Safety Among Scars (A story of Depression)

Chapter 4: Catacombs

Before long, the Laurence household had turned into an active crime scene. With the third death in a matter of days, the small town was washed with fear. It was beginning to become apparent a serial killer was at large. No one was ruled out as a suspect in the murder of Katherine Samuel. Police questioned anyone with connections to the 16-year-old:

Her parents, former teachers, ex-boyfriends, hell even her doctor was questioned. Percilla was questioned too.

"Mr. Laurence, how well did you know the victim?"

"We'd been best friends since we were babies."

"Do you know anyone who may have had a grudge against Katherine?"

Percilla paused for a second. There was her ex/boyfriend, Tanner, but he decided it was not his place to publicize what had happened between those two. "No, sir. No one comes to mind."

"Katherine's mother said you two got into an argument earlier today. Is this true Mr. Laurence?"

"Yes, officer. It was nothing more than an argument. A mere disagreement. Wait.." Percilla stopped, "Are you implying I may have murdered Kate? And hung her in my own front yard?!"

The officer remained calm, "We are simply investigating all possible angles of this awful crime."

Percilla stood up, "I think we're done here. If you'll excuse me, I'll be on my way." In a blind moment of anger, Percilla had become a prime suspect in an active murder investigation.

Despite himself, Percilla was excited to return to his journey in the dark web. He wanted to know what was behind those links more than anything, possibly even more than he wanted to know who killed his father and Kate (yes, he was that into his hacking adventures.) if only he knew how his curiosity would lead to a horrific series of events.

Everybody told Percilla he wasn't going to like what he saw on the darkest part of the Internet. That he wouldn't even understand it. Yet, Percilla had done it. He finally felt like he had something worthy for the first time. Reopening his laptop, he began what would soon prove to be the worst journey of his life.

He clicked on the first link. It loaded up a live-feed of what seemed to be the restricted area of the Catacombs of Paris. He watched for a while, but it was ultimately uneventful. With every moving pixel, adrenaline rushed through his body, yet it was always a let down and was most likely just a dust bunny drifting across the floor or a water droplet from the ceiling.

He moved on to the next link. It was a shaky video in a dark setting, but Percilla could make out what appeared to be men in tactical gear. They were in a house, opening doors and sweeping through each room. Eventually, they kicked one down to reveal what can only be described as an monster. Tall and humanoid with scaly skin, it was gnawing on a dismembered arm. They tried shooting at it, but it escaped out the window. The video stopped there.

"What the hell was that?" Percilla said to himself. It looked too real to be unreleased film footage. Was it real? He had no answers to his own questions. He started working down the list of mysterious links. With each click, Percilla began to see more and more disturbing things.

He came a document called "The Cryptogenesis project", detailing trials of human experimentation that would lead to superhuman levels of strength and durability. It was an apparent success, and it looked official too.

There were essays on space-time anomalies, glitches in reality, and seeming pictures of alternate dimensions. There were detailed explanations regarding Area 51, the Bermuda triangle, assassinations, disappearances, and the true nature of the mythical Fountain of Youth. One of the more disturbing ones was a document referring to a "world-ending bomb". A nuke over 700,000 times stronger than the one dropped on Japan.

Percilla didn't want to think why about the world might need that.

He found contingency plans for different kinds of Apocalypses - nuclear winter, biological weapons, viral outbreak. Some more peculiar ones were called "The Marianas Trench abnormality", the bluntly labeled "Strange man on the fifteenth floor", and one simply referred to as "Blackout". Recovered logs of skin-walker hunting expeditions, 911 transcripts from residents of a town in Texas that went missing in 1977, and even mental hospital reports of deranged mass-murderers.

He spent hours on that forum, combing through pages and pages of things Percilla felt like he wasn't supposed to see. He came across a trailer for a silent film made back in 1910, which supposedly made people claw their eyes out after watching. There was a live stream of a hooded man sitting in front of a camera, head crouched down. He eventually lifted his head. Even though he had no mouth, a deep, guttural, "Hello" came through Percilla's speakers. He didn't stick around for that. There were obscure sets of step-by-step guides that detailed things like cutting off your own limbs and sewing on a corpse's, performing religious incantations in the middle of the Siberian forest, and even going to coordinates that apparently housed captive fallen angels.

There was even a 20 second long video-clip titled "the futility of leaving". Percilla didn't watch that one.

At this point Percilla began to realize not even the highest forms of organized government could have full control over these files. Yet one of the scariest things about the whole experience was no matter how far Percilla scrolled, the list kept on going. It never ended, with each link more disturbing than the last.

Percilla couldn't comprehend what he was seeing, and I don't think he really wanted to. Now, I'm not really sure why he kept going. Every cell in brain was screaming for him to take his computer out to the lawn and smash it into a million pieces, But he didn't. He noticed something he hadn't before. A small message at the bottom left hand corner of the screen. He didn't know if it was always there or not. It was hard to read so he had to squint.

It read "Are you satisfied?" With two buttons below it, "Yes" and "No".

Now of course, no way in hell was Percilla satisfied. He had an endless amount of questions, and he couldn't even begin to understand what he had just seen. But for his own sanity, he should have clicked "Yes" and exited that god-forsaken place.

But Percilla let his curiosity get the best of him.
His mind betraying his body, Percilla clicked "No".

The page seemed to refresh. It was still the same basic setup, except there were only four links. This time, there were no recognizable numbers or characters. Hell, it didn't even look like anything that could have come from this world. Just a collection of extremely crude symbols that didn't give off any sense of pattern or direction. He clicked on the first link.

After about 20 seconds, he slammed his computer shut. I can't describe to you what Percilla saw. All I know is that he wasn't supposed to see it. NOBODY should ever see something like this. It's not only that it didn't make any sense, I can't tell you why it didn't. Percilla couldn't begin to grasp the images he was seeing. It wasn't graphic or anything, not like that. He just couldn't recognize anything. Percilla could make out things moving, but not in a way any creature on earth has ever moved before. Colors that he'd never seen before. Just thinking about it gives me a splitting headache. This is my best attempt at visualizing it: We have 3 dimensions here on earth. We can move forwards, backwards, left, right, 72.4 degrees southwest etc. These things in the video weren't restricted to that. I can't explain it any further. All I know is that Percilla didn't want to watch one more second. I don't think he would've been able to, anyway.

Percilla decided he would take a walk; go outside and get some fresh air. Hell, he was even thinking about running a marathon in the middle of the night just to get his mind off of that video for a few hours. He was putting on his jacket when he stopped dead in his tracks.

There was a knock on the door.

"Can we come in?" A voice asked.