The Flesh Market

Have you ever visited Edinburgh? Beautiful city, no matter what time of year you go. The castle that sits at the centre of the city is awe-inspiring, looking down on the surrounding area from the Mount. The peaks and valleys of the land have resulted in a city that flows with the landscape. Streets that surround can be steep, with the numerous sprawling alleyways even steeper. It is here that we find Fleshmarket Close.

It could be mistaken for any other darkened causeway in the city. It sits among the shops and tourist traps, relatively non-threatening, and can be used as a short cut to get down to the station if you are in a hurry. The name has been justified, through some who point out that fleshmarkets were a local term for butchers, and through others who suggest it a hangout of women of the first vocation. These are incorrect. There is a market on the close, but flesh is not the product. It is the currency.

Market hours are dusk until dawn, and the entrance fee is one mouthful of your own blood. Prepare a glass, and progress down the alley. As you get halfway down, swig from the glass and spit it against the wall. The blood will bubble and spread across the wall, coagulating into a hardened scab. This will then start to flake and scatter. A rather anti-climatic door will be revealed beneath. Stepping through is disorientating as logic will tell you you are stepping into a building. The space you are stepping into has no walls, with darkness shrouding the edges. It is at the penumbra that a number of stalls are set up, run by individuals who look like market traders from across the globe, from Arabian merchants to Cockney grocers to New York street con-men. All of their clothes are splatted with blood and offal

These figures will entice you to come speak with them and will gesture to numerous signs around their stalls regarding the sales they are currently having. Upon approaching one of the stalls they will start to pressure you to make a deal with them. You are certainly welcome to do so, and the products that are available are certainly worth consideration.

Starting at the cheap end of the spectrum, you may wish to offer one breath. A lungful will net you knowledge of the weather for the next day. In itself a rather pointless purchase in this age of smartphones and the Met office, but centuries ago invaluable. Taking this offer will result in the seller reaching out with his hand flattened, then quickly grasping it into a fist. The air will literally be stolen from your lungs, and cause a few moments of gasping as you catch your breath.

Are you attached to your fingers? How attached? I mean, do you reckon you could do without your little finger? This sale will provide you instant forgiveness from any one person you desire for any wrongs you may have encroached against them. Agreeing to this one will cause the trader to grin and shout "One Yubitsume Special, coming right up". They will lunge forward and grab your wrist, pinning it to the table. Don't resist, because no-one likes a tough sell. A flash of steel and you will be minus one digit. Just remember you can only pay twice.

Now make no mistake, it will hurt. There will probably be a lot of blood, and if you don't take care of the wound, it may even get infected. As the price goes up you may want to consider taking precautions regarding what you trade. Tourniquets and sutures would certainly not go amiss.

Now some of the trades will seem familiar and may hark back to stories and legends that have existed for millenia. This is is the influence the market has had on our culture, leaching in over the centuries. A pound of flesh will make it impossible for the next person you make a trade with to renege on the deal. Especially useful if you don't trust the company you keep. It has no use within the Market as all of the traders here are trustworthy, and will honour a purchase to the letter and the spirit. Best to leave this transaction until last.

How about one of your eyes? Depth perception is over-rated any way. Offering up one of them will allow you to converse with our avian friends. You will be able to call down the birds from the trees, and they will be able to answer any questions you may have. It is advisable that you avoid ravens. They have their own agenda, and it is not in your best interests. The salesman will grab you around the throat and slowly prise his fingers into the socket. A snap of the wrist and your visual organ will rest in their palm. Another snap, and it will disappear.

It is at this point where you may want to consider stronger measures to ensure your survival of payment. In this strange little world or ours, the market is hardly the strangest. Artifacts and incantations exist that can allow the body to continue to function long past the point at which mortal coils would be shuffled from. One or two can be picked up here, but few are willing to live without their sexual organs. It seems eternity is that little bit colder without the ability to get your rocks off. I'm not going to go into the details as to how they are taken, suffice to say that it is unpleasant and messy.

At this point the prices become a little more .....Vital. What would you take for your stomach? In this deal it would merit you the ability to understand the desires of anyone you talk to. Whilst you converse with them, your mind will be filled with the images of that which they covet the most. This would provide a significant advantage to any budding salesman, and the deal has been taken up by several of the stallholders themselves.

Some may argue that such a gift would be more poetically suited to the heart. That vascular muscle, however, is apart of an altogether different deal. By bartering with your heart, you can guarantee the happiness of any given individual for the rest of their life, however long that may be. The removal of these types of organs can be significantly painful, but the dealers will allow you a moment to prepare yourself before they will produce a short, keen blade. One practised swipe later, and they will be digging into your tissues. They have unerring accuracy and a level of cleanliness that rivals any surgeon.

Now it is acknowledged in some places that once the deal has been sealed, a buyer may have second thoughts and may want to back out. This is not one of those places. Most of the contract is left unspoken, but you are expected to have done your research. The buyout clauses are a killer.

Whilst most of the body can be put on the table, there are limitations.The fact of the matter is that the brain is the seat of sentience, and cannot be fully placed in. I say fully, there was one individual who offered to lobotomise the part of the brain that holds memory as a part of the deal. The problem is he cannot remember what it is he received in return. I hear he suffered night terrors for the rest of his days.

