I used to laugh.

  I used to scroll through the comments, the posts, the clips—where people took the most horrifying things and twisted them into jokes.

  I thought it was dark humor.

  I thought it made me edgy.

  It made me feel like I was part of something. Like I got it.

  Like I wasn’t some sensitive loser who took things too seriously.

  And every time someone got offended, I just laughed harder.

  "Relax, it’s just a joke."

  "Dark humor isn’t for everyone."

  "If you can’t take it, leave."

  I used to say that.

  Until the voice slapped me awake.

  ---

  When Did We Become This?

  I was lying in bed, mindlessly scrolling, as usual.

  Another post. Another comment section filled with the same kind of humor.

  Some girl had been assaulted. Some guy had lost his life.

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  And the replies were filled with laughing emojis.

  People turning tragedy into entertainment.

  "She sure had fun before passing away."

  "Bro suffered before he got to rest in peace."

  And I smirked.

  Not because it was funny.

  But because I had trained myself to think it was.

  Then—

  "Souta."

  The voice came, sharp. Cold.

  I barely reacted. "What? It’s just dark humor."

  The voice exhaled.

  Then, it asked—

  "Tell me, Souta. Will you still be laughing when it's your own daughter?"

  My breath caught.

  "What?"

  "I said—when you're a father, when you have a daughter, when she suffers something like this, will you still be sitting here, laughing? Will you comment ‘she sure had fun before passing away’?"

  A sick feeling crawled up my spine. "That's different—"

  "No, it’s not."

  The voice cut through me like a knife.

  "You laugh at it now because it isn’t happening to you. Because the victims are just names on a screen. Because you’ve convinced yourself that nothing is real unless it happens in your world."

  My throat felt dry.

  "You say it’s just a joke. But humor isn’t an excuse to turn someone’s suffering into your entertainment."

  I swallowed hard. "Come on, I’m not the only one who does this—"

  "Exactly. That’s the problem."

  The voice’s tone didn’t change.

  "People like you sit in groups, normalizing this filth. And before you know it, you’re not just laughing at it. You’re excusing it. You’re encouraging it. You’re making the world believe that cruelty is just comedy."

  I shut my eyes.

  "One day, Souta, you’ll grow up. One day, you’ll love someone. One day, you’ll see a person you care about in pain. And that day, I want you to remember the things you used to laugh at."

  My stomach twisted.

  "I want you to remember how you made fun of someone else’s nightmare. And then, I want you to ask yourself—"

  The voice leaned in, whispering its final blow.

  "—if someone else was laughing at your pain, would you still think it was just a joke?"

  Silence.

  The screen in my hand felt heavier than ever.

  ---

  The Words That Make You Sick

  "A joke that needs a victim was never a joke.

  A

  laugh that costs a life was never a laugh.

  And a world that mocks pain will one day become the pain it mocks."