The Dark Web

Desperate times call for...

"Anonymity comes with a price," my brother warned. "An innocent search? That's alright, we're all curious. A research, which demands anonymity? Fine, we all have to earn money in some way or the other. But anonymity is an addiction, too. Remember that. Be careful."

***

A research project on drug addiction and its long term effects on an individual forced me to ask my brother, a software engineer, a software that allowed me to access the dark web where vast marketing of drugs and most of the drug dealings took place. This project was important to me in many ways but mostly, it promised me a good job in a national company that paid better.

When you're hustling to stand on your own feet, you'd go to any lengths to open the door when opportunity knocks on it. The price really doesn't matter. To keep your belly full, you tell yourself. A sacrifice for a better future. It seemed everyone laughed watching me struggle. When it comes to money, people, blood related or not, sense your desperation and yet wait for you to beg, because they know, you would never beg and satisfy their fantasies.

My father taught me to keep my head high always, and to always have a giving hand. What I would not do to wipe that look of pity in people's eyes.

'That's alright, really.'
'No, no, it's perfectly understandable.' 'Oh, I understand what you're going through.'
'Don't worry, we've all been there.'
'I totally understand you.'
'You will definitely pull through.'

I was sick of people's comforting words. They stabbed me in every step I made, every turn I took. I was desperate. I had a degree but I worked for a cafe! My 'friends' moved on with their lives, moved to different states. They had figured it all out! They had figured out Life!

'Oh poor Lizzie works in a bar!'
'Oh no, she now works in an antique store.'
'Honey, you should be in a chemistry lab!'
'And now she bakes some cakes and brews coffee!'

I was really desperate. And desperate times call for... Dark web.

I wanted my research project to be unique; I wanted to take the risk, and a different perspective to prove myself. What is the psychology of a drug addict who has access to the dark web? How is he different from a typical drug addict? How easy is it to get an access to drugs? How much the addicts are willing to pay? Is drug dependence driven by a geographical location? How does the society play the role of saviour and annihilator?

Tor browser was the software, given by my brother, that would answer all my questions.

The dark web has answers to everything. But one has to tread carefully, one wrong click ends one up being a witness to a suicide, mass murders, a person being beaten to pulp, cats tearing off canaries, squirrels being skinned alive, sometimes dead, toddlers playing with guns, a decaying corpse, and an individual who is high on drugs, waving his knife dangerously close to his sick mother, shouting nonsense, mumbling about zombies and someone called the Stickman, and experiencing the effects of mixed drugs and finally welcoming darkness, succumbing to death.