Now at this point I offer a warning. Up until now I have detailed the price list for your own body parts. What ever you do, do not attempt to purchase anything in the market with organs of another. Every figure in the market will stop and stare at you, and the one you attempted to defraud will scream "THAT IS NOT YOURS TO TRADE!". What ever it is you have tried to barter will, that body part will be taken from you as punishment. A very literal eye for an eye.

Despite whatever theological perspectives you may hold, offering your own soul will elicit the same result. There have been many theories postulated for this response, but the honest answer is we just don't know.

The market has been trading in blood and bone for as long as civilization has existed, though the entrance has moved from city to city. Many have visited and shook hands with the butchers, though not quite as many got those hands back. A smart man would wonder how it is that these individuals are capable of honouring the deals they broker. A smarter man would ask himself why his body parts are of such high value in this economy. Just understand that it is supply and demand.

And as long as there are fools willing to supply, you shouldn't need to concern yourself with who is doing the demanding.

Thank You

A couple of guys over at YouTube have been reading my pasta and creating videos.

The Quantum Man

The Golden Dilemma

Inspired

This is really flattering, as this is just a hobby to me. What with one thing and another, I only started doing this because my girlfriend recommended I try my hand at writing. I initially tried writing reviews of the things I enjoy, but found more satisfaction when I stumbled across creepy pasta. 

Many thanks for the feedback I've received from numerous people on different sites and in real life, and I will continue to write as long as I am ........inspired.

Update

Hey all, just a shout to say that I'm now working towards getting a couple of the stories I've published here converted to scripts, and eventually movie shorts.

If I can somehow turn my hobby into my vocation, that would be awesome.

Hacker

These days, they say we are literally a couple of years away from a computer that can emulate the human brain. A device that can represent the entirety of thinking, and break it down to 1's and 0's. Perceiving the way humans thinks as being in this fashion will help you understand. The structure of thought can be view as the coding that comprises "us", and just like coding it can be manipulated.
Through extensive research throughout the world, it's become known that certain vocal commands can actually overide the thought processes. The syllables are gibberish in any language, yet can render the target catatonic and open to suggestion. In the numerous tests, it was found that this state included an absolute abandonment of morals. Without question, fathers would willingly sacrifice sons, and life-long friends would turn against each other.
Over time, it was realised that this command code exists in the minds of all humans. At first the scientists were confused, wondering how the entirety of the Earth had become afflicted by this. Eventually it was realised that the condition is hereditary. This made the concept all the more confusing. For it to have spread in this manner, it would have needed to be introduced whilst humanity was still climbing out of the Cradle of Life, in Africa. This was long before any form of organized society.
For obvious reasons, information like this has been quashed at every oppurtunity. Can you imagine a world where every single person can make anyone within earshot a willing puppet? Life as we know it would fall apart overnight. Our lack of understanding prevent us from being able to remove this "control system", however through hypnosis we can establish when some has been used in this manner, but not how.
This is the point when those researching this started to get scared. They found large amounts of evidence that people were being used on a regular basis. We don't even know who by, of it was the same individuals who implanted the original coding into our brains when we were still scratching images of buffalo into cave walls.
It wan't until the indivudals were returned back to their original selves by repeating the syllables that outright fear set in. They would have no knowledge of what had happened, often expressing confusion and saying some variation of the same sentence.

"Hey, have you ever had that thing where you go into a room and you forget why you came in?"

Prime

        I love creepy pastas. And chances are that if you are reading this so do you. I've been into them for about a year now and like most the community enjoy the sudden jolt a well-cooked piece of pasta can provide. The way a perception can be built up in a mere couple of sentences, then be violently smashed down. I've appreciated all the classics, from "Noend House" and "Candle Cove", to the secrets of the Holder series.

I heard about a group of guys recently that kept talking about wanting to take their pasta to the "next level". The kind of story that changes you as a person, gives you a new outlook on life. They posted on a forum, and the impression I got from lurking at the time was that they were building the story fragment by fragment. A mish-mash of text that was being amalgamated as much in the public eye as it was via personal message.

I do know that it was eventually finished, and that a grand unveiling was planned at midnight  on the forum for atmospheric effect. This caused some minor grumbling as they all lived in different time zones, but GMT was eventually agreed upon. Many waited with bated breath for this alleged "perfect" pasta that had grown from the minds of many, yet were disappointed when there was no sign of activity from any of the original creative group.

A couple of days later, one of them signed onto the message board and left a brief message

Slendermanrulez89:   uj3drjjde498blind8540j

You know exactly what we were thinking at that point? Publicity stunt. That's what we continued to say to ourselves over the coming weeks as more and more message started to pile up from all the authors.  Most of them were nonsensical, a couple downright disturbing.

Creepyboi97:    dazzlingdazzlingdazzlingdazzlingdazzlingdazzlingdazzlingdazzlingdazz

Azraelsblade:    ttttttttttttttoooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmuuuuuccccccccccchhh

TheGothfather:   it    toook alitle whyl but i got em oiut..................they tast lik jelli.

