# "Chatroom.exe" Creepypasta

An episode of [CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1492008134), 7 May 2025, 33 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/65951663/chatroom_exe_creepypasta.mp3

CREEPYPASTA STORY►by Frequent-cat Creepypastas are the campfire tales of the internet. Horror stories spread through Reddit r/nosleep, forums and blogs, rather than word of mouth. Whether you believe these scary stories to be true or not is left to your own discretion and imagination. LISTEN TO CREEPYPASTAS ON THE GO- SPOTIFY► https://open.spotify.com/show/7l0iRPd... iTUNES► https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast... SUGGESTED CREEPYPASTA PLAYLISTS- ►"Good Places to Start"- • "I wasn't careful enough on the deep ... ►"Personal Favourites"- • "I sold my soul for a used dishwasher... ►"Written by me"- • "I've been Blind my Whole Life" Creep... ►"Long Stories"- • Long Stories FOLLOW ME ON- ►Twitter: / creeps_mcpasta ►Instagram: / creepsmcpasta ►Twitch: / creepsmcpasta ►Facebook: / creepsmcpasta CREEPYPASTA MUSIC/ SFX- ►http://bit.ly/Audionic ♪ ►http://bit.ly/Myuusic ♪ ►http://bit.ly/incompt ♪ ►http://bit.ly/EpidemicM ♪ This creepypasta is for entertainment purposes only

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: I met my friend in a server dedicated to a
[0:04] Speaker 1: sandbox survival game. It was a simple game, almost stupid
[0:09] Speaker 1: in a way, but that's not important. We were both
[0:14] Speaker 1: around the same age, middle schoolers, bored out of our
[0:18] Speaker 1: minds during long evenings, and we clicked fast. Our chat
[0:24] Speaker 1: started off with building tips, then turned into jokes, then
[0:28] Speaker 1: slowly became something more steady. He always had new mods
[0:33] Speaker 1: to show me, obscure YouTube channels, playlists filled with glitchy
[0:37] Speaker 1: ambient music. His screen name was simple, a two word
[0:43] Speaker 1: combo followed by a number. He never changed it, and
[0:48] Speaker 1: after a while I stopped being curious about it. We
[0:53] Speaker 1: never read voice chats, just text, but that didn't really
[0:57] Speaker 1: bother me. In fact, I kind of liked that unique
[1:01] Speaker 1: aspect of our friendship. But then a few months in
[1:06] Speaker 1: he started to pull away. He left servers, quick group chats,
[1:11] Speaker 1: said everything was becoming too managed. That was the word
[1:16] Speaker 1: he used. Managed said he hated feeling tracked and sorted.
[1:22] Speaker 1: So he messaged me and asked if I'd ever heard
[1:26] Speaker 1: of the deep web. I told him I heard horror
[1:29] Speaker 1: stories stuff from YouTube or Reddit, but never looked into it.
[1:35] Speaker 1: He told me most of that was fake sensational garbage
[1:38] Speaker 1: for clicks. He said there were real communities out there,
[1:42] Speaker 1: ones that hadn't been chewed up by algorithms or rules
[1:46] Speaker 1: or sponsorships. Real internet. He said he'd van a forum,
[1:53] Speaker 1: and he wanted me to see it. What he sent
[1:58] Speaker 1: looked more like a manual, a plain text file filled
[2:01] Speaker 1: with instructions written in the strange mix of casual language
[2:05] Speaker 1: and paranoid detail. I sat at my desk in my
[2:09] Speaker 1: mom's place, copying everything into a small note book I
[2:13] Speaker 1: used for passwords and game cheats. I wrote, slowly, double
[2:17] Speaker 1: checking every line. Then I took the note book into
[2:21] Speaker 1: the front pocket of my backpack. I'd need it again.
[2:27] Speaker 1: I had two computers, one in my mom's apartment and
[2:30] Speaker 1: one at my dad's house, both set up for gaming,
[2:34] Speaker 1: both with decent privacy, since they trusted me enough to
[2:38] Speaker 1: give me some space, but nothing sinked between them. If
[2:43] Speaker 1: I wanted to access the forum, no matter where I was,
[2:46] Speaker 1: I had to install everything twice. He never knew this.
