Dark web

I was 15 years old back when this happened. I was surfing through the internet, watching Naruto Shippuden when I heard a beep sound mid episode. Minimizing the screen, I discovered that there was a chat box for people who were fans of this anime. Someone had just posted a link in it and that’s what the notification sound was about.

I don’t usually click links, but I don’t know why I did it that day. I guess I was just curious. The page led me to a disposable chat room. At first I thought it was a chat room for the people who watched the anime. But then I saw that people were posting links of some streams.

My curiosity perked up, I clicked on one of them, and it led me to a livestream. It was a dark room and in the middle of the room was a chair. A man was tightly bound to it and his face was covered with a plastic bag. I remember thinking to myself; isn’t he running out of air?

A man appeared suddenly. He was wearing a hood and a mask. In his hand, he carried a sharp knife. There was a trolley with wheels that he dragged in front of the man. There were several instruments on it. An axe, a knife, scissors and a gun. He turned to face the camera and asked, “Which one do you want me to kill him with?”

Up till then, I had been thinking of this as just a staged show (remember I was only fifteen) but then my eyes drifted towards the comments section where people were actually commenting on what to use on the guy. Most of them went for the axe and I watched in horror as the man chopped off his limbs. And then took off the plastic bag. His eyes stared at the guy in horror as he began chopping off his head. That was it. He was dead. I remember feeling very afraid just then and I clicked the exit button. But I was still on the weird website.

It was full of disturbing images and videos, similar to the ones I had just seen. What was weird was that each of them was like a series. Each one about one person. I scrolled down and saw the man I had just seen being killed on screen. His first image was of that taken from a webcam and it looked as if he was staring at the screen. The next pictures were of him on the street, talking on the phone (taken from a window). Another was of him sleeping. And then came the video where he was killed.

I scrolled down. Each person had the same sequence. I scrolled to the last and then, to my horror, I saw my own face look right back at me, staring from the screen. There was just the first picture. Was I going to meet the same fate? A notification popped up which said, “We see you,”.