Soul For Sale

Sometimes we need material items to bring us happiness and fulfilment in life. We may believe that there is no greater thing in this world than money and we would give up anything for money. But.. would you really?

I never came from a wealthy family. I didn’t have luxuries growing up and parents willing to splurge and spoil me at every chance. Instead, my parents were pretty poor. 99 cent canned goods were what we ate most nights. So, throughout my teen years until well into my late 20’s, I’ve had to work hard just to get by.

For the last 4 years I had worked at a cafe shop called Diana’s. It was a small, hidden gem in the outskirts of the city. The pay wasn’t too bad, but it surely didn’t leave me with much to spend at the end of the month after covering my rent, bills and groceries.

I spent most of my time at work mopping floors, clearing plates and debris of food off tables and chatting with some of the regulars who were mostly seniors and college students.

On my break, I would go to the back of the cafe where a small library of about 230 books were located. We had one computer in the back that was mostly used for inventory and placing orders, but other than that it was free for employee use granted we didn’t use it for porn or anything of that sort. I was the only employee who really used the computer as everyone except me seemed to have a smartphone with internet access. The computer was in decent condition given the fact that this small cafe was very humble. I liked that the computer was hidden behind a shelf of books, as I could do what I pleased without an audience. I didn’t have a computer at home so after work I often offered to close up so I could stay late to use it. I tended to watch YouTube videos, read emails, check my social media and my not-so-proud hobby of surfing the dark web.

A few months prior, I was reading some interesting stories on Reddit about people who have used the dark web for a variety of reasons and against the many, many warnings against venturing through the deep web as a newbie, my curiosity got the best of me.

A quick google search taught me how to install a VPN and how I needed to download a browser called TOR. I downloaded the browser and within minutes I had access to the dark web. Despite a few wrong clicks and photos of things I never want to see again, there were some pretty cool sites. There were news outlets from around the world, chat rooms to meet new friends, shops to buy unique and rare items-- virtually anything you could think of, was a click away.

One evening at work, I asked to take the closing shift so I could browse the web for a couple of hours before heading to my depressing apartment. I had no real social life outside of my virtual life, most of my friends had moved on with their lives— married, children, careers.. And me? I had nothing. I was single, living on my own in a cramped studio apartment that desperately needed repairs and I didn’t live in the nicest of neighbourhoods.

I took a sandwich that I packed earlier out of my work bag, turned on the computer and waited for it to start up. Just hearing the computer beep to let me know it was ready to be of my use sent a chill down my spine. I glided my fingertips over the keys, typing the password “DING!”

I’m in. I clicked the TOR browser and started clicking page after page. I was reading about human experiments and animal hybrids when an ad in bold red letters popped up on the screen reading ‘COULD YOU USE $20,000?’

“Ha! Who couldn’t?!” I thought, shaking my head.

It was as if the computer heard me because another pop up with a chat box appeared with the words “what would you give for $20,000?”

Jokingly, I replied “anything!”

“We would love to help you out. All you have to do is write your name in this book and mail it to the following address."

Attached was a photo of a small, black and very worn out pocket book and an address looked super sketchy.

“That’s it? Really?” I was skeptical. “I just have to write my name in some book and I will get $20,000? I find that hard to believe.”

“YES” they responded, “all you need to do is write down your name into the book and mail it to the above address. Thank you for your business.”

Chat ended.

Despite how silly it sounded, I had a strong urge to write down the address they . I grabbed a pen and a notepad out of my work bag, scribbled the address and shoved it into my pocket. I had so many questions for this stranger and before I had a chance to ask them I noticed the chat ended. I chalked it up to some loner who was using their anonymity on the dark web to troll others. I moved on to a few other chat rooms afterwards, and spent some time on those before deciding to call it a night.

I closed up the cafe and headed home. During my commute I could not stop thinking about that offer.. $20,000 to write my name in a book.. how ridiculous.

The next morning I woke up to the sound of banging on my door. I jumped out of bed thinking it was one of my drunk neighbours banging on the door as he usually did to some of the other neighbours. He’s never banged on my door before but I figured this morning was an exemption. I was ready to tell him to back off. I got up and walked over to the door and just as I was about to give him a piece of my mind. I looked out the peephole and no one was there.

I slowly unlatched my lock and opened the door to see a brown box set on the floor addressed to David Collins. I wasn’t expecting anything and whoever sent me this package did not want me to know who it was from. There was no return address.

I grabbed the package and quickly stepped back into my apartment and closed the door before one of the noisy elderly ladies could start asking me questions.

I opened the package and inside the box was a small, worn out pocket book. It was plain, black and had a strap running vertically binding it shut. I peeled off the strap and skipped through the pages, each page had names upon names of different people and different hand writings. I immediately remembered last night's conversation with the stranger offering $20,000. This was the same exact book from the photo!

