During college final year, a friend of mine(Rakesh) suggested to check out Dark Web, and a French website where we can earn by betting. I know what you’re thinking, and I thought that too:
A French gambling website? Sounds trustworthy.
However, Rakesh swore to me that the site was legit and it only used PayPal as the payment method, so my mind was somewhat put at ease.
So on a Sunday, I was bored and decided to finally give it a shot. I was put off by bad English used on the welcome page but shit. Registration was painless and it took only few minutes before I was in the roulette lobby. I had around $100 in my Paypal account which I had earned online, so I bought $100 worth of virtual chips.
The site offered three rooms where I could play, but they were all full. I kept refreshing the page but spaces weren’t opening. I was losing patience. I decided I’d refresh one more time and if it was still full, I’d peace out. Shit, if they don’t want my money, someone else would gladly take it. I hit the refresh button and something changed. The whole layout of the page was suddenly completely different. The original, unappealing brown-ish page was now all black, but more notably, there was only one link on it. A link to a virtual room named “Erreur.”
I found this really strange. I thought that I might have clicked on one of those annoying banner adds (that got pass AdBlock somehow) so I clicked the “back” button, but nothing changed. Whatever man, I already said goodbye to that $100, so let’s try this shit. I clicked on the lobby and after the page asking me if I was sure I wanted to enter (which I found strange, almost as if they didn’t want my money), I got inside the damn thing finally.
I am not sure if you guys ever played online roulette, but this is how it works (at least the ones I played in). You are connected through a live webcam to some shithole casino. You choose your numbers and place your bets and then watch the dealer spin the wheel in real time and see what you won (or lost most likely). It’s almost like being there. So the webcam loads and the first thing I notice is this girl, I swear she couldn’t have been older than 15-16. She was short, skinny, and blonde. I immediately noticed that she looked tired. They’re probably overworking her like a mule I thought to myself. It seemed like her table was on some sort of a platform because I could see the rest of the room behind her. There were approximately 5 card tables, all full. The place seemed awfully quiet. Then, my desire to lose money kicked in and I decided to place my first bet.
$5 on odd numbers.
All bets are in!
The girl said quietly as she spun the wheel. Usually, dealers yell out that line as a part of the show. I guess these guys were all business.
16.
Shit. $95 left. I wrote down the number in my notebook because that was part of my system. Writing all the numbers down so I can predict the future. Brilliant, right? (not really)
$10 on odd numbers.
All bets are in!
The little asshole ball stopped at 12. God damn it. Oh well, still got $85 left.
$20 on odd numbers.
As she spun the wheel I started noticing something strange in the room. It almost seemed like nobody…
5.
Hell fucking yes. Won $40. Up to $125. Maybe this place isn’t so bad. $10 on odd again. Yeah, I know, my system is strange.
All bets are in!
she said again. As the ball was slowing down, I looked more over the background of the room. I was right a minute ago when I felt something strange. Nobody in the fucking room was moving. At all.
1.
While I was excited about my account balance going up, I couldn’t help but feel weird about this situation. I mean, nobody was doing even so much as moving a finger. 5 tables, 6 people plus a dealer at each of them. Even the waitress in the back, holding a tray with drinks on it. And they all stood and sat still. I tried rationalizing it by assuming that the website had added a still picture background behind the dealer for the effect of a real casino, but man, this place seemed way too realistic to only be a picture. My timer started beeping and I had to make another bet.
$20 on odd.
As the girl spun the thing, I kept studying her background. I became intrigued by the strange situation that was going on behind her. I mean, there was no way this was a photoshopped picture. They just weren’t moving.
19.
Yes sir, won another $40. Hey, if I can keep winning, these dudes don’t ever have to move as far as I’m concerned.
$20 on odd.
I decided to start paying attention to the girl a little bit more. What else was there to do? It’s not like anyone else was moving. As I said, she was young. She seemed tired and perhaps a little worried. At times, it seemed like she was looking directly at me, but I was sure I was just imagining things.
Won another $40.
I wont give you play by play now, but I placed 4 more bets, winning two of them. I was sitting at nearly $200 at that point. But then, the curiosity started kicking in. These damn people still weren’t moving. And it wasn’t a damn added photoshopped image, either. Something wasn’t right. I decided to keep playing just so I can watch these strange individuals.
$40 on odd.
I noticed a chat feature to the left of the webcam feed. I decided to type a quick “Hi” to see if I’d get a response. As I started typing, a saw a man walk through the room. Told you it wasn’t a picture. He was dressed in a black coat with the collar popped up, so I couldn’t make much out of him. He was moving very slowly between the tables. He stopped by one of them. Then he bent down and started looking at one of the men who sat there. Like right in front of his face, an inch from it. Just stared at him, and the seated dude didn’t even so much as flinch. Weird shit man.