[2:51] Speaker 1: Though I never liked talking about my family situation. It
[2:56] Speaker 1: was kind of embarrassing. I went back and forth every week,
[3:02] Speaker 1: one full week at my mom's apartment and one full
[3:05] Speaker 1: week at my dad's house. It was an even split.
[3:10] Speaker 1: When I was with my mom, my dad had my
[3:12] Speaker 1: step brother, Jake, and when I went to my dad's,
[3:16] Speaker 1: Jake would stay with my mom. That was the rule
[3:19] Speaker 1: they came up with after the divorce. It worked out fine.
[3:25] Speaker 1: Both houses at vast internet. My school was right between them,
[3:29] Speaker 1: and most of my stuff stayed packed in a Duffel bag. Anyway,
[3:34] Speaker 1: Jake and I were the same age, but we weren't close.
[3:38] Speaker 1: I never hated him or anything. We just weren't built
[3:41] Speaker 1: to get along. Neither of them my parents, I mean,
[3:46] Speaker 1: knew anything about the deep Web stuff. They didn't even
[3:49] Speaker 1: know I was still talking to the kid from the
[3:51] Speaker 1: sandbox server. They thought I'd moved on. Most of my
[3:56] Speaker 1: online life stayed folded up between bookmarks and private browser tabs.
[4:02] Speaker 1: They didn't check my screens, and I didn't give them
[4:05] Speaker 1: reasons to. That week I was at my mom's place,
[4:10] Speaker 1: which meant the next week i'd be with my dad.
[4:14] Speaker 1: I had everything ready, both computers prepped, the forum URL
[4:20] Speaker 1: split across two pieces of notebook paper taped to the
[4:23] Speaker 1: inside of each desk drawer. The forum was waiting. I
[4:31] Speaker 1: waited until late at night before trying it. I'd finished
[4:35] Speaker 1: my homework early and told my mom I was going
[4:37] Speaker 1: to bed. She never double checked. As long as my
[4:42] Speaker 1: grades stayed decent, she figured I could be trusted to
[4:46] Speaker 1: spend time online. I shut off the lights and pulled
[4:50] Speaker 1: the blackout curtain across the window. My desk lamp was
[4:54] Speaker 1: too bright, so I used the small USB one that
[4:57] Speaker 1: clipped to the edge of my monitor. The room settled
[5:01] Speaker 1: into a low, warm hum, filled with only the sound
[5:04] Speaker 1: of my fans spinning low arcs. I opened TOR, followed
[5:10] Speaker 1: the checklist again step by step, then typed the long
[5:14] Speaker 1: string of characters into the address bar. I double checked
[5:18] Speaker 1: it twice each segment against my paper copy. My heart
[5:23] Speaker 1: thumped a little as the page loaded. Part of me
[5:27] Speaker 1: expected some kind of error, or maybe for nothing to
[5:30] Speaker 1: happen at all. Instead, the screen flickered and filled with
[5:36] Speaker 1: dark text over a flat gray background, just a header,
[5:41] Speaker 1: a log I prompt, and a list of message threads
[5:44] Speaker 1: rolling endlessly down the page. There were hundreds, maybe thousands
[5:50] Speaker 1: of them, all stacked and shifting with activity. Some had
[5:55] Speaker 1: cryptic titles, some used weird code names or references I
[6:00] Speaker 1: didn't understand. Others were just nonsense. Strings, so yet somehow
[6:06] Speaker 1: had hundreds of comments inside. I tied tin the temporary
[6:11] Speaker 1: login my friend had given me earlier. It was a
[6:14] Speaker 1: shared account used to register something he said I should
[6:18] Speaker 1: only use once. I'd create a new one once I
[6:21] Speaker 1: got inside. The moment I entered, the forum exploded with life.
