Horror Stories - 6 True Scary Dark Web Horror Stories | True Scary Stories

Episode Date: June 15, 2025

6 True Scary Dark Web Horror Stories | Real Experiences You’ll Never ForgetStep into the terrifying depths of the internet as we reveal 6 true scary Dark Web horror stories based on real-life encounters. These chilling accounts expose the dark secrets, criminal activities, and nightmarish experiences that happened far beyond the surface web. Whether you're a horror lover or simply curious about the forbidden side of the internet, these stories will grip your attention and leave you questioning what's truly out there. This isn’t fiction—these are true scary stories that actually happened. Watch in the dark… if you dare. #DarkWebHorror#TrueScaryStories#CreepyStories#InternetHorror#RealHorrorStories#DarkWebMysteries#ScaryStorytime#DeepWebTerror#OnlineHorror#HorrorNarration dark web horror stories, true scary stories, real dark web experiences, creepy internet stories, scary storytime, horror stories from the deep web, dark web encounters, terrifying online stories, deep web horror, horror narration, dark internet stories, scary stories that actually happened, real horror experiences, horror content for YouTube, disturbing true stories, horror podcast, midnight horror stories, spine-chilling tales, dark web confessions, cyber horror, creepy true story, true internet horror, scary deep web tales, true horror dark web, narrations of real horror, deep web reality, internet mysteries, dark web reality stories, horror stories from reddit, shocking horror tales, terrifying real events, internet ghost stories, mystery and horror, digital nightmare stories, scariest stories ever, true horror narration Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You said this place was steps from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet. How much did we save? Enough. Enough to get lost! Or you could book a stay with Hilton. Welcome to your oceanfront room. Just steps from the water.

The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. Study and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC.

And for a limited time, college students get... The best of both worlds. Get the Unreal College deal, everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 premium and a year of Xbox GamePass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more at Windows.com slash student offer.

While supplies last, ends June 30th, terms at AKA.m.m.S. Hello everyone and welcome back to horror stories. I know many of you use these episodes to fall asleep, so before you drift off, I'd love it if you could leave a comment letting me know where you're listening from around the world. Also, don't forget to like and subscribe if you're enjoying the episodes. Story 1. When all this happened, I was a naive 20-year-old guy obsessed with online games.

At that time, my laptop was broken, so I borrowed, without asking. my older brothers. While browsing my favorite gaming sites, I stumbled upon a page with flashy game designs and started testing a few. This was before I even knew Facebook existed, just to give you an idea. Many of those sites were full of bugs

and lacked reliable security features, so visiting an unknown platform was practically an invitation for viruses and malware. But like I said, I was a reckless kid. One day, feeling bored, I grabbed my brother's laptop again and started looking for another gaming website. I typed something like, cool games not boring or shooting games into the search bar. I browsed through the options, but most were pages I had already visited before. Then a pop-up window appeared in the top right corner of the screen that said,

Death Games. It was a strange screen, and it appeared out of nowhere. It wasn't unusual for random ads to pop up while browsing. but this one had something peculiar, something odd. And since my mind has always been a little twisted, I clicked on it. For a minute, the screen stayed blank, showing nothing. Suddenly it lit up with a message written in red letters that looked like they were dripping blood. Hello, want to see someone die.

Press the button to continue. I almost laughed at how tacky it looked, but I was already there. I stared at the screen for a few seconds when I noticed the submit. I noticed the submit button started blinking. The words changed too. What's wrong? Are you scared? Don't be a chicken, it's just a game. Come on, press the button.

I took a deep breath and clicked it, expecting some ridiculous, over-the-top violent game. And at first, that's what it seemed like. What I saw looked like a horribly drawn cartoon. There were three poorly animated characters, like a terrifying human version of Peppa Pig characters. Two were men and the third was a woman. The men looked like caricatures of thieves

with black masks and black and white striped shirts. The woman was sitting in a chair animated to exaggerate her fear. She was shaking, sobbing, clearly terrified. The man on her left looked at me, or so it seemed, and smiled. Then he asked me with a distorted voice like one using a modulator, want to see her die. Two options popped up on the screen. Yes and no.

I hesitated, not understanding what was going on. But the man spoke again, this time more impatient. Look, you click the link. I know you want to see what happens. Just do it already. It's just a game. Press the button. I thought for a second and without much analysis pressed yes.

Then the other guy walked to the back of the scene, put on a butcher's apron and came back into frame. It was all animated, of course, but what happened next still gives me chills. The guy started using a handsaw that sounded disturbingly real, just like the woman screams. Unlike the narrator's distorted voice, her screams sounded like they came from a real torture scene. The animation was grotesque. The man began dismembering her alive. He threw the limbs to the floor one by one and finally decapitated her.

