Author: Âeolus-tea immortal
Our Discord: https://discord[dot]gg/WfKqjeXN {replace [dot] with '.'}
Part 1: First Night
In Man's struggle against the world, bet on the world.
— Franz Kafka
___________________
Carl Lumen hated the subway. The screech of metal, the stale smell of sweat and old coffee, the way strangers' eyes flickered to his face and then away—too polite or too bored to stare. He adjusted his tie, its silk slipping between his fingers like a lie.
Another day, he thought—another dollar. But the money wasn't enough anymore.
His apartment in Brooklyn was a shoebox with a view of a brick wall. He moved there three years ago, fresh out of college, convinced he'd climb the corporate ladder fast. Now, at 26, he was still a junior analyst at Klein & Reed, a firm that managed money for people who already had too much of it. His boss, a bulldog in a pantsuit, called him "promising." Carl called it purgatory.
He unlocked his door, tossed his keys on the counter, and poured himself a drink. The whiskey burned, but not enough. The silence of the apartment pressed against his ears.
Sometimes, he'd play music just to drown it out. Tonight, though, he didn't. Tonight, he stared at the ceiling fan spinning lazily above his bed and wondered why he kept waking up feeling emptier.
It started with the headaches. Sharp, sudden pains behind his left eye, like a needle digging into his brain. Then the gaps.
Three days ago, he'd walked into the office kitchen and found a half-empty mug of coffee with his initials on it. He didn't remember making it. Last night, he'd woken at 3 a.m., standing in his bathroom, the sink overflowing. His hands were raw, scrubbed pink. No memory of turning the faucet on.
Stress, he told himself. Burnout.
But when he mentioned it to Mitchel, the intern with the nervous laugh, she froze. "You too?" she'd whispered. Her eyes darted to the security cameras on the ceiling. "Don't talk about it here."
He didn't get a chance to ask why.
She quit the next day.
___
The dream came on a Thursday.
Carl was standing in a hallway lined with doors. Each door was marked with a brass number: 12, 7, 23. Behind them, muffled voices argued, laughed, and sobbed. The air smelled like incense and wet soil. At the end of the hall, a flickering neon sign buzzed-
DREAM AUCTION HOUSE
No Refunds
A man in a moth-eaten tuxedo materialized beside him. His face was gaunt, his smile a row of yellowed teeth. "First time?" he croaked. Before Carl could answer, the man shoved a pamphlet into his hand. The paper felt alive, pulsing like a heartbeat.
"Bid wisely," the man hissed. "They always want the shiny ones."
Carl opened his mouth to ask what they wanted, but the floor vanished. He fell-
He woke up gasping, his sheets damp with sweat. His alarm blared: 6 a.m. His hand trembled as he reached for his phone. And then he saw it.
A black rose was on his nightstand.
It hadn't been there when he'd gone to sleep. Its petals were velvety, perfect, but when he touched it, the stem oozed something thick and dark. Like blood. He jerked his hand back. Under the rose lay a slip of paper with an address scrawled in jagged cursive:
47½ W. 89th St
The office felt wrong that day. Too bright, too loud. His coworker, Dave, slapped him on the back. "You look like hell, Lumen. Rough night?"
Carl forced a laugh. "Something like that."
But Dave's grin faltered. He leaned in, his breath reeking of peppermint gum. "You… uh… dreaming lately?"
The word hung between them. Carl's throat tightened. "What?"
Dave's face went pale. "Nothing, forget it." He hurried away, knocking over a stack of files.
Carl didn't follow him. He had already decided.
He will go to the address.
_
47½ W. 89th Street was a crumbling brownstone wedged between a bodega and a nail salon. The door was painted red, peeling like old skin. A brass knocker shaped like a serpent's head glared at him. Carl raised his hand—
The door swung open before he touched it.
Inside, the air was thick and sweet, like rotting flowers. A staircase spiraled downward, lit by flickering gas lamps. Shadows moved on the walls, too long, too sharp to be human. Voices drifted up from below, murmuring in a language that made his teeth ache.