[6:29] Speaker 1: It wasn't just a place to post. There were live
[6:33] Speaker 1: threads that moved in real time, an even a weird
[6:36] Speaker 1: internal point system, calmer. I guess it tracked who was
[6:41] Speaker 1: respected and who wasn't. Some users had glowing names, some
[6:47] Speaker 1: had icons next to their tags. Threads moved quickly, but
[6:51] Speaker 1: patterns formed. Some posts were inside jokes, others with strange
[6:57] Speaker 1: collaborative stories or challenges. A few were darker images links
[7:03] Speaker 1: the downloads encrypted files with riddles instead of descriptions. I
[7:10] Speaker 1: didn't touch those. Instead, I clicked through to a sub
[7:15] Speaker 1: forum with jokes, games, and weird memes that had no
[7:19] Speaker 1: place on normal web sites. That's where I found him again.
[7:26] Speaker 1: His username popped out immediately, the same one he always used,
[7:31] Speaker 1: unchanged from discord. He had calmer, a lot of it,
[7:37] Speaker 1: more than I expected. I clicked on his name and
[7:41] Speaker 1: saw his post history stretched back months. It made me
[7:45] Speaker 1: wonder how long he'd really been here before telling me
[7:48] Speaker 1: about it. I messaged him through the forum's private in box,
[7:53] Speaker 1: just said hey, I'm in. Less than a minute later,
[8:00] Speaker 1: he replied, you made it. I've been watching you use
[8:05] Speaker 1: the name. I wasn't sure if you'd actually go through
[8:07] Speaker 1: with it. He sent me a new invite link to
[8:11] Speaker 1: a smaller sub thread. It was slower, more focused. He said,
[8:17] Speaker 1: this one was safer, easier to start with. I joined
[8:22] Speaker 1: it without question. From there, we picked up fast. We
[8:28] Speaker 1: posted memes that wouldn't survive a second on any normal platform.
[8:33] Speaker 1: We joked about stuff we'd never say at school. Nothing
[8:37] Speaker 1: illegal or evil, just a little unhinged for our age.
[8:42] Speaker 1: I made my own profile and started joining in. Some
[8:46] Speaker 1: of my jokes hit hard. I got replies, inside references,
[8:51] Speaker 1: private invites to new chats. My karm had ticked up
[8:55] Speaker 1: with every hour I spent there. One of my posts,
[9:00] Speaker 1: just the weird thought I typed out during math class
[9:02] Speaker 1: and save for later, blew up. It hit the top
[9:06] Speaker 1: of the humor thread by midnight. People quoted it if
[9:10] Speaker 1: you tried to remix it into edits and images. I
[9:15] Speaker 1: was having more fun than I thought I would. Everyone
[9:18] Speaker 1: seemed extremely friendly. He saw it too, my friend. He
[9:24] Speaker 1: sent a short message after I hit the front page,
[9:28] Speaker 1: dang man, I knew you'd like it here. Friday came fast.
[9:35] Speaker 1: The classroom buzzed with low chatter while the teacher passed
[9:37] Speaker 1: out some extra credit worksheet that nobody asked for. I'd
[9:42] Speaker 1: finished my test early and was pretending to review it,
[9:46] Speaker 1: but really i'd my phone tugged low in my lap, screened, dimmed,
[9:51] Speaker 1: almost a black I'd installed toll mobile behind a file locker,
[9:56] Speaker 1: app buried under a fake calculator. I wasn't supposed to
[10:01] Speaker 1: have it at school, but I checked the forum whenever
[10:04] Speaker 1: I could. The connection was slow on the school WiFi,
[10:09] Speaker 1: but it opened. My inbox lit up with a single
[10:13] Speaker 1: unread message from him. They're going to shut it down.
[10:18] Speaker 1: Something's happening. I don't want to stop talking to you, though.
[10:24] Speaker 1: That was all it said. At first. I stared at
[10:27] Speaker 1: the words, rereading them twice. Then another one came in,
[10:33] Speaker 1: we need to talk off here. I don't do discorder
[10:36] Speaker 1: anything any more, but I live in your town. I
[10:43] Speaker 1: had to reread that line too. I felt something weird
[10:47] Speaker 1: bloom in my stomach. I hadn't told him where I lived.
[10:52] Speaker 1: I never mentioned the state. We always kept thinking surface level.