As he did this, the sounds were chillingly detailed, the bone crunching, the wet tearing sound of flesh, the gut-wrenching screams slowly fading. I almost laughed at how good the sound effects were, even though the animation was awful. But something about those screams felt too real. I got goosebumps. Did you like it? I knew you were curious. Want to see something better?

The voice asked. I clicked yes again. Now a new animation started. It was the same two men but dressed in diving suits. The third figure was no longer a woman but a man in a business suit, standing at the edge of a large pond. His hands were tied behind his back. The diver on the left held a sign that read, Want to see him die?

I hesitated for a moment, but clicked, yes. The other diver grabbed the man by the ankles and started dragging him into the water. The man screamed in terror, begging for his life. As in the previous video, the sound effects were disturbingly realistic. When they threw him into the water, the splash drowned out his screams momentarily. For about 30 seconds, nothing happened. Suddenly, the man resurfaced screaming again. Something behind him was pulling him under. A minute later, he reappeared, but he wasn't screaming anymore. Now in the animation, his arms were missing. They weren't cleanly cut. It looked like they had been

ripped off violently. There were red lines drawn like he'd gone through a giant blender. And then the thing that dragged him under appeared. A massive crocodile grabbed him from the side and pulled him down, never to resurface. I felt deeply sick. This was no longer entertaining. I wanted to close the page and never return. But the screen changed again. Now the two men were no longer animated. They were real. They were in a gray room wearing white masks. Next to them lay the dismembered corpse of a woman. One of them held a clothes hanger with pieces of a business suit soaked in red water.

The still distorted voice said, Wasn't it fun to watch them? You wanted more and we did it for you. They lived it, but you can too. Please don't close the page. You'll ruin all the fun. I was terrified. I sat frozen, drenched,

in cold sweat. Then it hit me with horror. The animations were just a front. Those murders had been real. They had filmed them and disguised them as cartoons to hide what actually happened. At that moment, three options appeared on screen. Yes, I want to experience it. No, I don't want to experience it. I want to meet you. Obviously, I chose no, but nothing happened. What's wrong? Don't you want to have fun? You had an amazing experience. You saw what we did and chose no. You'd better change your mind. I started hyperventilating, felt my heart pounding out of my chest.

There was a deep void in my stomach. I couldn't feel my fingers. I was in full panic. I kept pressing no over and over desperately until I finally managed to exit the page. I swear I thought I was going to have a heart attack. With what little courage I had left, I opened the brow. or history, but the page was gone. It had completely vanished. A few minutes later, my brother arrived and found me sitting in front of his computer. He looked at me puzzled and asked what I was

doing. Still trembling, I told him everything. He pushed me away from the computer, typed something I didn't understand, and then shut it off. He scolded me for using his laptop without permission, and then explained that what I had seen wasn't a normal website. It was part of the dark web. I didn't understand much more. I only knew he had a special router that let him access the deep web. He studied computer science and knew about that stuff. He said he had blocked the page with a code and now had to make sure the machine wasn't hacked. I begged him to tell me if what I saw was real.

He confirmed it. And warned me that those were extremely dangerous people. I insisted we call the police. But he firmly told me not to even think about it, saying it would put us in serious danger. That made me even more anxious. He just took me out of the room and said he'd take care of it. I never found out who he contacted, what he did, or how he fixed it all.

All I know is that the next day when I asked him, he told me not to worry. Everything was already handled. Story two. I'll never forget the first time we discovered the deep web and all the insane things that could be found there. My friends and I, still in high school at the time, were obsessed with Internet Urban Legend. We spent hours browsing sites like Reddit and Farshan, exploring weird content, both old and new. We weren't looking for anything specific. What drew us in was the surprise, the unexpected things we might stumble upon.

I think my generation developed a deep fascination for that kind of content thanks to platforms like Californication cable. I grew up in the 2000s, so my friends and I were among the first to have access to high-speed Internet at home. and more importantly, unsupervised. Everyone explored what interested them, without limits. For the first time in history, you could hear something strange and go search it online by yourself. Many of us were just downloading music and videos from platforms like Aries and Kazah, filled with viruses. But others discovered that on Limewire, you could get just about anything. Although it was like a digital Russian roulette.

