Close Your Eyes

3. Bruh what

I was never attracted to girls. I found it real odd. but then what mac did in the end , really did question my beliefs.

Mackenzie Frie, a classic college girl. high on gossips and fashion. typical white girl. but she left her own squad, the most elite one, to be with my ass.

when her entire squad bullies me at times, mostly for my poor choice of footwear, she used to appear from nowhere and chide them away. she had stuck with me in my lowest points. and since I'm always a loner, she started spending more time with me. eventually she broke from her own squad, as I 'matched her energy'. I was the happiest that day , because I gained a friend.

"yo how do I get into this?" I yelled at Nick through the phone.

"bruh you need to install an application! the Tor browser." Nick yells back at me

"bruh what?" I ask, totally confused.

"Argh. do you mind if I come over and help you? or do you wanna do it yourself and get kidn*pped by a bunch of cyberboys" Nick says exasperated

he had tried to make me understand some how, but what , technical conversations through phone make no sense . don't come at me. and the idea of cyberboys sounded cool.

"yeah fine, hurry up before I get kidn*pped though, I think I've done some random bullshit" and I hung up.

Nick Odair. We used to be going to the same school. But went to another college, to pursue his life long hobby of cyber technology and programming . but we are always friends. I could call him at 3 am and he would still pick up, and claim he was working on his life long project of making a website that could vanish at his will or as soon as it get tracked and leave no trace of its existence

20 minutes later, Nick was sitting at my table and searching for the browser.

"why do you wanna make a website that vanishes again?" I ask

"so that I can shut it down if the police catches me. God your Wi-Fi speed is SLOW" Nick says without looking at me

"why would they catch you?" I ask curiously

"that is none of your concern." He says quickly

"okay" I say

after minutes of silence, at last he says

"its kind of like something you are going to do." Nick says darkly.

"what do you mean? browsing the dark web??" I ask suddenly.

"not browsing but maybe selling weed. I L L E G A L L Y" he spelled the word and typed in something gingerly, like as if the laptop would explode.

"didn't know weed was illegal. Derek used to smoke so much everywhere,literally he would be puffing away." I say remembering, nights I would stare at him from my dorm bed , standing at the balcony and at it after we smashed.

"well Mabelline , it is. guess he is just courageous, or a daredevil. Ah yes it is done. you know how to be careful here right? its totally different domain and almost all sites end with '.onion', thats how you differentiate it from normal websites. I've also installed an anti-virus and also a vpn, just for safety. and don't go clicking around randomly, be careful.there are potential scammers, hackers, pedophiles, criminals .you name it, the dark web has it ." he said relaxing on the chair.

"don't call me that. and yes I probably will be safe." I say annoyed

"why do you want to 'explore' the dark web again?" he said sitting straight

I sighed. I cannot let him know that I'm searching for a JOB on the freaking dark web.

"just a time pass Nick. I'm bored of sitting around my room like this. maybe I'll look at cute cat and dog videos when I access it." I say trying to sound normal

"you wanted to search the dark web for cat and dog videos. cute cat and dog videos???" He asks, dead serious

"yeah, what if i find one which is so cute the entire world would stop" I say

"hm. you might find other versions of 'cute cats and dogs' and things you'd want to unsee. but if you wanna explore, I'm not stopping you. just book a bed at the psychology ward if you see some exotic ones though.wash your eyes well with holy water each time you close the browser though."

"haha. nice joke." I say biting my cuticles and genuinely getting nervous

"I'm serious Mabel! If you get into some sort of trouble please do not hesitate to call me. it is a dangerous place. and I hope someday you will tell me the real reason you wanted to 'explore' this. and please do not search for absurd videos.you'll get them on tik tok ." He said getting up.

"Aight. Imma leave you to your tools. and Mabel?"

"what?"

"I'm sorry about Mackenzie."

"its fine. now gooo I need to go on an adventure"

He looks at me with concern.

"honestly Nick!"

"If you need any help, not only this dark web s**t, also on things going on in your life, you can let me know, okay? I'll be there for you." Nick looks at me expecting me to open up

this guy has always been like that. I let him know things that happened to me when I could take them no more. like that one incident when I blew a guy at the cornfield during the annual fest.

He could keep secrets real well. Like a bank locker. but I can't let him know this.

"yes , I'll call you. or I'll barge into your house at 3 am." I say smiling.

"Bye Mabel, take care." He hugs me and leaves

I exhale

deeply.

Time to get things done.

I opened torr and searched for 'Grams'. I did my research on the search engines the previous night, and this one seemed less scary.

a site exactly like google popped up after several minutes of waiting.

I started getting chills.

I started typing in ' Part tim-...'

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a pop up expands.

suddenly my entire screen went black.

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I screamed as a voice came from somewhere.