At this point we started to get a little worried. Weeks had passed since the supposed release date, and there was no sign other than these repeated postings of the forum, so we started to investigate further. Initial findings showed that the group had shared the story among themselves prior to the release, a couple of them bragging of the fact on various other forums. More details came to light showing that one of them, "RATMfanatic", had been the final editor stitching all the text together, then sending it out to all of them. Research of his facebook showed one status not long after.

"I can't focus anymore. my mind keeps being drawn back to it. I can see where I stand and it terrifies me."

All of the others showed had followed suit, and slowly but surely described a gradual descent into depression, mania and ramblings of "finally understanding".  At this point all sorts of theories were flying around, all fixated on this story. We scoured the news reports and found that over the course of time we were able to tie missing persons reports up to all the forum members from throughout the world. Accounts were investigated showed that the homes they had left behind had been trashed. Their computers had all be destroyed, as if there had been some shared belief that burning or smashing the source of their fear would somehow alleviate it. There was no mention of the  story, but to be honest we wouldn't have expected that. To this day we don't know where they are.

And you would believe that would be where the story would end, were it not for one final postscript. A message was found:

Voltronator: yeah, i just got it in my inbox, but I haven't read it yet.. Don't tell anyone, but I'm gonna fire a couple of copies to some friends. They've been begging me for this, and I do owe them one from way back. They are gonna be stoked.

No-one knows who he was referring to, and nothing has be heard of since. Who knows, maybe it's still out there. Floating on some dead site that gets like a hit a year. No-one knows the title, so your guess is as good as mine. The only thing I will say you is be careful out there. Next time you stumble across some pasta you've never tired before............. just.......... I don't know,I mean how would you even know until it's too late?

Falling Down

At the end of the day, no matter how complacent you get about the world, it still has the capacity to shock you. Billions of people interacting on a a daily basis, all just trying to get on with their lives, and the worst of us will often drag the others down.

Understanding two concepts gives you a better perspective of this situation.

Firstly, decades ago a scientific theory was proposed for something called Orgone energy. This was, for want of a better word, a "bio-field" that permeated all life on the planet. Positive and negative emotions and actions would have an effect on the creatures around you, for humans often in a subconscious fashion. This would show that happiness breeds more happiness, but contempt also breeds more contempt. It was also established that the more base the emotion was, such as fear, the stronger of an effect it applied.

Secondly is a much more mundane image. It is the principle of the Crab Bucket. This is where  if a large number of crabs are placed into a bucket, the will fight and squirm around, desperately trying to escape. The notable part is that if one crab is able to elevate themselves, they will instantly be dragged back down by the others around them, making escape impossible.

By appreciating these two ideas, you start to gain an understanding of why it is that on some days the world seems too dark to tolerate.

Sartre had it almost right. Hell isn't other people, it's just having to live around them.

The Regiment

Over the centuries a legend has abounded, of a regiment of lost souls.  They pool their numbers from the battlefield, recruiting those who have already fallen once in conflict. In the time after the blood-hot frenzy, when all there is is the moans of the dying , they will walk among the wounded.

Their numbers are far higher than anyone has ever guessed, and the warriors present here come from all walks of life.

The  Crusader clad proudly in Christian regalia, who was ambushed and cut down by bandits. Mere miles from a battle that would shape the world, he was cruelly denied his glory.  Outnumbered, he had fought valiantly but was blindsided when a mere slip of man's blade found the space between his plate mail.

The Centurion who watched as thousands of Huns exploded out of the nearby tree-line to the fort. He was in charge of small security force left to keep the locals placated, but the numbers now streaming towards him were far higher than anything his men could deal with. His fingers tightened on his gladius as he prepared to take as many of the frenzied with him as possible.

The Samurai, killed whilst guarding his master in the midst of peasant revolt. Due to their hatred for any whom would defend the despot they had subjected him to the shame and horror watching his master die before the same fate was dealt to him.

The LAPD officer, gunned down whilst responding to a gang territorial dispute between two men who were barely old enough to be considered men. An innocent had already been killed, with several more injured. He was shifting in cover when suddenly more of one of the youth's friends had pulled up, and the officer found himself in the open and in the line of fire.

All these people, and many more, were visited by the regiment and in their final moments asked the question.

"Are you done fighting?"

Some, tired with the fighting and conflict, resign themselves to the afterlife happy to have earned a final rest. All the problems that plagued the world that seemed so important when alive are revealed to be an illusion of a far grander stage.

But the are others who look the regiment square in the eye and say

"No, I'm not done"

These stubborn few, representing just about every single group of organized forces from throughout the world will occasionally be seen in the midst of battle itself. They are called upon when one gives themselves over to the conflict, Mind, Body and Soul. When an individual is lost to the blood-lust and the fury, and they fight simply because that is all they know within their world.

At this point, the various members of the regiment will take up arms and join the battle, tethered to the real world by the red mist.Nordic Vikings, Russian Spies, Zulu Warriors all fighting shoulder to shoulder.

None know who it is that commands this diverse group, though some stress the more important question is for what reason such a group is being accumulated.