Sometimes you thought you were downloading a My Chemical Romance song and ended up with a decapitation video. It was completely insane. As you can imagine, we were really intrigued by the concept of the deep web. Even though this hidden corner of the internet had existed for some time, it wasn't until the mid-2000s that the term became popular. It was a topic we talked about constantly. So many rumors, so many horror stories circulating. And as expected, when we started hearing this,

them, we became incredibly curious. There's no other way to put it. The Deep Web was like the final digital frontier, a space that still needed to be explored. I had to get in and see it with my own eyes, so we started researching how to access it. None of us wanted to use our personal computers, so we thought about buying a used laptop just for that. We had read a lot of stories about hackers and dangerous people lurking on those sites. The truth is we did quite a bit of research before taking the first step. Obviously as high school students we didn't have enough money to buy a computer together, but the desire to get in was stronger. One day I got tired of waiting and decided to do it alone. Getting into the deep web isn't

illegal. What you do once inside can be. I told my friends I was going to do it from home. It took me a couple of days to gather the necessary information. I'm not going to explain how I did it so you don't make the same mistake. I'll just say that you need a special browser, and if you really want to get there, you'll have to figure out the rest on your own. I made the adjustments, downloaded the software, and started testing. Getting in is easier than people say. The hard part is navigating once you're there. There aren't normal links like on the surface web.

You need specific addresses. That prevents just anyone from wandering in without knowing what they're doing. I arm myself with patience and look for some sites that seemed interesting. but not too risky. For that, I turned to my old ally, four chan. Anonymous users gave me several tips, although most warned me to stay away. Even so, after a lot of persistence, one of them sent me a huge list of dark web addresses. There were thousands. I felt dizzy just looking at them. I couldn't imagine everything that could be hidden there. I started where anyone would, one link at a time. You can't imagine how disappointed I was when the first one was. I was. When the first one

took me to a dead page. I thought I'd been duped. The first 10 or 20 links were the same, non-existent pages, but I wasn't going to give up. I had spent an entire year talking up this place. I couldn't back out now. So like any stubborn teenager, I started skipping around the list until I found one that looked promising. And boom, this time it loaded. It was some kind of online market. And as you might imagine, the products offered weren't exactly normal items. To give you an idea, I saw a fetish page where you could buy urine. Yes, urine. Apparently, the specialty was clean urine, the kind that passes drug tests. I had found the holy grail of weirdness. I kept browsing a bit more, making sure not to miss any details. After all, I had to prepare a full

report for my friends. I spent the night there, a slow but meticulous investigation. My friends went nuts when I told them everything I had discovered. They couldn't believe I'd done it. From my personal computer. They asked me if I was insane if the FBI was watching me. I, both excited and nervous, told them I had hit the jackpot. For several weeks, they came to my house almost every day after class, taking advantage of the fact that my parents worked.

We dedicated ourselves to testing random links from that list, which was hosted on an old text-sharing site. Anyone could edit it. Sometimes we saw someone deleting a link or adding a new one at the end. We even started creating our own list of active and dead sites. We saw things so strange I wouldn't even know where to start. The first was a page about urine collectors. But that was just the threshold of hell.

Nowadays you don't even need to go into the dark web to see things like that. The regular internet is already pretty corrupted. But back then it was all new, shocking. We moved toward darker links. A week later we found another market, though it was more of a forum. They didn't sell products. They offered services. They called themselves hitmen from different places.

Each described their skills, experience, and of course their rates. Some asked for $20,000 to eliminate average people. The professionals charged up to $100,000 or more. Everything was handled in dollars or rubles. or rubles, although there was no way to know if they were real. Part of us thought they were just role-playing, pretending to be something they weren't. Even so, we created an account. We didn't give much info for obvious reasons.

It seemed like the forum was just a contact point. The details and payments were arranged later, probably in person. A few days went by with no developments. Until one afternoon on another page, something strange appeared. a small blue bubble in the upper right corner of the screen. It looked like a little eye about the size of a pinky fingernail. At first I didn't pay attention. I thought it was something from the browser, maybe an update.

But even after closing everything, the bubble was still there on the desktop background. I tried everything to get rid of it. Restarted, shut down, used antivirus software, clean the system. But nothing worked. In the end, I gave up. I was just a dumb teenager. And over time I forgot about the blue eye. We kept browsing the dark web like nothing had happened.

A couple of weeks passed and we found another interesting site, a black market for hackers and data. Their hackers posted their resumes, listed what they could do, even offered classes. It was a base for password theft and remote access jobs. Strangely, being on that site didn't scare us. We had become too confident. We had lost our fear.

Until one day the blue bubble disappeared. We laughed in relief like it was just a funny story. We kept browsing. Then a gray text box appeared on the screen. Like the idiots we were, we started shouting excitedly, as if we had just passed a video game level. The message said, Hello, I'm one of the administrators of this site.