“Could this be real?” I thought to myself.

There was no way that stranger could have known my name and address. I was very careful and always used my VPN service, plus I only ever used the computer at work so how could this be?

Feeling a little uneasy I packed the little book into my work bag so that I could confront this online stranger during my break and possibly find out who these people are.

I reached work and pretty much auto-piloted throughout my shift. I was focused on this book. I needed answers. I formulated in my head, different ways I would confront this stranger.

When my break arrived, I quickly excused myself to the back of the cafe and logged on. As I searched through hundreds of links looking for the forum I was on when I received the pop up I started thinking about what would happen if this was real. Surely all those people who have written in this book would know what it was for.

I grabbed the book out of my work bag, closed the TOR browser and opened google. I typed the very first name in the book John Nicholson.

A bunch of John Nicholson’s popped up on the screen, I scrolled and scrolled but had no idea of how to confirm who the John Nicholson who wrote in this book was. There were hundreds! I turned the pages of the book looking for a more unique name that could make it much easier. The very last name written in the book was Leia Cruz-Perez. I typed her name in and a beautiful model appeared on my screen. She was stunning and I almost lost focus of what I was looking for but I continued to scroll and came across an article about Leia. It was an interview talking about her career and how she won money-- $20,000 to be exact. She had used it to help her start her career. I couldn’t be sure this was the same Leia from this book but the fact that she had won $20,000 and had her name in this book, seemed way too coincidental to me.

My break was ending and I decided I would give it a try. I would write my name in this book and mail it to the address from the chat. If it worked I could have $20,000 and if turns out to be a ruse, no one would know. What could I really lose?

I wrote my name neatly into the black book and told myself once I was off work I would head straight to the post office instead of closing the cafe tonight.

Once work finished and I mailed off the little black book and headed to my humble abode. All I could do was wait. The next day at work all I could think about was logging back online to see if anything happened. Each time I checked, there was nothing. During closing I searched over and over for that darn link and it was just nowhere to be found.

About a week had gone by since I mailed off the little box and by now I had accepted that I was played. I had found a new web forum that I was interested in and it kept me amused for hours. I often stayed after closing until 11pm, sometimes after midnight, just reading all of the posts. I had just clicked a link to watch a game of truth or dare when an ad popped on the screen:

“TRANSACTION COMPLETE. YOUR FUNDS OF $20,000 ARE NOW AVAILABLE. ACCEPT OR DECLINE.”

I was so caught off guard that it took me a few minutes of staring dumbfounded at the screen to click accept. Immediately I checked my Bitcoin wallet and sure enough $20,000 was deposited.

Months went by and I had quit my job at the cafe and found something better. I got a car, moved into a condo and had an amazingly hot girlfriend Sarah. We even got a dog. We named him Sam. From the outside looking in, I had it pretty damn good.

That $20,000 really changed my life, but despite now owning all of the things I thought I wanted most, I could not shake the feeling of such emptiness and dread.

Nothing filled me with true joy, hell, I was happier when I was mopping floors. I at least had a will to live . Now I had no desire for anything. At all.

I started having nightmares shortly after receiving the money and it seems the more I spent, the more intense the nightmares became. I forced myself to go out, to be that social guy. I spent night after night at bars.. clubs.. casinos.. anything just to make me feel something! It got so bad that I purposely let my girlfriend catch me cheating in hopes I would maybe feel bad, but I didn’t. She slapped me, called me all kinds of names.. She took Sam and left, yet I still felt unchanged.

Once Sarah left the nightmares got worse. I was dreaming of me being trapped in a void of nothingness. Completely black and all I could hear is a deep mockingly voice repeating “it’s mine now” over and over again, laughing at me.

I woke up one night from one of those horrible nightmares and decided to browse the web now that I had my own laptop. I hadn’t used the dark web since that eerie transaction but figured I had always enjoyed it then, maybe it will help me start to feel something now. I scrolled aimlessly for over an hour when I seen a link that read:

Souls For Sale

My hand trembled as I moved my fingers along the track pad and clicked. Rows and rows of names loaded onto the screen. I clicked one of the names Rebecca Hollands. There was a photo of her, all of her information and an asking price of $20,000.

I wanted to believe that the souls for sale weren’t actually human souls but deep down inside I knew that they were.

I noticed a small search button at the top, I clicked and typed in David Collins. The screen loaded and to my horror there was a photo of me. Soul asking price $20,000. I was about to click the purchase button to see what would happen but before I could click it, the screen refreshed and my soul was now marked as SOLD.

Someone beat me to it.

I’ve spent years now, lost and empty. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with my life now. I’ve lost everything, but nothing compares to losing my soul.