all mixed with humans. Pendrick looked around the houses. Huts were little more than wood, palm trees and reeds leaning up against a rock. And the swine man squealed from outside. He came in waving his hands, his tiny pig eyes slightly less tiny. Oh my gosh, guys, he's here. It was like the Beatles. Or like bts. I don't know. I'm not up on all that. They literally viewed him as a God. And he was here. The beast folk freaked out. So did Pendrick, but not in the same way. Moreau and Montgomery. They had arrived at the village of the beast people. Pendrick followed the beast folk outside. Two men whose heads were buried in their misshapen shoulders stood in front of him. Pendrick gripped the wood with a nail in it, his makeshift mace. Moreau spotted Pendrick immediately, pointing. Grab him. The people, having heard a commandment from their God, focused their mind on only one Thing. They turned and started closing in on Pendrick. The first was the sloth man, with his long hairy arms and hooked hands. He was slow, but. And he took a nailboard to the face. The spray of blood bought Pendrick precious moments. The beast folk. They stared at it, transfixed. While the sloth man sobbed. Pendrick ran. He ran for the ocean, for the one plan he had left. What are you doing? Moreau said, standing on the beach when he caught Pendrick wading out into the shallows. What does it look like? I'm going off into the ocean. I'm choosing the sharks over your laboratory. You can shoot me anytime you want. It would make it faster. Okay, dummy. Moreau lowered his gun and motioned for Montgomery to do the same. He said that sharks weren't that naturally aggressive to human swimmers. That was kind of an unfair stereotype. So Pendrick would have to drown himself, and Moreau thought he lacked the resolve to do that. So he could either keep walking, tread water for a few minutes, and then come back and talk, or he could not waste their time and come back and talk. Moreau took a step forward. Throw me the gun. Then we talk. Pendrick demanded. No, I'm not doing that, Moreau said. This is an 1800s gun, one of the two guns on the island. If he threw it and it hit the water, it would never fire again. Here. Moreau stepped forward in the moonlight and pressed the handle of the gun into Pendrick's hand. There. Happy? Can they talk? There was a puma back on the table with open wounds. You mean man? Pendrick said, raising the gun. A man back there on the table. Just like them. He pointed the gun to the beach. The growing crowd of beast folk. They were all humans before you infected them with your bestial taint. I know what you want with me. You want to turn me into one of them. First Montgomery broke, then Moreau, laughing. Seriously? Okay. Wow. Pendrick thought that these were people. Montgomery turned to Moreau. His work was better than either of them thought possible. Hats off to you, Doctor. Moreau wiped his eyes. Good stuff. Might want to cool it with all that taint talk. You're going to hurt their feelings if they hear you. And they can probably hear you. They have a lot of animal ears. Pendrick was truly confused. Now, what if they weren't people, then what were they? Well, they are people now. That's. That's what we're doing here. We take the animals like the ones that came in on the ship with you, and we turn them into them, Montgomery said. Gesturing back to the beach, Pendrick lowered his gun. Wait. How? A lot of work is how, Dr. Moreau said, and they had lost the better part of the evening. Now it would be an agony. They had to get back. Pendrick needed to know more. He raised the gun again to Moreau. Okay, hands up. And they go back to the enclosure. No, I'm not doing that, moreau said, turning. They can't see that. There's a lot going on that Pendrick didn't understand. Let's go. As they splashed out of the ocean, Moreau told Montgomery to get them to move, and he unhooked the whip at his belt, snapping into the Beast folk. They parted, and Moreau, Montgomery, and Pendrick walked through. They were not people. They had never been people. Vivisection. Dr. Moreau had taken it a step further. Farther. He altered the animals he took in. Changed them fundamentally. They weren't people and they never were people. They were only that way because of what Moreau made them into. Pendrick needed a minute. He set the gun down on the table in the enclosure. But they talked. Moreau laughed. Yes, they did. Did Pendrick know that the greatest difference between man and a monkey was. Was the larynx? Hendrick thought that that didn't sound right. Was it? Moreau continued. So he built a monkey, a larynx, gave him thumbs, made man. There was obviously more that went into it, from changing around their joints to restructuring their faces. But the three of them were the only ones that came to this island as people. The rest were made there, penrick said. But the animals. The puma. He heard it crying out the whole time. Daze. Moreau nodded. Yes, well, that was why the Beast People called his operating room the House of Pain. It was a necessity. It took days for a successful surgery on the bigger ones. He anesthetized them when he could, but honestly, for all of them, it would take gallons. So they all must experience the pain that comes with consciousness. Pendrick still shook his head. It seemed like the creatures, they wouldn't ask for what they became. The animals. Moreau laughed. Yeah, they couldn't ask. They were animals before the procedures. But shouldn't something consent to. Pendrick pointed to the door of the operating room. Consent to all that. Moreau laughed again. What? Ask for consciousness. Ask for life. Who asks for life? Did you ask for life? Pendrick thought about it. Well, no. Moreau pulled back the hammer on the pistol and pressed the muzzle against Pendrick's forehead. So Pendrick wanted to die. Then Pendrick froze. No, of course not. So you're grateful for this gift, no matter the pain? Even with all you've been through uncocking the gun and sending it down on the table? No one consents to being given consciousness. But once we all have it, we're not giving it up. I'm here doing God's work. And I don't mean like oh, I'm being nice or charitable or whatever. I mean literally the work of a God giving lesser beings consciousness, the knowledge of good and evil. Right? I take not just a step, but a leap forward for humanity. And back in England, they drove me from my home. So no pain? What is pain? It's subjective. They'll forget and they'll forgive what it took to get them here. There was a weeping, muffled by the doors to the operating room. This one. This one will be my magnum opus. In every one of them, I have made a bit of the animal remains. It's the pain that burns it away. But that little bit grows back like a tumor. Every one of them. Some of them have returned completely to animal states. Others are on their way. Once you see it, you'll notice it everywhere. Even the doctor looked at Pendrick and then smiled. Never mind. He pushed the gun across the table. Pendrick could hold onto it. Thanks, pendrick said, reaching for it. Oh, don't thank me. This is me telling you that if you choose to end your life again, I won't stop you. And if you do it, do it in your room, away from the beast folk. He rose. I've already lost too much time. Dr. Moreau left without another word. That's where we'll leave things this time. This will continue immediately with part two, which dropped at the same time. So there you go. And yeah. Hi, we're back. This will be a 10 episode season which we'll release every other week. Two episodes drop today, so the next will be in two weeks with a story from sci fi legend Philip K. Dick. Fictionals by Jason and Carissa Weiser. Today's story was adapted from The Isle of Dr. Moreau by H.G. wells. Our theme song is by the Amazing Breakmaster Cylinder. And I'll see you in the next episode. Like right now. Thanks so much for listening. It's good to be back.
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Narrator
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