We track everyone who visits as best we can. and I've been monitoring your activity since you arrived. I've seen you come in daily, and I've concluded that you're not truly interested in the services offered. I suspect that even if you wanted to, you couldn't afford them. You're a bunch of high school kids playing with things you don't understand. It continued, you're not in trouble. We don't mind you, but others might.

Many real hackers browse this site, and since you're using your personal computer, your family's network without protection. Your connection is like a glowing sign with all your data. Then he asked if I had noticed a blue bubble on the screen. I replied yes, that it had been there for one or two weeks. He explained that I had picked up a stowaway somewhere dark and that person had been tracking my every move.

They couldn't see me through the camera, but they could see everything I did on my home network. They probably wanted to blackmail me. He said that while investing, Investigating my connection, he took the liberty of removing the stowaway and ended with, Disconnect now if you know what's good for you. We looked at each other, still in disbelief. One of my friends typed,

How do we know this is real? Anyone could make it up. The administrator responded with my full name. Then the names of several classmates, the names of my parents, and our address. Then he wrote, There are only two ways to understand that the dark web is not a game, the easy way, like now, or the hard way. And believe me, you don't want to learn the hard way. I've already warned you.

You decide. And he disconnected. There was an overwhelming silence in the room. I think we all felt that chilling realization that we were in real danger. We looked at each other wide-eyed with fear written on our faces. I disconnected everything immediately. I threw out the router, and from that day on I never went back into the deep web.

Story 3. I'm going to start this story by admitting something. I'm an addict. My biggest weakness has always been marijuana. However, when I want something stronger, I usually get it through a friend who supplies me. But this happened during a time when I didn't have a dealer, and a classmate from university suggested I buy through the dealer.

web. At the time, I had no idea what he was talking about, but he gave me a general explanation of how it worked and then downloaded a browser on my computer called Tor. Before leaving, he wrote down three website addresses where, according to him, I could buy anything, from my usual weed to any other substance. And when I say anything, I mean literally anything. Those sites offered everything. From high purity cocaine to drugs made from exotic plants sourced from some remote country, all with variable prices, of course. But what surprised me the most was how easy it was to buy. Just a few clicks, a Bitcoin transfer, and that was it. The order would arrive right at your mailbox. However, besides being an addict, I'm also a very curious person, and the dark web felt like

discovering a parallel universe. At first, I only logged in to buy from the sites my friends gave me. But one night I was sober at home, which is rare for me, and bored so I decided to open tour and see what creepy stuff I could find. My friends had warned me about the dangers of exploring beyond the safe parts, so I'd never dared to cross that line. But that night curiosity was stronger than fear, so I went for it. If you've ever been on the dark web, you know you can't just search red rooms or hitmen for hire and get results. First, you have to find the exact links to those sites, so I started searching Google for links to sites from the digital underworld. I know it sounds weird to actively look for the worst parts of the internet, but ever since I accessed that dark corner of the web, a strange morbid curiosity took hold of me. Like I said, that night Curiosity won.

I spent a good while searching for links, but everything I found was basic or didn't work. I was about to give up, but as a last attempt, I clicked on a subreddit about the deep web. I didn't expect to find anything interesting, but after browsing the top post for half an hour, I went to the news section, and there it was. A simple text post titled, Murders in the Life of the Killer, Ruin Services. The body of the message looked like a random mix of letters and numbers, or so it seemed. It took me a moment, but I realized it was a link.

probably to a hitman site, so I copied it and pasted it into the dark web browser. And guess what? It worked. Before going any further, I tried to return to the user's profile to see if they had posted anything else. But mysteriously, the profile had vanished. Anyway, I went back to the link. At the top of the page, it said, Killers, Murders, and Life Destruction, Guaranteed Services.

Next to it was an image of a skull inside a tunnel. I laughed when I saw it. I thought it had to be fake. But as I scrolled, things got more unsettling. There was a green paragraph on a black background and a small box to the right that said, place order. The text was the main part, taking up most of the page, listing all the ways someone could be eliminated. I laughed again. This had to be a joke.

I was tempted to place an order just to see what would happen, but I decided it wasn't worth the risk. I was about to shut down the computer and go to sleep when I heard a knock at the door. I live alone, so getting visitors at that hour was strange. When I opened it, I found my friend Mark, who also happens to be my trusted supplier. I let him in without hesitation, and he shoved a huge bag of weed in my face. I smoked a little and returned to the computer, but from that point on, everything is a blur. I don't remember a single thing. I woke up the next day around 9 a.m. lying on the couch.