[10:58] Speaker 1: But then again I hadn't asked to him either. Maybe
[11:02] Speaker 1: this was just a coincidence. He probably figured it out
[11:05] Speaker 1: based on something I'd let slip at some point. Before
[11:10] Speaker 1: I could respond, the bell rang, everyone flooded into the halls.
[11:15] Speaker 1: I slipped my phone into my pocket and headed for
[11:18] Speaker 1: my locker. My fingers itched to message him back, I
[11:24] Speaker 1: wrote him during the bus ride. Wait, you're serious. A
[11:30] Speaker 1: few minutes later he confirmed it, told me in which
[11:34] Speaker 1: side of town he lived on. It wasn't even that
[11:37] Speaker 1: far from my dad's house. We joked about how we'd
[11:41] Speaker 1: probably stood next to each other at a fast food
[11:44] Speaker 1: place or cross paths at them all without knowing it.
[11:48] Speaker 1: He said he didn't want to lose contact. The forum
[11:52] Speaker 1: was about to disappear. His words were vague about why.
[11:56] Speaker 1: He just said something big was happening behind the scenes,
[12:00] Speaker 1: something about old admins getting scared, someone selling access logs.
[12:05] Speaker 1: He didn't know if he could trust any sight. After
[12:08] Speaker 1: this one went dark, I tossed out a few ways
[12:12] Speaker 1: to stain touch. He shut them all down. Then he
[12:16] Speaker 1: suggested we just meet. It made my chest tighten, not
[12:23] Speaker 1: in a bad way. I felt wired over alert the
[12:29] Speaker 1: idea of finally seeing him in person, of meeting some
[12:32] Speaker 1: one I'd only ever known through messages and glitchy memes
[12:36] Speaker 1: and weird jokes. It felt unreal. Nevertheless, I said yes
[12:44] Speaker 1: before I really thought it through. I gave him my
[12:48] Speaker 1: dad's address, told him to come by to morrow afternoon Saturday,
[12:53] Speaker 1: around two. I said we could hang out on the porch,
[12:56] Speaker 1: maybe walked to the gas station, or just chill in
[12:59] Speaker 1: the yard. God, my dad was usually outrunning errands by
[13:03] Speaker 1: that time. I didn't mention my mom. I didn't say
[13:07] Speaker 1: I switched houses every week. I didn't think I needed to.
[13:15] Speaker 1: That night, I stayed up late again, trying to think
[13:19] Speaker 1: through everything, what he might look like, what i'd say,
[13:23] Speaker 1: whether it would be awkward. I imagine the walk down
[13:27] Speaker 1: the street, the first handshake, a weird moment where two
[13:31] Speaker 1: usernames tried to become people. Then around midnight, my mom
[13:37] Speaker 1: knocked softly on my door. I pulled off my headphones
[13:41] Speaker 1: and turned around. She had that face she used when
[13:45] Speaker 1: something annoying was about to happen, but she didn't want
[13:49] Speaker 1: to start an argument. Hey, she said, leaning on the
[13:54] Speaker 1: door frame, you'll be staying here another week. Why Jake
[14:04] Speaker 1: and I butted heads trouble at school. I won't say
[14:08] Speaker 1: more than that. She said, he is not happy with
[14:12] Speaker 1: me right now, but it's something he needs to learn.
[14:16] Speaker 1: He's taking some space, so we're keeping the schedule flipped
[14:20] Speaker 1: until he cools off. Her voice was calm, but my
[14:25] Speaker 1: stomach flipped. I didn't even hear what she said next,
[14:30] Speaker 1: something about letting her know if I needed anything. I
[14:34] Speaker 1: nodded on autopilot. I sat there, frozen. Everything i'd planned,
[14:42] Speaker 1: everything i'd told my friend was wrong. Now he'd be
[14:46] Speaker 1: going to my dad's house tomorrow, but I wouldn't be there.
[14:52] Speaker 1: The second my mom left the room, I spun back
[14:54] Speaker 1: to my desk and turned on the computer. My hands
[14:58] Speaker 1: were shaking as I typed the address US. It had
[15:02] Speaker 1: never failed to load before, even when the connection was bad.
