Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26662506-20160726123702

Classes these day’s always teach you to watch what you eat. All the carcinogens, GMO’s, and antibiotics. Well, until you’ve eaten a human being without knowledge of it… you don’t know shit.

Growing up I never had an identity. I remember looking back to my friends and teachers discussing their cultural backgrounds, as I prayed I wouldn’t be called on next. I was always told to ask my parents, but whenever I did… they always gave me these looks of pure anger, like I just killed a child.

Around Senior Year at Mount Sinai Medical School, my teacher discussed how he had helped discovered a new technology… it was called genetic mapping, he said that it could trace your family back several generations and could find any diseases that could be genetic. I knew that I had to ask him about it after class, and I did. I told him the same story I told you, and he was more than willing to help me out. I did what I had to do… and waited patiently.

After about 3-4 weeks my results came back, and I was pure Finnish. Nothing else, just Finnish. I was taken aback to why my parents wanted to keep this from me. I thought my grandfather was some kind of Nazi and my parents kept it a secret so I wouldn’t get bullied. A friend of mine was intrigued and did more research on a particular area that my extended family resided and that there was a unknown disease which had several outbreaks. I took this as an opportunity to enter the Doctors without Borders Program and embarked  to the small city where the outbreaks occurred.

It’s a nice place… in Finland, everyone’s pretty nice here. Especially the officer that helped me interpret what had happened to my family. Most people here speak English which I was pretty thankful for, because I didn’t know a single word in Finnish.

One of the first things I did was ask the local Police Department for the location my relatives. A man was watching TV at the front desk, and I tried to get his attention… no answer. I started to explain my situation, and as soon as I said my last name, he whipped around… horrified. “You’re joking right?” He asked, head cocked sideways. He pleaded with him to explain. “Come with me…” he said, motioning me to a locked steel door behind him.

He lead me to a room with one-way glass, it was an interrogation room. “A few people who were on the case will be with you shortly. I’m pretty sure they’d be more than happy to explain the situation” he said, almost sarcastically, before leaving the room.

A few minutes later, 2 officers entered the room. They explained that there were over 300 people in the city and the surrounding area whom shared my surname. They all lived on a sealed off section from the rest of the city, a community of the same family.

But one night a few years prior to my arrival, all of them were reported missing, and assumed dead. The entire place was under the watchful eye of the Finnish Ministry of Interior as it wasn’t a normal occurrence 300 people up and vanish in a single night, and that was the extent of their knowledge that concerned the situation.

As the program I entered didn’t pay all that well, especially because I was a fresh graduate and had no real experience in a medical field, I got a job at the docks fishing Herring for a man who owned a rising chain of restaurants. A restaurant I must refrain from naming under the request of the Finnish Interior Ministry.

They were famous for their signature Herring sandwich, which in all honesty, didn’t sound very appetizing and I stood clear of the establishments. However, my boss kept giving me these huge discounts on the meals, eventually offering unlimited free meals. I felt bad declining, because he was always noticeably upset by the denial of his generosity.

My boss, never gave me his full name. He was a tall man, about 6 feet tall in fact. He was in his mid 60’s and had a perpetual toothy grin… most of which were broken and rotted. He had long grey facial hair and scraggly hair. But the most off-putting thing about him was his right eye, it seemed to always be egg-white and bloodshot.

He was so ecstatic that I was bringing in the fish, because all the past workers had been stricken with the disease I was here to help diagnose. I kept doing it for a solid week, and made a decent amount of money without any problems… until I got a phone call.

Thousands of people were claiming to be effected with the disease, and the hospital was absolutely loaded with people seeking treatment.

On my way to the hospital, I kept seeing crudely-made billboards advertising the restaurant I fished for. I heard advertisments on the radio, and earlier I kept seeing them on my hotel television.

I arrived to evaluate a man with immune deficiency, who was by far the worst case in the building. He was recorded to be around 120 pounds only 2 days ago, which was normal for such a frailly-built man. Now he weighed in at about 350 pounds, despite retaining his body shape. He had several scab-like scars that stained his feet, arms, legs, neck, back, and face. They were thick but chipped off with a bit of effort. They seemed to spread in diameter at an extremely rapid pace, which prompted immediate action.