That meant I had slept for at least six hours, though it felt like just two. I made coffee and sat down to play video games, ready to enjoy a lazy Sunday. But imagined my surprise when I opened the laptop and saw that the night before I had ordered my own death. Even though it sounded absurd, I felt a pit in my stomach. Even when I'm high, I usually make sensible decisions. so I had no idea what was in that weed mark brought me. I laughed a little about the whole thing. I guess someone more sane would have reacted differently,

but I was still a little out of it from the night before, so I went on with my day. I won't lie. I felt paranoid, but I assumed it was all a joke. I even laughed at the email I received from the same site. The assassin is on the way. But that night a dark sedan parked in front of my house. I didn't see it arrive.

While cooking, I noticed it through the kitchen window. I live downtown, but my street has lots of trees and bushes between houses. I doubt anyone else noticed it. I panicked. What if it was all real? In the end, I'm just a girl, alone with no weapons. My only defense was a slightly oversized kitchen knife. And honestly, I doubted it would be much help.

I put on a hoodie, hit the knife in the front pocket, and went outside. I crossed the street determined. I'm still surprised I had the courage, though I was probably still a little high from what I'd smoked. I tapped on the driver's window and nothing. It was pretty anticlimactic. I was ready to talk to whoever was inside and explain I'd made a stupid mistake

or a fight for my life if it came to that. But nothing happened. I leaned in closer trying to see through the glare, and all I could make out were two empty seats. No one was there. I had scared myself for no reason. I waited by the car for a while to see if anyone showed up, but after half an hour I got hungry and went back inside to get my dinner out of the oven.

I swear I was gone for only a minute. When I looked out the window again, the car was gone. I didn't even hear it start. What the hell? I muttered. I closed all the curtains, locked up. the doors and tried to calm myself, but something didn't feel right. I couldn't shake the feeling that the car hadn't been there by accident, just as I was starting to relax. The power went out. I panicked again. I stood frozen in the middle of the room holding my plate. I was seriously

expecting a bullet, the fact that the car disappeared silently, and now the lights went out. It couldn't be a coincidence. I didn't understand what was happening, but fear. had me paralyzed. About 30 or 40 seconds passed and suddenly the power came back on. All the appliances started beeping and at that exact moment I heard several knocks on the door. I tensed up. I asked who it was, my voice trembling. No answer. I asked again. Silence. I waited another 10 or 15 minutes. When no one knocked again, I gathered the little courage I had left and walked to the door. I couldn't stop imagining opening it and finding a gun pointed at my forehead. I opened it slowly, and to my surprise no one was there.

I was about to close it when I saw a black envelope on the ground. There was no sender. I picked it up and brought it inside. I hesitated for a moment but opened it. My jaw hit the floor. Inside were several photos of me, taken through my computer. I had red eyes, looked dazed, probably. Probably at the exact moment I had placed the order by mistake.

In the corner of the images was the date and time, 3 a.m. that very day. Behind the last photo was a handwritten note. Don't play with what you don't understand, girl. Today you got lucky. But if I see you on my sight again, you're dead. Stay away from the dark web. In that instant, my whole body began to tremble. I felt a nod in my stomach and ran to the bathroom to throw up.

As soon as I came out, I went straight to the computer and deleted the browser. That same day, I had the computer wiped clean. That was the last time I ever visited the dark web. Story 4. This happened when I was 14 years old. I have to say I was a victim of bullying practically my entire school life. I was always the typical small skinny kid with glasses, the perfect target for jokes about my appearance.

And as if that weren't enough, I'm just a little bit of my little. gay. In short, I was always a magnet for bullies. However, the day came when I simply got tired of being the constant target of a group of misfits who saw me as the weakest. Fueled by rage, I decided to do something about it. But what I did, far from improving my life, completely destroyed it, and not just mine. It all started right after school, following our last class of the day. P. E. Suddenly I tripped and fell face-first into the dirt. I looked up just in time to see a soccer ball flying straight at me. Boom. It hit me square in the face and knocked me backwards seeing stars. Ow! I cried. Help! But no one helped. Everyone was too busy, laughing at me. I got up by myself

wiping my face with my shirt while staring at the jerk who had thrown the ball. Juan, the typical school bully. He and his friends were laughing as he walked up and shut me back to the ground. Why don't you just disappear? Crawl under a rock and die, you freak. I bet no one even likes you. They kept laughing as they walked away, leaving me alone and humiliated. My face covered in mud. I had had enough. I was tired of being mocked of having my emotions toyed with as if I didn't matter. As I walked away, I could still hear their laughter echoing behind. me and with every step I felt more and more consumed by helplessness. I got home, locked myself in my room and collapsed onto the bed. I cried, I was out of pure rage. The tears ran down my