[15:07] Speaker 1: I stared at the tall browser's loading icon. Nothing just
[15:13] Speaker 1: a black gray screen and a slow spinning circle that
[15:16] Speaker 1: meant it was trying but getting nowhere. I closed it,
[15:21] Speaker 1: reopened it, checked the network bridges. Everything looked fine. I
[15:27] Speaker 1: tried again. Still nothing. I pulled out my phone, already sweating,
[15:35] Speaker 1: I typed the forum addressed carefully, trying to make sure
[15:39] Speaker 1: there were no mistakes, same result time out. I tried
[15:46] Speaker 1: the back up your oil from the guide, the one
[15:48] Speaker 1: my friend said worked even if the main sight ever
[15:51] Speaker 1: went down. I pulled it from the notebook and double
[15:54] Speaker 1: checked every segment. That one failed too. I moved on
[16:01] Speaker 1: to the third link, the one at the bottom of
[16:03] Speaker 1: the instructions, the fall back mirror. He had called it.
[16:08] Speaker 1: That one didn't even try to load, just a plain
[16:11] Speaker 1: white error page that flashed once and vanished. I sat back,
[16:18] Speaker 1: my mouth dry. It was gone. There was no way
[16:24] Speaker 1: for me to reach him. I didn't even know his
[16:28] Speaker 1: real name, and now he was going to a house
[16:31] Speaker 1: I wouldn't be yet. I didn't sleep. I just lay
[16:36] Speaker 1: there in bed, staring at the ceiling, going over every
[16:40] Speaker 1: possible outcome. Maybe the sight would come back on line
[16:44] Speaker 1: in the morning. Maybe he would knock and leave, Maybe
[16:48] Speaker 1: be told to come back next week. Yeah. Probably. As
[16:55] Speaker 1: soon as the sun started creeping through the curtains, I
[16:59] Speaker 1: got up and went to the kitchen. My mom was
[17:02] Speaker 1: already there, sipping coffee and scrawling through a phone. I
[17:08] Speaker 1: stood there for a second, then asked if I could
[17:11] Speaker 1: go visit Dad. She glanced up without much interest. You'll
[17:17] Speaker 1: see him next week, I know, I said, I just
[17:22] Speaker 1: forgot something over there. I want to grab it real quick.
[17:27] Speaker 1: She raised her eyebrows. What did you forget my charger
[17:33] Speaker 1: and a hoodie? I left him in my room, I lied,
[17:38] Speaker 1: She shook her head. You can live without them for
[17:41] Speaker 1: a few days. I'm not driving across town for a hoodie.
[17:45] Speaker 1: And Jake said he wanted space. Let's give it to him.
[17:51] Speaker 1: I opened my mouth to argue, but she cut me
[17:54] Speaker 1: off with a pointed lock. Do your chores, nodded, trying
[18:01] Speaker 1: to keep my face neutral. Then I went to the sink,
[18:05] Speaker 1: turned on the forceat, and started washing dishes with my
[18:09] Speaker 1: fists clenched beneath the soapy water. The morning dragged. I
[18:15] Speaker 1: scrubbed the kitchen, vacuumed the living room, took out the trash,
[18:19] Speaker 1: even helped ford laundry. Over and over, I pictured different
[18:25] Speaker 1: versions of the meeting. Some ended in confusion, some ended
[18:30] Speaker 1: in laughter. By the time the clock hit four, I
[18:36] Speaker 1: couldn't sit still anymore. I stood in the doorway of
[18:40] Speaker 1: the kitchen, waiting for my mom to look up. She didn't.
[18:46] Speaker 1: I'm going outside, I said. She nodded. Distracted, I slipped
[18:54] Speaker 1: on my shoes, grabbed my bike, and pedaled down the street.
[18:59] Speaker 1: I didn't head to the park. I turned straight towards
[19:03] Speaker 1: my dad's neighborhood. The street looked the same as always,
[19:08] Speaker 1: windows dimmed in the afternoon haze. As I turned onto
[19:13] Speaker 1: our block, I slowed my pedling and coasted toward the curb,
[19:17] Speaker 1: scanning both ends of the road. No one was outside.