13.
My balance was now nearly $230 but I didn’t care. I wanted to know what was going on here. I zoomed in on the man. The webcam feed wasn’t HD so I couldn’t make details of the man’s face, but I could tell one thing that disturbed me. The man was all in black and white. His skin color was visibly different than the still people around him, I could tell that even through the few pixels French camera offered. What the fuck?, I thought. The timer started beeping again.
Fuck it, $20 on odd.
I zoomed in again. The black and white man stood up from staring at the motionless card player, and walked over to the wall of the room. He started licking the fucking wall, I shit you not. He stood in front of a wall and just started licking it. His tongue seemed unnaturally long even over the low res camera. Not sure if it was his colorlessness, but the damn tongue appeared black. The wall had bright red wallpaper, which just enhanced this man’s unnatural lack of color. Just as I was about to let out an audible What in the fuck is going on here?, the dealer girl interrupted me, almost as if she knew that I was about to break the silent atmosphere of the French casino from the Twilight Zone.
Five! She yelled.
I got startled a little and zoomed back out. I won again, but I didn’t care. I was more focused on a man who appeared to be in black and white and licking a fucking casino wall.
Now, take a second and imagine being in this weird situation. You’re sitting alone in your dark room, it’s 2am, and you’re casually gambling when you notice that nobody besides your dealer is moving in the casino. Then, a man who appears to be colorless starts walking through the place, staring at people and licking walls.
I had to keep placing bets to stay in the lobby.
$100 on odd.
The man had stopped licking the wall and started moving again. He walked over to one of the dealers at the other table. He placed his arm on dealer’s shoulder. Then I heard him say something. It sounded like “Say Tua” if that makes any sense. As he said that, the dealer turned around. That was the first time someone had moved other than my dealer girl and the colorless person.
One! yelled the girl. I swear it seemed like she knew I wasn’t paying attention to her and she wanted me to. I won again, but at that point I didn’t give a fuck.
The other dealer stared at the man with the utter horror on his face. He didn’t say anything, just stared at him.
$200 on odd.
The staring lasted for about 30 seconds. I started typing a message in the chat box to the right. I wrote “Hey, what’s happening over there?” The dealer girl didn’t seem to react when I pressed “send”. Perhaps the chat option was there just for aesthetics, I don’t know.
Eleven!
Somehow, I kept winning. But money was secondary at that point. I needed to know what was going on.
$200 on Even.
The dealer next to the man started shaking uncontrollably. Then he muttered something like “Non” to the man, and collapsed. Like just fell in front of him. The man didn’t move, just looked down at the motionless body of dealer’s. Nobody else in the room moved, not even my girl. I yelled “What the fuck!” at the computer and that’s when it all changed. Every man and woman in the room turned and looked at me. I swear to you, every single person looked straight at me. They didn’t move, just looked towards me. The dealer girl seemed terrified beyond belief. She quickly pressed some kind of a button next to her table. The man without color slowly turned in my direction. He started walking towards my table. I got the message in the chat box.
Run
I had shivers go down my spine a few times before, but never like this. I mean, I knew they couldn’t get to me through the screen, but the overall creepiness of the situation got the best of me.
The man walked up to the webcam and started staring at me. There was no doubt: he was in black and white. Now, I don’t know how to rationalize that shit. A glitch? Poor camera? Video editing? I don’t know, but I do know that he was the only one colorless at the screen. The rest of the people were still looking towards me as well.
The man’s eyes were open as wide as humanly possible. He seemed to be studying me. I was scared shitless, man, but I was mesmerized, unable to quit the game. He got closer to the camera and all I could see now were his eyes, looking into me. Could he see me? I don’t think so. I hope not. But those eyes, man, those eyes. They seemed absolutely cruel, and terrifyingly cold. They were also black and white, like the rest of the man. When he moved back, I nearly fell out of my chair. All of the people from the casino were now standing behind the man. 30+ still people were staring at me, with their eyes open way too wide. They weren’t moving. I have no idea how they got there so fast; the man took up the screen for only a few seconds.
The only one who didn’t seem like she belonged there was the dealer girl. She seemed absolutely petrified. The man turned towards her, then looked back at me. It was almost as if he noticed that she was out of place in that twilight room. He walked over and stopped behind her. She was shivering. *O..o…one” she muttered, obviously terrified by the man behind her. He started putting his arms around her shoulders. I yelled. I screamed at the screen.
What the fuck are you people doing!”I yelled.
The man started smiling. I can’t begin to explain to you how strange and surreal this experience was. A colorless man was looking at me, smiling, while wrapping his arm around the girl.
