Chapter Text
I'm up, sitting, gasping for air and gagging on the scent of decay with every breath. The thought of me being unharmed is rammed into my head, but that is all I am allowed to can remember. As I stand, compelled to walk forwards to the screams and sounds of rending Flesh, my eyes briefly pass over the sign at the door.
Auction House.
Hall Red.
I've always liked Red, it's a nice colour. As a kid, it was my favorite colour. Colour of roses, of love, of warm sunsets and crackling fireplaces. It's the colour of nights spent with my wife alone, colour of passion, a crackling fireplace...blood. As I pass through the doorway, that's all I can think. Red. Blood. Red. Colour of gore and Flesh and blood, its the sound of slapping meat, its the smell of rotting and wasted Flesh. Red. It's the colour of fear, as my body marches fowards, even while my mind is pulling back. It's the colour of the pain blooming in my head, cutting through my mental fog and bringing me back to this new reality in sudden, sharp, excruciating, focus. Red. Blood, pain, gore, Flesh, fear...above all, its the colour of rust on the saw blade that my hand grasps, the bare teeth dragging spurts of the shade from my hand, as my arm raises it above my head, my muscles suddenly contracting, driving it downwards and into the shoulder of somebody screaming at me.
Or maybe that noise is me? I'm screaming at myself inside my head, crying out in horror as my own body moves back and forth, my elbow skillful and smooth, back and forth, and I can't stop, back and forth, the saw mercifully gliding like butter until it does, suddenly, sickeningly, jarringly, Stop.
But then it doesn't.
And I can't stop the movement.
I can't stop the saw dragging slowly, agonizingly, sending waves of juddering horror wrapping around my arm like barbed wire and I'm Still Screaming at myself but I can't hear my voice anymore. Back and Forth, back and forth, back and forth, forward and back, in and out, it digs deeper into bone, scraping and gouging through the Flesh. My eyes are locked on like they've been magnetized, my eyelids forced open against the sight, I can't stop staring at the Red as its spills out, I can't stop pulling it out of the body as the Red coats my feet, splashing against the tile floor with a thick, wet, heavy sound.
Then silence
Blessed silence
.
.
.
Why is there Silence?
I flex and strain and struggle and I still can't control my arm, can't stop myself dragging the saw from the corpse, can't stop the tears that now prick behind my eyes, unable to burst free, but now my head is turning, forcing my gaze blessedly from the mass of moaning Flesh in front of me, up towards the front of the House, and towards a little modest balcony over a pair of large, ornate doors. I wasn't really sure what I expected, not sure what devil would appear, not sure what sight would soon be burnt into my eyes, but it certainly wasn't a kindly-looking old lady, the sort that would look more at home making puzzles and shitty coffee, not ankle deep in gore and viscera, her lilac dressing gown stained skin deep with Red.
Looking back on it now, somehow, I think that's the most terrifying thing about this place really, not the days, months, (years?) that I've spent carving up Flesh, but that little old lady (the Auctioneer, my brain supplies me), and that fucking hammer. Every now and then, she'd show up, all smiles and soggy-cake sweetness, and every time she'd leave to cries and fear and pain and dull-razor agony.
But I didn't know her at the time. And looking back now, I don't know if knowing would have helped me cope, not really. She raises that damned hammer of hers, bringing it down on the balcony, and it was like a shot of adrenaline was injected straight into my brain. It was electric really, almost pleasurable with how it ricocheted through my skull, pulling my thoughts away from the quiet begging and pleading from the body on my table, saw still lodged deep, and onto the Auctioneer, smiling that antifreeze-sweet grin as she raised that hammer once more, and despite myself, I found myself leaning forwards in anticipation for the next strike.