Removing them required a hammer and chisel and a lot of time, but once the tissue was removed, it revealed a viscous, syrupy goo that was orange in color and had to be drained before examining the internal effects. But, by the time the liquid was drained, the scars came back twice as thick, and had doubled in size. His veins were noticeably grey and his skin had an unnatural brownish discoloration.

Eventually we had to send him home and told him to return the next day. But… he never did…

The official police report stated that his entire body was enveloped by scar tissue, spines protruding from some of them. He was barely recognizable as a human being, his feet resembled large tree treestumps and his toes were replaced with tendril-like appendages that burrowed into the ground. He had several rows of large, candy red cysts on his back and abdominal region. The liquid below the scar tissue had hardened into an amber-like resin making an autopsy impossible. However, the most distinct feature was the face of the man. It was described as the face one would make if drowning, gasping from breath, terrified of death. Many of the officers stated that it was as if they had traveled back in time to watch his final moments. Like he was still alive, and suspended in a place of pure terror.

Reading that, shook me up a lot and I had to take a few day’s off. I didn’t think my boss would mind, especially cause I told him the circumstances… I was wrong… I don’t know how but the motherfucker got my phone number, and my place of residence, he started sending me letters and voicemails. Making threats that involved me being killed and served to his customers if I didn’t return because we were out of fish.

Eventually I went back and asked him about it, he looked surprised and assured me that he had not obtained my phone number or my location and that I should go seek help from the police. For some reason, I knew it just had to be him, the voicemails he left were full of malice but, contained a sense of unconditional joy. Just like my his grin. He had a certain enthusiasm describing my brutal executions and it disturbed me.

The first day I went back, every person that was infected was pronounced dead and were buried in a mass-grave on the outskirts of the city. After I finished the day, I got another call it was yet another outbreak.

It had to be the fish, and I told my boss that. He was very serious about it and asked me for my name and birthplace, all that information which could cite me as a reputable figure in a report to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. But as soon as I said my full name he stopped dead, mid-sentence. He just said, "you too? So is this like a prank? You know for a fact it’s not the fish."

Naturally I asked what the fuck he was talking about, and he asked if I was from the US. I said that I told him the answer was yes when I gave him my information. He ripped up the report and threw it into the ocean. He told me to come the next day, and see something cool. He cocked his head, and I saw his eye, roll forward, revealing several lacerations that formed an X over his eyeball.

That freaked me the fuck out, I don’t know why, but seeing that eye terrified me. I reported it to the police and they promised they would tail me the next day and make sure I was safe.

The next day, I went to the pier and my boss picked me up in an old rusted pickup truck with a snowplow attached to the front. Before I got in, my phone rang… the clinic had gone to dump more bodies into the mass grave and found all of them, were gone… every single one of them. I got in, and talked to him about why I came here.

He just looked at me and smiled, that fucking eye rolled forward again. He just said, you’ll know your place soon son. We stopped at a cave that was about 100 miles from the city… he motioned for me to exit the vehicle, and I did.

Entering the cave, it smelled of rotten fish and I couldn’t see. But he pulled a lever and just like that, the place lit up. To reveal something I can never forget. It was horrible.

Large hoppers contained the herring and were loaded onto conveyor belts, the herring was ground into a paste and dropped into a funnel, which led into the mouths of restrained human beings. Syringes stuck out like thorns and strange symbols and glyphs were carved into his skin. He looked at me, with the biggest smile of joy and just said, "welcome home grandson".

He took out his phone, and it was a voice recording of my parents, apologizing, saying they should’ve told me about the horrible things they did and that they left the country to escape. My mother was crying and my father was audibly trying to calm her down. I started to cry myself.

He patted me on the back and said that I shouldn’t cry tears of joy at the family reunion. I saw that the people, still restrained were mechanically lifted onto another conveyor belt, leading to a large bladed machine. They were chopped up. That’s when I saw them, the bodies of the infected, the growths were being plucked, and added to make the signature sandwich they were acclaimed for.

"Amazing isn’t it…?" He said with a wide-eyed expression stamped across his face. I asked him why they would do something like this. He turned and said, "what separates us from the fish, the cows, the chickens, any other living creature. If they can be considered food, we can pass ourselves as food too. With a sprinkle of help from our lord and savior from below. This is the wonderful creation of the occult and radicalism and it’s beautiful."