He descended.
The basement was a cavernous room filled with rows of velvet chairs. People sat motionless, their faces hidden by hoods or masks. At the front, a stage glowed under a single spotlight. The man from Carl's dream stood there, his tuxedo gleaming.
The auctioneer.
"Lot 42!" he barked. "A childhood memory- Christmas morning, 1998. Father's laughter, mother's perfume… and the moment she decided to leave."
A woman in the front row raised her hand. "Ten years!"
"Ten years to the lady! Do I hear fifteen?"
Carl slid into an empty seat, his heart pounding. The auctioneer's eyes locked onto him.
"Ah," the man purred. "A new guest. How… delightful."
The crowd turned. Dozens of hollow eyes stared. Carl's palms were slick with sweat.
"Let's tempt him, shall we?" The auctioneer snapped his fingers. A glass vial appeared, swirling with silver mist. "A memory of first love. Very Pure, Fragile... Delicious."
The crowd stirred. A man in a crow mask hissed, "Twenty years!"
Carl's chest ached. He shouldn't be here. He should run. But then the auctioneer smiled.
"Or perhaps…" Another snap. A new vial, this one glowing gold. "A memory of innocence. The last time you believed the world was kind."
Carl's breath hitched. He didn't remember ever believing that.
"What do I bid?" he heard himself ask.
The auctioneer's grin widened. "Oh, no. You don't bid with money here." He licked his lips. "You bid with time."
"Time?"
"Years off your life. A decade for the gold. A pittance!"
The crow-mask man chuckled. "Or you could sell instead. Your memories fetch a fine price."
Carl's mouth went dry. "And if I sell?"
The auctioneer leaned forward. "What's something you'd rather forget?"
The words slithered into Carl's ear. He thought of his father's funeral. The empty casket. The way his mother had whispered, "He's better gone."
"That one," the auctioneer whispered, as if reading his mind. "Give us that memory, and we'll give you… power. A chance to climb." He gestured to the crowd.
"They all took their chances. Look at them now."
The hooded figures nodded, their hands claw-like, jeweled with rings. Carl's pulse roared. He could change his life at last.
Finally
"Do we have a deal?" the auctioneer pressed.
Carl swallowed. "Yes"
The man clapped. "Splendid! A contract, then." A parchment appeared, floating toward Carl.
The ink was crimson, the signature line blank. "Sign, and we'll collect our due."
Carl hesitated, and the room seemed to hold its breath.
Then he signed.
The second his pen left the paper, the vial of gold mist shattered. The memory of his father's funeral, the choked sobs, the sickly lilies all drained from his mind like water. He gasped, clutching his chest.
"Pleasure doing business," the auctioneer said.
The crowd erupted in applause.
Carl stumbled outside, his head throbbing. But he felt… lighter and Unburdened.
Back in his apartment, he opened his laptop. An email from Klein & Reed glowed on the screen-
- Promotion to Senior Analyst, Effective immediately.
He smiled.
It was worth it.
That night, Carl didn't dream. But when he woke, there was a new black rose on his nightstand.
This time, its stem dripped ink onto his floor.
And the drop never hit the ground.
Part 2: The Ink that bleeds
Lumen stared at the black rose. The ink pooled beneath its stem, hovering mid-air like a teardrop frozen in time. He reached out, fingers trembling, and the drop quivered. When he pulled back, it fell.
Splat
Black stained the hardwood floor and It didn't wipe away.
He told himself it was a prank, a mere hallucination. But the promotion email glowed on his laptop, real and undeniable. Senior Analyst. His boss had called him "a rising star" that morning.
Carl didn't mention the ink.
The gaps got worse.
He forgot his mother's birthday. When she called, weeping, he lied: Work's crazy. I'll make it up to you. But he couldn't picture her face. Her voice sounded like a stranger's.