cheeks until I finally fell asleep, emotionally drained. I felt trapped in an endless cycle of humiliation with no apparent escape. When I woke up I didn't feel any better. This wasn't an isolated incident. It was something I'd endured for as long as I could remember. I couldn't recall a single school year where I didn't feel bullied, judged, singled out. Being the target of aggression and mockery from those who were bigger, stronger, and who thought they were better, was something I had learned to live with. But it's not something you ever get used to. You never get used to it. It's exhausting and it's suffocating. I can't exactly describe what it feels like because only something someone who's lived through it can understand how bullying breaks your mind, your dignity, and your

self-worth. And I...I was already at that point. The breaking point. That afternoon, I opened my laptop looking to distract myself on social media, trying to mentally escape my reality. But every post, every picture I saw seemed to mock me. Everyone happy looking amazing, showing off their perfect lives. I just felt alone, invisible, and completely vulnerable.

Then rage started to boil inside me. A dark and dangerous feeling, something I had never felt before, began to take over. I closed the social media apps and opened Google. I didn't know exactly what I was searching for. I just knew one thing. I wanted to stop feeling like this. That's when scrolling through search results, I found forums and blogs filled with stories of revenge. Stories from people who had suffered like I had, and who finally decided to take control.

One phrase echoed in my mind again and again, an eye for an eye. And with every word, my desire to make my bullies pay grew stronger, until I saw it. An article explaining how to access the deep web, that dark, mysterious corner of the internet where people said you could find anything. My desperation and curiosity combined and an idea began to take shape. Could I find the solution to my problems there? Could the Deep Web give me the revenge I so desperately wanted? I had to find out. So I clicked.

The page led me to a list of strange links. One in particular caught my attention. Hit men for hire. I was a little surprised, but I kept reading. It said they could eliminate anyone causing. you trouble for a price. Obviously the first faces that came to mind were my bullies. Just imagining them gone gave me a sense of relief. One of the packages was even called free problem removal. What did that mean? That the service was free? I shrugged and clicked the order button.

I followed the instructions. I entered the names and addresses of everyone who made my life miserable. I included everyone I could remember. Even Professor Fern-Santis. who had punished me without giving me a chance to explain why my grades were low, never understanding that I couldn't focus with everything I was going through. At the end of the form, there was a field for payment. $25,000 total. My jaw dropped. Obviously, I didn't have that kind of money, and certainly not in Bitcoin. I didn't do anything for a while. I thought, well, at least I tried. I moved the cursor toward the X to close the page. But instead of closing, a small pop-up window appeared asking,

Do you have the amount to pay? Yes or no. I found it so weird. I'd never seen a site ask something like that. I figured if someone requested a service like this, they could afford it, unless you were a desperate and confused 14-year-old like me. I clicked no, wanting to exit once and for all. But then a new tab opened asking for my name and a name.

address. Below it read, pending payment for executed service. I hesitated for a few seconds, but what did I have to lose? I entered my details and clicked submit. Immediately a message appeared at the top of the page, execution list, followed by all the names I had entered. The strange part was seeing my own name at the bottom, under a section titled, Payment for the Job. But just then my mom called me for dinner. I didn't have time to think about it. And I forgot. Days past weeks, I had almost erased the whole episode from my memory. Until one day I noticed something odd. Juan, who always waited for me at the school gate to mess with me, wasn't there. In fact, I didn't see any of his friends all day. It was like they had vanished into thin air. I figured maybe

they were sick. But they weren't in the hallways or in class. That's when I remembered the page, and a chill ran down my spine. It couldn't be real, right? Besides, I didn't even pay. I tried to forget it. But that feeling that something wasn't right wouldn't leave me. When I entered the classroom, I knew something serious had happened. The teacher was standing there, her hair messy, makeup smudged.

She had been crying. Then she said, Juan Samuel and Dixon have died. I felt like I was going to faint. They were dead. How was that possible? Could it be because of the sight? I froze staring at Professor Fernandez. She was still alive.

That meant it couldn't have been the sight, right? I sighed in relief and opened my book. For once the world seemed to have done me a favor. But just as I started to read, I heard a strange sound. A gurgling. I saw Professor Fernandez freeze. Her face turned blue. Her hands held a coffee cup that slowly tipped over the desk and hit the floor.

The cup shattered. Her eyes stayed open, staring into nothing. And suddenly she collapsed. Dead. Screams erupted in the classroom. Everyone ran out. So did I. I ran my mind blank.

