Chapter 1

Dylan Roberts wasn’t supposed to be awake at 2:47 a.m. He knew that. But sleep was a fickle thing when you lived in the small house on Orchard Drive, with the peeling paint and the smell of mildew that never quite went away. His mom had been working the night shift at the diner, and his dad… well, his dad was in and out of the picture, a blur of half-hearted apologies and grumbled complaints that usually ended with him stumbling back into some stranger's car.

Dylan’s room was cramped, the wallpaper a faded yellow with an old-timey pattern of tiny flowers that had always creeped him out. It was the kind of wallpaper that felt like it belonged in a house built in the 1920s, not one that had been thrown together in the ‘90s. But that was the thing with houses like this — they didn’t get to pick their history. They just held on to it. Like his family.

He wasn’t a kid who went looking for trouble. Not exactly. But there were nights — nights when the house felt too quiet, when his mind went searching for something to do — that his curiosity got the better of him. So, here he was, leaning against the worn desk chair in his room, staring at the glow of his computer screen. The blue light made his face look like it belonged to someone older, someone who’d seen things he hadn’t.

Dylan had never been a hacker or anything. He didn’t know what the Darknet was at first. But he’d overheard a conversation once. Two older kids — Riley and Sam — laughing about something they'd seen on the "Dark Web." They'd said it like it was some secret club, something only the real cool kids could get into. And of course, it made Dylan’s insides twitch with a mix of fear and excitement.

The first time he’d heard about it, he'd brushed it off, thinking they were just joking around. But the seed had been planted. And once that happens, it doesn’t just go away. Not in a kid’s head.

So, that night, with the soft hum of his mom’s truck still echoing in the driveway, Dylan did what any curious kid would do. He googled it.

The results were exactly what he’d expected. Some vague articles about "anonymous browsing" and "hidden internet forums," but nothing solid. He needed more. He knew he could keep looking until the search results got blurry enough to swallow him whole.

And that’s how he found the first link. A forum. The page was old, ugly. It looked like something his uncle would’ve built in the early days of the internet when everyone still thought it was just a fad. But there was something in the code, something about the words that grabbed him.

"Darknet. Secure. Private. Don’t ask questions."

He clicked it.

The page loaded with a brutal, choppy slowness. The text was dark green against a black background, the kind of stark contrast that made Dylan’s eyes burn. There were no pictures, no ads, just raw, unpolished text. A list of instructions appeared in front of him. How to install Tor. How to “mask your identity.” How to access the “hidden world” beyond what most people could ever imagine.

For a moment, Dylan hesitated. His fingers hovered over the keyboard, his heartbeat in his throat. He thought about his mom, about how disappointed she’d be if she knew where he was. He thought about the stories his dad used to tell him, about how people could get lost on the internet, disappear into places they couldn’t come back from. The warnings were there — just whispers — but they were enough. He knew better. But, God, it was so tempting.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t heard the stories. Everyone had heard of the Darknet — the things that happened there, the people who vanished, the twisted shit people posted just to see who would dare click. And yet… the words kept calling to him. Like a bad dream you couldn’t shake.

“Don’t be a coward,” Dylan muttered to himself.

So he installed Tor. It took longer than he’d expected, and by the time it was done, he was starting to feel like he was doing something illegal — like he was stepping into some forbidden territory, a place where nobody would know his name, and where nobody would care to find him if he got lost.

Once Tor was up, he opened the browser and found a search engine specifically for the Darknet. It was ugly as hell. The kind of page that looked like it had been thrown together in ten minutes, but to Dylan, it felt like finding the secret door to Narnia.

At first, he didn’t know what he was looking for. But then, the name popped out at him. Just four words.

The Black Hole.

He didn’t even know why he clicked it. It just felt like it had to be important. Like if he clicked it, something big would happen.

The page opened up like the door of a cave. Black, stark. Words scrolled across the screen in a red font, jagged, sharp.

"Welcome to The Black Hole. Enter at your own risk. This is where the truth resides. For those who are brave enough to see."

He felt a thrill — no, more like a stomach-churning lurch — crawl up his spine. He scrolled down. Links. All sorts of them. The titles were like a series of punches to the gut.

"The Hidden Web: Where the Voices Speak."

"Real Faces of Death."

"Hacking the System: Breaking Beyond."

"The Faces You’ll Never See."

The last one… that one made him stop. His pulse quickened as his eyes locked onto it. The Faces You’ll Never See.

For a second, he wondered if this was where the stories about the "deep web" came from. The stuff people whispered about at school, the stuff his teachers told him to avoid, the stuff that made adults grimace when they heard it mentioned. And here he was. A thirteen-year-old kid, alone in the dark, about to click.

It was like every warning he’d ever heard — from his mom, from the TV, from the stranger who’d sat next to him in math class — was echoing in his ears. But then, something else — something darker — pushed him forward.

Click.

And just like that, his screen blinked black.

At first, he thought it was a glitch. But then, a video started playing. It was grainy, the kind of video that looked like it had been recorded with a shaky, old camera. The figures in it were blurry, faceless, just moving shadows. They seemed to be in some kind of basement — concrete floors, flickering lightbulbs overhead.

Dylan leaned in closer, his heart pounding in his chest, his breath shallow. Something about the video… it didn’t feel like he was just watching it. It felt like it was watching him.

The shadows shifted. A low, guttural voice whispered through the speakers.

“Once you see this, you can never unsee it.”

Dylan froze. His hand hovered over the mouse, but his body felt frozen. He was breathing too fast. The room was too quiet. There was something in that video. Something wrong. The shadows were too still, too quiet.

And then — there was a sound. Something behind him. A thud. A scrape.

Dylan whipped around, his chair creaking under him. Nothing. Just the silence of his room.

He turned back to the screen, and then his breath hitched. The shadows weren’t in the video anymore. They were in his room.

One of them was standing right behind him.