At the office, Dave avoided him. The interns whispered. Carl found a Post-it on his desk- 'STOP BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE'. The handwriting was shaky, familiar. Mitchell's. He crumpled it, though the words clung to him like smoke.
The second dream came uninvited that night.
He stood in the auction house again. The crowd was louder, hungrier. The auctioneer grinned, holding up a vial of swirling black liquid. "Lot 77!" he shouted. "A memory of betrayal. Fresh and Potent"
Carl tried to leave, but his feet rooted to the floor. The auctioneer's voice slithered into his ear..
"You've tasted power. Don't you want more?"
He woke up with a gasp. Another rose sat beside him, its stem oozing ink. The address on the slip beneath it was the same, 47½ W. 89th St.
_
He shouldn't have gone back.
But he did.
The red door creaked open before he knocked. The stairs seemed steeper, the shadows thicker. At the bottom, the auctioneer waited, arms spread. "Carl! We've missed you."
The crowd turned. Their masks tonight were sharper- beaks, fangs, hollow eyes that glowed faintly. A woman in a moth-winged hood hissed, "He's here for the hunger."
The auctioneer shoved a glass into Carl's hand. The liquid inside was ink-black, shimmering with flecks of gold. "Drink. It'll help you… *see*."
Carl hesitated. The liquid moved on its own, crawling up the glass like a living thing.
"Afraid now?" the auctioneer sneered. "You already sold us your grief. What's one more sip?"
Carl drank.
The room exploded into color. The crowd's masks melted away, revealing faces rotting, skeletal and ancient.
The auctioneer's true form loomed, a gaunt creature with too many joints, its skin cracked like dried clay. Carl gagged, but the creature laughed. "Now you understand."
It snapped its fingers. The vision faded, but the dread remained.
"Lot 91!" the auctioneer announced. A child's laugh echoed from a new vial, bright and cruel. "A memory of *joy*. Rare. Untainted. Who will bid?"
A man with a vulture mask raised a clawed hand. "Fifteen years!"
Carl's chest tightened. *Years.* They were trading lifetimes.
The auctioneer leaned close. "Sell another memory. Something… bright. We'll double your power."
"No," Carl muttered.
"No?" The creature's grin split its face. "Look at your hands."
Carl looked. Black veins crawled beneath his skin, pulsing in time with his heartbeat.
"The ink binds you," the auctioneer whispered.
"Every drop is a piece of you we own. Refuse us, and we'll take what's ours. All of it."
…
Carl ran.
Back in his apartment, he scrubbed his hands until they bled. The black veins faded, but the ink stain on the floor had spread. It crept toward his bed, tendrils curling like roots.
He checked his email.
-Promotion to Vice President. Effective immediately.
His reflection on the laptop screen grinned. Too wide. Too many teeth.
The next morning, Dave cornered him in the elevator. His eyes were bloodshot, his tie crooked. "You're one of them now, aren't you?"
"One of who?" Carl snapped.
Dave shoved up his sleeve, black veins snaked up his wrist. "I sold five memories. My wife's face. My daughter's first steps. Now they want her- my youngest..hers everything, her whole life"
He grabbed Carl's collar. "Don't let them in."
The elevator dinged. Dave fled.
Carl straightened his tie. His hands didn't shake.
That night, the auctioneer visited him awake.
Carl was boiling pasta when the air turned cold. The creature stepped out of the shadows, ink dripping from its fingertips. "You've been… naughty," it rasped. "Ignoring our gifts."
"Get out," Carl snarled.
The auctioneer laughed. It sounded like breaking bones. "You owe us. The ink demands balance. Sell another memory, or we'll take…" It licked its lips. "Her"
The creature pointed to Carl's phone.
lit with a photo of his mother.
Carl's breath froze. "No."
"Then give us something else."
The auctioneer placed a vial on the counter. Inside, a memory swirled- Carl's first love, a certain summer rain.
"Why that?" Carl whispered.
"Because it's precious," the creature hissed. "And you'll miss it."
Carl's hand hovered over the vial. The ink stain stretched toward his feet, devouring.