She looked at me. I could tell she knew I was still watching. She seemed at peace. Like she knew this was it.
She finally said, with little energy in her voice:
“Thank… thank you for playing with us today… And don’t forget your numbers!”
As she said that, the man’s arms went up to her neck with unnatural and inhuman speed. At that moment, the lobby closed.
I was back at the original, brown roulette page. My account balance was $520.
I sat there, stunned. I was sure I hallucinated, dreamt, something along those lines. This couldn’t have been real. I mean, come on, man. Colorless dude walking through the motionless casino, doing weird shit, and finally looking at me through the camera? Come on. Still, I like to believe that I am a sane person, and I know I wasn’t imagining. That shit did happen. I went to bed and although I had troubles forgetting this impossible incident, I fell asleep. When I woke up yesterday morning, the casino was the first thing on my mind. My initial thought was to try and get back into that lobby.
Fuck that. I decided that it was some sort of a prank. I went on with my day. But, you know what, that damn thing stuck with me the whole time. What the fuck was it? I kept analyzing. I tried talking to Rakesh about it, but he just laughed at me. I told him the whole story. At the end of me trying to convince him that I wasn’t lying, I remembered the girl’s last words.
And don’t forget your numbers!
That wasn’t something dealers say to you at the end of the game. I went back to my notebook and looked at the numbers I got that night. At least I’ve written down most of the numbers from the night before.
16 12 5 1 19 5 8 5 12 16 13 5
And the last three numbers I didn’t write down because I was too focused on the damn horror on my screen. I spent good few hours analyzing, trying to figure out a pattern. I had no luck. Once again, I decided that someone was just fucking with me. I let the whole thing go. Actually, no I didn’t. I went back on the website and withdrew all of the money back to my PayPal account, just in case. Then I went on with my day.
By this morning, I have all but forgotten about the freaky night at the French online casino. I had two classes today. In the second class, Lecturer was talking about some game where you have to decipher a puzzle. He gave it to the class to solve it. I’ll be honest, I didn’t do shit. So, finally he called for someone to come out in front of the class and demonstrate how they solved it. A guy came out and started explaining all these principles he used. Again, I wasn’t paying much attention, but one thing he said did catch my ear. He mentioned numbers. Numbers corresponding to letters.
I knew that this was the solution. I went back home after college and opened my notebook.
16 is P.
12 is L.
5 is E.
1 is A.
19 is S.
5 is E.
Please.
8 is H.
5 is E.
12 is L.
16 is P.
Help.
13 is M.
5 is E.
Me.
Please help me. Young girl, trapped inside the horror casino was begging for help and I was too stupid to pay attention. Was this a prank? I don’t know. A coincidence? Hardly.
I didn’t know what to do. I tried logging into the website again, but it was completely normal. There was no “Hata” lobby. I was, and still am, helpless.
I spent the hours leading up to me writing this thinking, thinking and overanalyzing what could have happened. I googled every phrase I could think of, but to no luck.
And then, just as I started writing this, I remembered the last 3 numbers.
1, 11, and 1.
A, K, and A.
The first three letters of my name. Would’ve probably gotten the other two letters/numbers if the situation didn’t escalate. I felt sick. My knees suddenly became weak.
This wasn’t a coincidence.
What was worse, they know my name.
I love reading. Found out another one. Thanks for the head up.
Let me start off by saying that my story isn't particularly about dark web but rather about IRC which is a sorta encrypted relay chat server. But it's something which I think everyone must know.
Some years ago, I met a guy whose name was Ser1alPoisi0n on a random website. He was a fun guy and He and I became friends rather quickly.
He claimed that he was a hacker and told me many stuffs. Hearing all that, At first I became skeptic of him and asked him to prove to me whether he really knows all the stuff he talks about. And so he closed many websites right in front of me. He tbh also pranked with my cousin (cause the lil me devil asked him to) by hacking her Facebook. (She's still furious about that
). Needless to say, I was impressed. And as I got to know him more and more, I also became amazed by the sheer amount knowledge he possessed. He was just an 18 year old teen, same as me but had incredible amounts of knowledge about basically anything related to internet. He also taught me a few things. Basically how to use Torshammer and HOIC and other softwares and also how to do XSS, DOXING, SQL injection on vulnerable sites and much more random stuff.
And He was also the one who introduced me to Anonymous. Basically Anonymous is an idea or rather a collective consisting of many hackers and script kiddies, which does many operations ranging from shutting down websites to Doxing people.