[19:24] Speaker 1: I checked my watch and waited just for a minute
[19:27] Speaker 1: to see if anyone might show up at the corner.
[19:31] Speaker 1: I looked at my dad's house from across the street.
[19:35] Speaker 1: Nothing stood out. At first. The curtains in the front
[19:38] Speaker 1: room were drawn, the porch light was off. But then
[19:43] Speaker 1: I noticed the door. It was open, not wide, just
[19:50] Speaker 1: a few inches enough for the wind to move it
[19:53] Speaker 1: a little, enough for it to make that soft wooden
[19:56] Speaker 1: creek it made when you didn't pull it all the
[19:59] Speaker 1: way shut. I stepped onto the porch, calling softly as
[20:04] Speaker 1: I reached for the door. Dad no answer. I hesitated,
[20:14] Speaker 1: then knocked the door, wabbled a bit under my hand.
[20:20] Speaker 1: It hadn't just been left ajar. The lock was loose,
[20:24] Speaker 1: the dead boat fully retracted. I pushed it open farther
[20:29] Speaker 1: and stepped out into the entryway. Jake, My voice echoed
[20:35] Speaker 1: through the house. Nobody answered. The air inside was still
[20:42] Speaker 1: and cool. The living room sat empty, Tevy off coffee
[20:47] Speaker 1: bar clear. A single sock lay crumpled on the floor
[20:51] Speaker 1: near the hallway. I glanced toward the back of the house,
[20:56] Speaker 1: heart hammering as I raised my voice again, Dad. The
[21:04] Speaker 1: quiet pressed harder. Now I stepped farther in. The door
[21:09] Speaker 1: drifted shut behind me. I smelled it before I saw it,
[21:17] Speaker 1: something coppery, something thick in the back of my throat.
[21:22] Speaker 1: It wasn't the scent of food or garbage or cleaning supplies.
[21:26] Speaker 1: It was something older, damp. Still. I moved through the
[21:33] Speaker 1: hallway slowly, feet barely touching the tile. Each breath felt sharper, shorter,
[21:41] Speaker 1: until I reached the edge of the kitchen. My dad
[21:46] Speaker 1: was sprawled across the floor, face down. A thick pool
[21:50] Speaker 1: of blood had spread beneath his chest and leaked into
[21:53] Speaker 1: the grout between the floor tiles. His back had torn
[21:57] Speaker 1: fabric across it, his shirt shredded at the collar. One
[22:02] Speaker 1: of his shoes was gone. I stood there, frozen, My
[22:08] Speaker 1: thoughts blurred into a single throb behind my eyes. I
[22:13] Speaker 1: just stared because my mind couldn't pull itself forward enough
[22:17] Speaker 1: to accept what I was seeing. Then my lungs kicked
[22:22] Speaker 1: back in. I turned and stumbled into the hallway, half blind,
[22:27] Speaker 1: running straight into the wall behind me. I stumbled, and
[22:32] Speaker 1: finally the impact of hitting the wall removed the weight
[22:35] Speaker 1: from my legs. Whatever had locked me in place cracked,
[22:40] Speaker 1: and I bolted through the front door so fast I
[22:43] Speaker 1: hit my shoulder on the frame. I didn't bother closing
[22:47] Speaker 1: it behind me. I ran straight for my bike and
[22:50] Speaker 1: jumped on and kicked off as hard as I could.
[22:55] Speaker 1: My legs burned by the time I reached the intersection.
[22:59] Speaker 1: I tore through, dodging a car that honked long and hard,
[23:03] Speaker 1: his tires skidding a little behind me. I barely noticed.
[23:08] Speaker 1: I rode until the streets began to look familiar again.
[23:12] Speaker 1: I almost dumped the bike and the curb. When I
[23:14] Speaker 1: reached that building. My hand missed the handle the first time.
[23:18] Speaker 1: Then I pushed through the door and took the stairs
[23:21] Speaker 1: three at a time. My voice cracked as I shouted
[23:26] Speaker 1: from my mom. She stepped out of the kitchen, startled,
[23:32] Speaker 1: What Dad, I choked out, He's dead. Jake's gone. Her
[23:40] Speaker 1: face dropped all at once, collar left her skin, and
[23:44] Speaker 1: she grabbed my shoulders, trying to get me to sit down.