He took the vial.
The office threw him a party. Champagne and Confetti. His boss toasted to his "meteoric rise." As phenomenally ridiculous it was, Carl smiled, shook hands, and didn't notice when the ink stain reappeared on his new mahogany desk.
Yet another night, he woke to a third rose.
This time, the stem dripped ink upward, defying gravity and slowly crawling onto his pillow.
He didn't brush it away.
Part 3: Our Avarice
The ink saw to that Carl no longer sleeps. It slithered through his apartment like a living shadow, pooling in corners and creeping up walls in jagged, vein-like patterns. At night, it whispered in a voice that wasn't a voice at all, a vibration in his skull, low and insistent.
'We hunger for more'
He had stopped looking in the mirror as his reflection became a stranger. One morning, while shaving, he locked eyes with it. The reflection smiled, slow and deliberate, then raised a finger to its lips..
Shhh
Carl shattered the mirror with his fist. Glass shards littered the sink, but the reflection didn't disappear. It blinked at him from every fragment, grinning wider each time he tried to look away. He draped sheets over every mirror, every window. The sheets grew damp, then soaked through with ink that dripped onto the floor, hissing like acid.
The office threw a party for his promotion to Vice President. Balloons in the company's themed blue color bobbed near the ceiling.
A caterer passed out champagne flutes filled with liquid so pale it looked like diluted bleach. The MD personally clapped him on the back. "To Carl Lumen!" he bellowed.
"The youngest MD in company history!"
The room erupted in applause. Carl forced a smile. His teeth felt loose.
Across the office, Dave's desk sat empty. A janitor scrubbed at a black stain on the carpet nearby, muttering curses under his breath. Carl watched as the stain seeped back into the fibers the moment the man turned away.
"Mr. Carl?" A timid intern hovered at his elbow- a girl with a face like a startled rabbit. "Your, um, speech?"
He hadn't prepared one. The crowd parted as he stepped forward. His throat tightened. The ink stirred under his skin like worms.
"I… owe my success to ambition," he lied. The words tasted bitter.
What have I ever done…To what do I owe this promotion? My soul?
The silence stretched.
Who am I?
Then his reflection appeared in the glass conference room wall behind him. It winked.
Carl excused himself.
__
His mother called that night.
He'd been staring at the ink stain on his bedroom ceiling, watching it pulse like a heartbeat. When his phone buzzed, her name flashed on the screen- Mom. He hadn't spoken to her in weeks.
"Carl?" Her voice crackled, distant. "I… I can't remember your face."
The words punched through him.
"Mom, I'll come visit. Tomorrow. I promise I will."
"Yes," she whispered. A wet, gurgling sound leaked through the line. "I don't quite feel right.. please my so-"
The call died. When he redialed, the number no longer existed.
He ran, took the keys, and drove to her house through a storm. Rain lashed the windshield, but the ink stain on his passenger seat stayed dry. It quivered as he parked outside her decaying Victorian home. The porch light flickered, and Vines clawed up the walls, their leaves black and brittle.
The front door hung open. Inside, the air reeked of rot and something metallic. Family photos lined the hallway- vacations, birthdays, graduation, but the faces in every frame had melted into gray smears.
"Mom?"
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
He found her in the basement.
She sat in a rocking chair, her back to him. The room stank of mildew and ammonia. The walls glistened, wet with ink.
"Mom, it's me."
The chair turned slowly.
Her face was smooth and blank with No eyes or mouth, just a featureless oval. Her hands, gnarled and trembling, reached for him.
"Carl," her voice echoed from the walls. "You..what is happening to us.."
The floor softened beneath his feet. Ink surged up his ankles, burning like frostbite.
"Stay," the house groaned. The walls rippled almost as if alive.
He tore free and ran.
The Auctioneer waited in his apartment.
It stood by the kitchen sink, ink dripping from its cracked fingers into the drain. "Naughty, naughty," it crooned.
"Running never ends well."
Carl lunged for the knife block. The creature laughed, snapping its fingers.