Now as fellow anons, we used to communicate via IRC mainly. For those who don't know, it's full form is Internet Relay Chat. Basically think of it as a sorta safer option for communicating. You join different channels if you were invited in them and thanks to Ser1al, I was allowed in many of the channels and met other anons like FuryousTornado, DEadC0n and many more whose names I can't disclose. (Disclosed these names because I got the permission from them)
Now there was this fellow anon who used to appear quite frequently in one of these channels. His name was firestorm.
I noticed that whenever he used to appear, the conversations used to suddenly slow down and everyone seemed a bit cautious with what they say. He also always used to sound rather weird, if I may say. Almost robotic.
Once we were chatting in the channel and he appeared. He again typed something rather weird and so I msged him in the channel something along the lines of,
“Man, you sound so robotic. You sure you aren't some cyber robot roaming around the collective, collecting cyber souls of people?”
And as soon as I sent that msg, it seemed that the time in that channel had stopped. People who were earlier typing, stopped typing and no one sent another msg in that channel for around 10 minutes. I became confused and also a bit scared to be honest and was wondering if I said something which could get me in deep trouble. I private messaged Ser1al but he didn't reply to my msg and after about 10 minutes of no replies from anyone, firestorm replied,
“What if I am? .-.”
At the same moment, I received Ser1al’s private message saying,
“MSG A SORRY IN THE CHANNEL AND GET OFF IRC RIGHT FCKING NOW!”
I becoming genuinely scared now, quickly sent an apology in the channel and logged off the IRC.
Later that day, Ser1alPoisi0n msged me on another site saying to never again directly talk to firestorm in the channel.
When I asked, “Why?”. He replied,
“It could be dangerous. Can't tell you more. Just don't talk to him again”
I took heed of his warning and didn't try to say anything to firestorm whenever he appeared on the channel.
Few days passed and nothing unusual happened. New guys joined, chats volume increased and stuff was going fine… until one day an argument occurred between a new guy and firestorm. The new guy sent a msg to him in the channel chat, something along the lines of,
“Don't act so high and mighty Mr. Cyber robot. You aren't better than me. In fact, I think I'm way better than you. After all, how could you know shit if you can't even type properly?. Want me to give you a proper English lesson?”
The chat again suddenly died and no one sent any other msg for 5 minutes. Seeing this, the guy sent another msg saying,
“Hello? Mr robot you there? Got too scared of me?”
Seeing the whole ordeal and wanting to calm the whole deal down I too sent a msg saying, “Guys calm down. Don't ruin the channels chat with your arguments. Let's all just calm down and enjoy”
“Well I'd calm down after I find Mr. Cyber Robots address and send him a lovely pizza. Hey, what toppings do you like, Mr. Robot?”
And soon as he sent that msg, firestorm replied,
“Your sister is pretty. But her older brother doesn't have an IQ. .-.”
And let me be honest, I still can't figure out how he knew about his sister. The new guy never msged anything about his sister or posted any links which could be tracked back to him. He was, after all, in a hackers chat room. So he (as well as we all) was very cautious of not leaving any of his cyber fingerprints.
In the following seconds, an error message popped and I got redirected to another channel automatically. I tried joining the channel again but kept on getting redirected to random channels.
I video called Ser1alPoisi0n and the colour of his face genuinely faded as I told him about the whole ordeal. After listening to the whole story he said, “The new guy is done. That's what you get for talking shit”
He told me soon after to not try to join that channel again.
But after a few days I received a pm from firestorm on IRC…. It said,
“Run.. If you can. .-.”
My heart started beating faster and faster as I read that msg and quickly logged off and told Ser1al about it. He told me to get off IRC quickly and to never use it again with the same VPN and credentials.
I never opened IRC again after that.
One month later, I was about to msg Ser1al about something when he just disappeared from my contacts.
Yes, literally just disappeared from my contacts.. His Twitter account also just became inactive.
Maybe he got busted? Or maybe he too pissed firestorm off? I never figured out the real reason behind his disappearance but I sure af hope it's nothing related to firestorm.
It's been 3 years since this incident and I haven't seen no traces of Ser1alPoisi0n, yet.
Edit : I've tried logging into my IRC account today but it seemed that it isn't logging me in and keeps saying, “Wrong password/username”. I'm sure that both my username and password are correct since I saved them in a text document… so it's most likely fire hacked my IRC back then..
This incident reminded me of how scary Internet can be if you piss off the wrong guy.
Edit : After posting all this answer I tried to contact many of the anons I knew on Twitter and asked about Ser1alPoisi0n and apparently no one knows why he disappeared. Few including FuryousTornado said that it is possible that he was arrested for hacking some government websites and realeasing confidential information on pastebin. But some others just refused to talk to me any further after I asked them about Ser1alPoisi0n and two guys even suddenly blocked me as soon as I mentioned the name of Ser1alPoisi0n.
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