[23:49] Speaker 1: I couldn't. I kept pacing, I kept shaking. The words
[23:54] Speaker 1: came out broken. She called the police. She had no
[24:00] Speaker 1: reason to hesitate. I'd never and have never tried joking
[24:05] Speaker 1: about something like this. They came in fast, first the
[24:10] Speaker 1: squad car, then two detectives. I watched it all through
[24:15] Speaker 1: the front window with my knees pressed to my chest.
[24:19] Speaker 1: My mom kept a hand on my back, but she
[24:23] Speaker 1: didn't speak much. Later that night, they sat me down
[24:29] Speaker 1: with a recorder and asked me to explain everything. I
[24:34] Speaker 1: didn't know what to tell them, so I told them
[24:38] Speaker 1: about the forum. I told them about the friend. I
[24:42] Speaker 1: explained how we planned to meet, and how I gave
[24:45] Speaker 1: the wrong address because I didn't know I'd be staying
[24:47] Speaker 1: with my mom another week. I told them everything I remembered.
[24:55] Speaker 1: The detectives didn't say much. One of them kept a
[24:58] Speaker 1: neutral face, but his pen tapped a little harder with
[25:02] Speaker 1: each answer. The other just watched me closely, nodding every
[25:07] Speaker 1: so often, his eyes unreadable. I knew how it sounded
[25:15] Speaker 1: a kid talking about secret websites and a mystery friend
[25:18] Speaker 1: and an address mix up. My voice cracked again at
[25:23] Speaker 1: the end, but I made it through. The Next morning,
[25:30] Speaker 1: they brought me into the station. I sat alone in
[25:33] Speaker 1: a room with cameras on the ceiling and wires under
[25:36] Speaker 1: the table. They asked to see my computer. I gave
[25:42] Speaker 1: them both. My mom handed over the phones too. They
[25:48] Speaker 1: copied everything. They didn't accuse me, but they asked questions, slowly,
[25:56] Speaker 1: over and over, looking for gaps in the timeline, looking
[26:01] Speaker 1: for a sign that I was hiding something I wasn't.
[26:07] Speaker 1: I gave them the guide, I copied by hand the
[26:09] Speaker 1: print out my friend had sent me, the addresses I'd
[26:12] Speaker 1: ridden down. I even gave them the username he used,
[26:17] Speaker 1: though I told them it probably wouldn't mean much. When
[26:21] Speaker 1: we finished, one of the detectives stepped outside to speak
[26:25] Speaker 1: with my mom. I stayed seated, my stomach twisted. I
[26:31] Speaker 1: could hear their voices through the crack in the door.
[26:36] Speaker 1: We think this was premeditated, the detective said, your son
[26:40] Speaker 1: gave out that address, but whoever did this probably didn't
[26:44] Speaker 1: expect anyone else to be in the house. I closed
[26:50] Speaker 1: my eyes, my hands curled into fists, under the table.
[26:55] Speaker 1: They released me. That night, I didn't sleep. The next morning,
[27:03] Speaker 1: the headlines broke. A man found dead in his kitchen,
[27:08] Speaker 1: his kid missing from the scene. Local police investigating what
[27:13] Speaker 1: they called an intentional and targeted act. Jake's photos showed
[27:19] Speaker 1: up on every street lamp within a day. He was
[27:22] Speaker 1: in a school hoodie, arms crossed, staring off camera. His
[27:27] Speaker 1: name was printed in bold under the word missing. I
[27:32] Speaker 1: biked past those posters every morning, every afternoon, every night.
[27:39] Speaker 1: I couldn't stay in the apartment. For seven days, no
[27:44] Speaker 1: one heard a thing. Some time would pass, cutting through
[27:49] Speaker 1: the roadside trails off the Old Bypass, noticed something slumped
[27:53] Speaker 1: at the edge of a drainage ditch. The water had
[27:57] Speaker 1: dropped from the heat that week, revealing more and then
[28:00] Speaker 1: it should have. The report said. He thought it was
[28:03] Speaker 1: a discarded bag at first. Then he saw the hand.