The knives disintegrated into black dust.
"We're not here to fight," it said. "We're here to… re-negotiate"
A contract materialized on the counter. The parchment pulsed, its edges curling like dying leaves.
"Sign," the Auctioneer said, "and we spare your mother."
Carl's hands shook. "What's the price?"
The creature's grin split its face. "One final memory. The oldest one."
A vial appeared, filled with swirling amber light. Inside, Carl saw a toddler's chubby hands reaching for a woman. Her laughter echoed, warm and bright.
His first memory.
"No," Carl whispered.
The Auctioneer sighed. "Then we'll take her instead."
It snapped its fingers.
The vial shattered. The memory dissolved into smoke. Carl's knees buckled. His mind went white, then black.
When he opened his eyes, the contract was signed.
The Auctioneer clapped. "Lovely! Now, meet yours truly- your successor."
Carl's reflection stepped out of the hallway mirror.
It wore his face, his suit, his Rolex. But its eyes were voids, ink pooling in their sockets. "Hello, Carl."
"What the hell is this?"
"A trade," the Auctioneer said. "You're too… damaged to keep now. But he's fresh anew and functiona.l"
The reflection lunged.
They crashed into the coffee table, glass shattering. Carl grabbed a shard and slashed at its throat. The reflection laughed, the wound sealing instantly with ink.
"You're weak," it hissed.
"You sold your grief, your joy, your love. What's left of you?"
It pinned him, hands cold as grave dirt. The Auctioneer watched, gleeful.
"Finish it," it ordered.
The reflection leaned close. "Don't worry. I'll be a better you."
Its fingers plunged into Carl's chest.
—
Carl woke on stage.
The Auction House crowd jeered, their masks twisted into animalistic snarls. Ink bound his wrists, his ankles, his throat. The Auctioneer pounded a gavel.
"Lot 100!" it shouted. "A soul! Slightly used. Bidding starts at fifty years!"
"Sixty!" barked a man with a boar's skull for a face.
"Seventy!" screeched a child in a porcelain doll mask.
Carl's reflection sat in the front row, legs crossed, smirking.
The Auctioneer leaned close. "You should've read the fine print. All sales are final."
The gavel fell. "Sold!"
In a blink, Carl found himself in an alley, his body cold and foreign.
His skin had turned gray, fissured like dried mud. Ink oozed from his pores, thick and endless. The Auctioneer's voice slithered into his skull: "Congratulations. You're one of us now."
He tried to scream. Ink poured from his mouth, silencing him.
[epilogue]
The new VP of Klein & Reed worked late.
He never ate and never slept. His coworkers marveled at his efficiency, his charm, and his ever smiling face. Although there were inconsistencies- how he never blinked. How his shadow didn't match his movements. How the air around him hummed, faintly, like a swarm of flies..
One night, an intern lingered after hours. She found a black rose on her desk, its stem coiled around her keyboard.
"For me?" she wondered aloud.
The Director watched from his office, ink dripping from his cufflinks.
"For you," he echoed.
…
In a house with walls that breathed, a faceless woman rocked in the dark.
Her voice had become part of the rot—a creak in the floorboards, a sigh in the pipes. Sometimes, when the moon hung low, the neighbors heard her. They told themselves it was the wind.
…
And in the Dream Auction House,
A new auctioneer paced the stage, adjusting his borrowed suit. His smile was too wide, his teeth too sharp. He practiced his pitch in a voice that wasn't quite his own-
"Lot 101! A memory of sunlight… of laughter… of trust."
The crowd leaned forward, hungry as ever.
"Who will bid?"
…
Somewhere, in a Brooklyn apartment, an ink stain spread.
It crept under doors, down drain pipes, into dreams. It bloomed on pillows, in coffee cups, on the wrists of strangers who woke up gasping, their heads full of silver mist and the echo of a gavel's crack.
And if you listen closely, on nights when the city holds its breath, you might hear it—the faint, wet sound of something signing its name.