It couldn't have been the sight. It couldn't be. As I rushed home, I noticed a car following me. I sped up. But so did the car. I ran as fast as I could, until the vehicle stopped in front of me. A man got out, horrifying, dressed completely in black, shaved head, face full of scars. I tried to scream, but no sound came out. I was frozen in fear. You think you can mess with me, he said. You placed an elimination order.

I fulfilled it. Now it's time to pay. But I didn't mean to. I screamed. It doesn't matter what you meant, kid. The contract is sealed. And I always collect for my services. You wanted them dead. And now they are. Finally, I managed to move.

I ran. But he was bigger, faster. His footsteps thundered behind me. His breathing was heavy and wild. He was getting closer. I disappeared for two weeks. They found me thanks to an anonymous call that revealed my location. I don't know who called, but I'm grateful to be alive. Or mostly. Turns out I'm now missing a

kidney, my left hand, and other things I'd rather not remember. Most likely they've already been sold on the black market of the Deep Web. Story 5. The year was 1998, the year France won its first World Cup, the year the Euro was born. And also in the year the year the year the that, at just 15 years old, I experienced the most unsettling moment of my entire life. I was on my parents' computer, browsing the painfully slow internet of that time. I was researching Franco's dictatorship for a school assignment when my friend Jake messaged me on IRC. Hey, a guy from school told me about something super cool you can do on your computer, he wrote. What is it? I asked curious. First, open start, then go to run, type this URL, and let me know when you're done.

He sent me the address, and I followed the steps exactly as he instructed. Then a kind of command window popped up. It had two fields for entering text and a standard command line. I told him I was ready. Then he said, in one box type your name, in the other a password, and in the last one type the word Wario. I followed his instructions to the letter. After that, another window opened asking me to choose a nickname. I typed no name. It sounded cool in English. The window closed, and after a few seconds a file popped up that said, Welcome to the Oregon Art tile chat. User no name has joined. I spent the next few months chatting there with my friends. I had no idea who had created the chat room or how it worked. Apparently, the chat only functioned within the Oregon area, so theoretically

anyone there could join. But in practice, it was just Jake, me, and a couple of other people. There was a guy from school who lived across town, and once someone showed up claiming to work tech support for an insurance company, but they left immediately after asking only one thing. What school do you go to? I don't know why we use that chat instead of a normal one. Maybe we like the secretive vibe, like we were part of something underground. But one autumn morning, I got a big surprise. I had been made an administrator. I had no idea who did it, but I struttered in front of my friends proudly for days. I could edit what other users wrote to make them look dumb, though truthfully I almost never used that power, mostly because I didn't know how. Then one day I

logged in and noticed that the anonymous messages for administrators weren't empty, as they usually were. I wish I had never read them. It was a long story divided into many short messages, sent by a user named Sarah 6754. She wrote about how her parents abused her, how they wouldn't let her leave the house, and how she would sneak out at night to get on the internet. That night Sarah 6754 said she had seen the chat open on her father's computer, and that she had seen her chat open on her father's computer, and that she would try to tell her story to anyone who would listen. I asked who she was and told her that if what she said was true, she should have already called the police.

But suddenly, the chat stopped working. I tried to open it again, but it gave me an error every time. I looked for the command in run, but nothing. I was furious. Our secret hideout with Jake had vanished. Two days later, while I was watching the news on TV, a report came on that froze me. 16-year-old girl

dies at the hands of her father after trying to escape through her bedroom window. The mother is in police custody, but the father is still at large. But the most chilling part wasn't that. The police found several documents on the family's computer, written by the father,

describing boys named Jake, no name, and two others. In those files, he detailed how he imagined them and the horrific things he would do to them if he ever found them. Things too disturbing to repeat here. That man was never caught. As far as I know, he's still out there, hiding among us.

And I'm pretty sure they'll never catch him. But the thing I'm most grateful for is that he didn't find us. Story 6. This happened many years ago, back when Silk Road 1 was in its prime. At the time, I was looking for a specific substance that, for some reason, had become nearly impossible to find. at a reasonable price in my area. It was frustrating because it used to be easy to get,

but suddenly everything dried up, and people started looking for alternatives. Some contacts from the underworld told me about Tor and the Onion Network and how to access a site called Silk Road. For those who don't know, Tor is like the Google Chrome of the dark web. It's the program you need to access those strange web addresses that exist only in that hidden universe. Silk Road was a black market where you could do,