He was batshit insane, he was using black magic to make a disease that turned people into practical gardens. I can’t tell you how many times I threw up until more people started coming out from the several tunnels that lead into the main cavity of the cave. They were all related to me… “We decided to relocate" my alleged grandfather said casually.

They started to cheer, and then the cheering stopped. A silent murmur… chanting… my grandfather pulled out a large impractical looking knife, motioned to my face. “It’s time for you to get your birthmark.” I looked around, all of them had their right eye cut into an X. I shut my eyes as hard as I could. “Stop Alexsantiri” A new man appeared. “He must see the the Garden…”. My Grandfather put the  knife away, and bowed. “As you wish” He sighed.

The man lead me down one of the narrow tunnels that sprouted outward from the main cavity where the crowd of my family still remained, chanting. The noises grew softer and softer, until silence. An unnatural silence. Silence that could only be achieved by death itself. I don’t know how long we had walked for, minutes, hours, days, time didn’t seem to pass in this lifeless hallway.

After what seemed like hours, we reached a large wooden double-door, like one you’d see in a castle. It was rotting, but still in relatively good shape, it was rather well-decorated. A cast iron demonic head was centered in the door, and the knockers were shaped like severed human hands. They were polished, from what it looked like, very recently.

The door opened, and my grandfather was sitting down, waiting for us. We went down a short hall into a clearing, purple light flooded the clearing and there was a large and thick tree, birch-like in features. It’s roots were red and pulsating, glowing, and steaming. Vines from it, like arms was cradling something, a human head. At least I think it was, as soon as I saw it the vines had whipped upward, revealing a large beak similar to that of a octopus or squid. The beak opened, the mouth was a swirling vortex of red and purple glowing substances.

“What the fuck is that, why are you feeding it.” I yelled at my grandfather. He started to speak, but was interrupted by the tree shrieking, a sound of a low pitched growl and a high-pitched scream… like that of a human female. “It’s offended, it is not an it. It is god.” I backed up, but my grandfather had grabbed me and pulled out the knife. “It’s not everyday our god gets to experience the taste of it’s worshippers… you should be honored” He whispered in my ears. I closed my eyes as tight as I could. Then gunshots.

I was expecting the police, but it was the military, and they had shot my alleged Grandfather in the left lung, and one last time his eye rolled back into his head. Bloodshot. Lifeless. Silence. Then darkness…

I woke up in a white room, not padded or anything like that but pure white. Lit only by the Sulfur Lamps, all that decorated it was the quilt I woke up on, and a single black coffee table.

A man walked in. “You don’t tell anyone about this… we will not have another incident…” I asked him what he meant by this, but he cut me off with “You already know more than you should” I told him, it’s because I was in the family tree and that was the reason I knew as much as I did. “That tree ought to be dug up, reveal the bloody roots it’s stabbed into the ground.” He told me any documentation regarding the restaurant chain was to be destroyed along with any records of the incident, and my family name.

“What was that thing that I saw…?” I asked him… expecting some kind of answer. “I don’t know, I don’t want to know, and frankly, I don’t give a shit. All I know is that we burned the motherfucker with as much thermite as we had on our persons. It’s dead, or at least injured, and it will starve without human sacrifice. It’s roots shall no longer be watered by the blood of the innocent.” He assured me. I accepted this as fact, but never wanted to try and fact-check it. I was too afraid of what that thing was, and I always will be.

"Why did the military show up?” I asked… the Interior Ministry knew about the cult, religion is a touchy thing you see… one wrong move and you have a riot over the government being unaccepting of certain religions. We don’t need to deal with that shit.” He sneered. “You knew about them?” I cocked my head sideways. “Oh absolutely, we had no idea they’d take it to this extent though… when we saw you getting lead to that cave. The police were called off and the armed forces got involved.” He remarked, and sat down in one of the chairs that were lazily scattered around the table. “Is that all?” he said. I nodded, and he lead me to the exit. “Remember, you don’t speak of this.” He warned sternly, before giving me a ride to my departing flight.

But decades later, with my own children, I decided it was best to make my experience public, on any medium, from this website to the news, but it had to be out. You can’t make have a fanatical devotion to a cause or religion, or else the message is diluted to a point where not even the creators can truly understand it, and people get hurt as a result.  