The Man Who Tried to Make People Heartless
They wanted to stop feeling.
They wanted heartbreak without the pain, grief without the tears, anger without the guilt and attachment without the fear of losing someone.
What they got was something far more disturbing.
A Havenfall man has been arrested after authorities discovered that he had been conducting unauthorized experiments on people who voluntarily sought him out because they wanted to become, in their words, "heartless."
Investigators say the man, whose identity has not yet been released, became obsessed with the idea that human emotions were responsible for much of people's suffering.
His private research reportedly focused on suppressing emotional responses until his subjects could supposedly become indifferent to things that would normally cause fear, sadness, affection or distress.
And according to investigators, it worked.
Just not in the way anyone should have wanted.
The patients stopped feeling — and started losing themselves
Former participants described dramatic changes after undergoing the experiments.
Some became emotionally distant from their families.
Others reportedly struggled to recognize why they cared about people they had previously loved.
Several developed severe physical problems during the process, while others experienced exhaustion, memory problems and profound changes in their behavior.
Investigators say the emotional effects were even more disturbing.
Participants who once cried easily reportedly became almost completely unresponsive to situations that would normally provoke strong emotions.
Deaths, breakups, arguments and personal tragedies allegedly became things they could observe without appearing to care.
The experimenter considered this evidence of success.
Authorities considered it evidence of harm.
"He gave them what they asked for"
According to investigators, the participants had willingly approached the man because they wanted to eliminate their emotions.
That has complicated the case.
"They came to him because they wanted to feel nothing," an investigator said. "But wanting something and understanding what it will cost you are two very different things."
Authorities say the participants were not given adequate information about the potential consequences and that the experiments were conducted outside legitimate medical oversight.
Researchers studying human behavior have long recognized that emotional states can influence both psychological and physical responses, while fictional portrayals of experimental medicine often exaggerate these effects into dramatic transformations.
But Havenfall investigators say what happened in this case was not fiction.
The price of becoming "heartless"
The experimenter's records allegedly contained notes celebrating what he called his "successful subjects."
Investigators now view those same records differently.
One participant reportedly stopped speaking to members of their family.
Another allegedly returned home unable to explain why they no longer felt affection toward their partner.
Others reportedly said they could remember loving people but could no longer experience the emotion itself.
For some, the physical consequences may be permanent.
The city's medical authorities have begun evaluating former participants and attempting to determine how much of the damage can be reversed.
Meanwhile, investigators continue searching the man's property for evidence of additional experiments and other people who may have participated.
A warning written in human beings
The man wanted to prove that emotional pain could be removed.
He may have succeeded.
But Havenfall now has dozens of people wondering whether removing sadness also means removing happiness, whether eliminating fear also eliminates caution, and whether becoming incapable of heartbreak is worth becoming incapable of love.
The experiment was supposed to create people who could never be hurt by their emotions.
Instead, authorities say it left behind people struggling to understand what they had become.
— Havenfall Chronicle