buy and sell practically anything using Bitcoin, and it worked through a reputation system to ensure you got what you paid for. Looking back, the whole experience feels surreal, but at that time, it was one of the most fascinating aspects of the Internet in the early 2000s. Tor was called the Onion router because it constantly changed your IP. One click might put you in Ohio, the next in Guatemala, and then in Oslo. In theory, you were untraceable, unless, of course, the same thing system had hidden ways of tracking you. But that's another story. The point is, I installed Tor, accessed the dark web, and found my way to Silk Road. Everything seemed pretty straightforward, so I posted a message as if I were on Craigslist or any regular forum. Hi, looking for

mushrooms, please contact. It was basic and honestly kind of ridiculous, but I didn't have many options. I hit post and waited. The next morning I checked, and there was no trace of the message. I thought, what the hell was I thinking? But a few days later, someone replied. They said they had what I was looking for and asked me to message them privately. I agreed, and we started discussing the details. Before I knew it, I found myself agreeing to send almost $1,000 to a complete stranger.

It was way more than I had planned to spend, but... I don't know why. I liked the guy. I guess charismatic dealers have that effect. That's when I convinced myself he seemed legit. I only had $400 saved up for the purchase. The other $600 would have to come from my rent and utility money for the month. I converted everything to Bitcoin and sent it to a completely random wallet address. At the time, it all felt futuristic and exciting.

After receiving the payment, the guy agreed to send me one ounce of mushrooms per week for five weeks straight. He said the delay was for safety reasons and would allow me to sell sleigh for sleep. allow me to sell slowly. It sounded reasonable, but the package never came. Two weeks went by, nothing. Then his account vanished from my contacts. The friendliness I felt from him was nothing but a scammer's charm, and I wasn't able to see through the screen. I felt like a complete idiot, and the worst part was that there was nothing I could do. The real problem was that I had plan to resell that first shipment to cover rent. Now, I wasn't going to be able to pay it in two weeks. The first of the month came, and I was drowning in debt. So I did the only thing I could think of.

I left a negative review of the guy on Silk Road. I wrote that he had scammed me, that he had probably done it to others too, and that no one should give him any money. He was a thief. Shortly after, while heading out onto the street, someone ambushed me. I ran as fast as I could, but it didn't matter. He tackled me from behind and I hit the ground. The last thing I remember was his yellow smile, his scarred face, and the cloth he covered my mouth with, one that had a strange overpowering smell.

I tried to scream, but I couldn't do anything. He had me. When I woke up, I saw his face, and his eyes locked on my eyes. with a terrifying grin. I was in a basement, tied to a table surrounded by medical instruments. I tried to scream, but I couldn't. All I could do was watch as he approached with a massive needle in hand, and then handed it to another man in a hospital gown.

After that, I passed out again. The next time I woke up, I was back in the same spot where I had been abducted. I groaned, confused as a group of police officers ran toward me. What the hell? I thought. I was okay, or so it seemed. For a second, I thought it had been a nightmare, but then the facts confirmed that everything had been real, and much worse than I imagined. After that, I tried to forget everything. I focused on making money to pay the bills. It was exhausting, but I picked up extra jobs and sold a few things. I even started saving for the

next month. One day I came home exhausted and just wanted to relax in front of my computer. I thought about everything that had happened with the dark web and decided to check my Silk Road post again. And there it was. A new message. Hi, I'm a trusted seller on Silk Road. I saw your post about that scammer. He tried to rip me off too.

So I got revenge. I used one of my alternate accounts to sell him several ounces of MDMA. He already paid. But what I sent was half a kilo of sugar and a note with a sad face, along with his full name. Anything else you want this user to suffer? I had no idea who this person was, but it got me thinking about the possibilities.

It was like there was a kind of honor code among thieves. And honestly, I was fascinated by how the Silk Road system seemed to self-regulate. Unfortunately, I couldn't think of any clever way to make the scammers suffer more, so I didn't suggest anything. He told me it was fine, I know that what he'd do, done would cause the guy enough problems for the next few weeks. Then he asked for my Bitcoin address and the amount I had been scammed. I thought long and hard about my response. Part of me wanted to lie, see if I could get something good out of this whole messed up

experience. But another part of me knew this person could probably find out the truth. Come on, this is the dark web. Those people can find out anything. And if I lied, it could end very badly for me. In the end, I told the truth, even if it sounded ridiculous. He replied with a simple okay and said he'd be back soon. I couldn't believe it. My bad review was about to refund me the money. After everything I'd been through, I didn't know what to believe anymore. But the next morning, all the money was back in my wallet. I can't explain what I felt. It was like my soul had left my body. And at that moment returned, I believed in humanity again, and in a strange way I gained a deep respect for the dark web community.