[28:11] Speaker 1: They didn't show the pictures on television. Police crouched near
[28:15] Speaker 1: the concrete slope with their hands covering their mouths. It
[28:21] Speaker 1: was Jake. I found out before my mom did. Someone
[28:27] Speaker 1: from school messaged me the article local boy found dead
[28:32] Speaker 1: blonde force trauma, defensive wounds, no identification on the body,
[28:38] Speaker 1: but the hoodie was a match. It had our middle
[28:41] Speaker 1: school's names stitched across the chest, the one he wore
[28:45] Speaker 1: during gym class when he forgot to bring a change.
[28:50] Speaker 1: My mom saw me staring at the screen. She took
[28:54] Speaker 1: the phone from my hands before I could stop her.
[28:57] Speaker 1: Then she collapsed into the kitchen chair, yah handshaking too
[29:01] Speaker 1: hard to scroll. She loved me as much as she
[29:06] Speaker 1: loved him, even though he wasn't hers. The next week,
[29:12] Speaker 1: blurred new stations cycled through every detail they could dig up,
[29:17] Speaker 1: interviews with former neighbours, speculations from people who didn't know anything.
[29:25] Speaker 1: Eventually they found him. My friend Thomas Greenley, forty six
[29:37] Speaker 1: years old, convicted once when he was in his early twenties,
[29:42] Speaker 1: moved three states over, changed his name through legal filings twice.
[29:48] Speaker 1: He had been running the forum from a climate controlled
[29:50] Speaker 1: storage unit behind an abandoned mattress outlet. The place had
[29:55] Speaker 1: no signage, no obvious entry inside. Investigate has found custom
[30:01] Speaker 1: server acts, locked safes, discarded hard drives, burner phones, and
[30:06] Speaker 1: at least four separate routers. There were posters taped to
[30:10] Speaker 1: the walls, crew diagrams with usernames and passwords scratched out
[30:15] Speaker 1: in read ink. He had built every account in the forum,
[30:22] Speaker 1: every profile, every user, every conversation. There were no other
[30:29] Speaker 1: real people in that forum. It had just been him.
[30:36] Speaker 1: He crafted posts, reacted to them, built fake reputations. He
[30:41] Speaker 1: messaged himself, then replied in character. He built arguments between
[30:46] Speaker 1: sock puppets, wrote private messages with time delays to simulate conversation.
[30:52] Speaker 1: He had an entire network of voices, all of them
[30:58] Speaker 1: were him. The only outside ip ever recorded on the
[31:03] Speaker 1: logs aside from his, was mine. They said the sight
[31:11] Speaker 1: had been live for over a year. Every few months
[31:15] Speaker 1: he changed the theme and wiped the posts, always under
[31:18] Speaker 1: the pretense of an admin reset or a security breach.
[31:23] Speaker 1: He'd start fresh each time, test new tricks, lure new kids.
[31:31] Speaker 1: Authorities couldn't recover full threads or time stamps, but my copies,
[31:36] Speaker 1: my note books gave them something to work with. They
[31:40] Speaker 1: called me a key witness, said I was lucky, said
[31:43] Speaker 1: they were proud of how I handled it. I didn't
[31:48] Speaker 1: feel any of those things. I felt emptied out. Thomas
[31:55] Speaker 1: was caught near the state line living out an old
[31:58] Speaker 1: camper van. The inside looked like a basement, every surface
[32:03] Speaker 1: covered in cables and tools. More phones, a laptop, welded
[32:08] Speaker 1: shot at the hinge. He gave them a false name
[32:12] Speaker 1: at first, then he asked for a lawyer. He never
[32:16] Speaker 1: said anything after that. He never made it a trial.
[32:22] Speaker 1: Two months after his arrest, before the formal sentencing could begin,
[32:28] Speaker 1: he slammed his head against the concrete wall of his
[32:31] Speaker 1: holding cell once, then twice. He kept going until he died.
[32:40] Speaker 1: He left nothing behind, just me,

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