But that strike wasn't to come, not yet. Instead, she opened her mouth, and drew us in with a single breath, only to speak, in an oddly comforting matter-of-fact voice, she called out clearly, "Left Pinky!". Immediately the room came to life, the masses around me slavering and screaming, bidding obscene amounts of money, body parts, extra duties, seemingly anything and everything that sprung to mind. But not me. Sometimes nowadays I wonder if that was the real beginning of it all for me, me staying silent. The Auctioneer looked around calmly as those by me got more and more frantic, before bringing the hammer down once again, this strike seeming to echo endlessly in my head, louder and louder until the pain brought me to the verge of screaming, until silence blanketed itself soothingly over my thoughts.
There's not much point reflecting over what happened for the rest of my "shift", not really. I carved and cut and sliced and chopped, each blow and stroke cutting far more easily than it realistically should, the Flesh parting like butter before a hot knife, fingers first, then limbs, but never worse than a missing body part or two, before the body would be dragged away from me and another would fall in front with a wet splatter, the blood quickly building on my face and soaking into my clothes, weighing me down even as my body pushed through without me.
And then I stopped. My body stepped back from the line, turned, and walked back through the doorway I had first emerged from, walking back, and back, and back through the room, before standing before one of a seemingly infinite number of cots, my hand reaching down to grasp at a few coins that had been left on my bed as my wages for the day. I was laid down, my eyes closing, and I drift off to sleep.
The next day, however, I learned the awful truth of the Auction House. I didn't wake up in the cot, I didn't walk through the doorway, I didn't pick up the saw, I didn't do anything, or my own volition or not. Instead, my eyes were dragged open by the harsh bite of rusted steel, and dull teeth, dragging through the Flesh on my left hand, my pinky to be specific. Deeper and deeper, rougher and rougher, the bile rising in my throat and the screams flowing like water as I couldn't do anything but lie there, my body sliced into over and over and over again, cut exposed to the elements and the Red and the harshness of the wooden table, each slice superficial in nautre, although deep and agonizing, albeit foces entirely on the finger I failed to bid for the day before.
The Auctioneer returned a few days later, after a few more of my shifts, and I thought I was ready, thought I'd saved enough, bidding to keep my left thumb this time. But bones are a couple hundred on the Black Market, and marrow itself can breach a thousand, so I suppose I never really had a chance back then. Again, the process repeated itself, now with the dull throbbing pain of two missing fingers to keep me awake that night, and again I failed the next auction, but not the one after that, and with that, I resolved to make it through this living hell
It's hard to keep track of the time anymore. All I seem to do these days is cut and saw and cut and saw and cut and saw and cut again, broken up only by the rare appearance of the Auctioneer to cut through the boredom. In the beginning, like I supposed everybody must have tried at least once, I kept counting the minutes, the hours, the days, the weeks, the months between visits, but there was never any consistency, and nobody else ever agreed on how long it took, no matter how much we tried to count together. At times I was so sure that I was right, that everybody else was against me, but now? Now the only thoughts I can muster about the topic are how pointless my strugges have really been.
I slip back into my old routine, biting down against bile and thoughts, forcing my mind to numb and slow and deaden even further to ignore the screams as my body cuts in again, sawing through bone and Flesh with rusted saw and dulled blade, the shuddering up my arm as familiar and welcome as a warm hug from a loved one. Sweat drips into the Red wound, making my current victim even louder, but I can't take a break, I can't even blink, I'm too close. With a soft, wet, bursting sound, the arm falls to the ground, just in time for my arm to be stopped and my head to be tugged up towards the balcony, towards the Auctioneer. She smiles down at us, that grin, that simple kindness a welcome relief, no matter how artifical it may be
The bidding starts, the one I've been waiting for, the one I've been saving for, the one where we Get Something Back. So many others have theirs, and I have no clue as to my own. I never have, for as long as i can remember. The bidding rises, louder and louder, and finally, finally, I've saved enough that I can throw my hat in the ring for this. I shout out louder than any other, my voice echoing triumphantly through the House, and I hope with beating heart and desperate eye that this, the culmination of me carving more, cutting deeper, working harder, will be enough for my Name.