HUMAN SKIN
By Asif Uzzaman
Last night, just like every
other night, after turning off the lights and falling on my bed, I switched to
YouTube on my phone and put my earphones on. Watching a load of funny videos on
YouTube before going to sleep is part of my ritual which I never compromise
with. After the tiring day at school and playing cricket in the evening, it
feels good to relax in my bed watching videos which make me laugh.
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| Image Source: Pinterest |
So, last night too, I was
surfing through Youtube, watching every title that interested me. After my
stomach began aching from laughter and my eyes grew sleepy, I got up to drink
water. I drank from the bottle kept beside my bed on the table, and lay again
on my bed. When I took my phone this time, there was a video suggestion titled,
“Things You Should Never Ever Google”.
Not to mention, I watched the whole
video and did exactly against what the video urged over and over to. I googled
every keyword that the video didn’t want me to. Well, if they really do not
want me to explore them, why they even made that video in the first place? This
was the thought in my mind as I browsed through Google searching all the
keywords. Most of them were harmless and tricky, which did not lead me
anywhere. I was not content; I really wanted some unexpected, and disturbing,
stuff. Which, I got.
I, like every common
school-going kid, was not familiar with the thing on the internet called Deep
Web. Deep Web, as I read about it, is a whole lot of contents over the internet
which are hidden, are not listed on search engines and cannot be accessed
through commonly used browsers.
So there I was, all prepared to
go as far as I could to explore what lay hidden from the common internet users.
It was dead of the night, and dogs were howling outside our house. My parents
were not home. They work together in the same office. Papa had informed me that
they would not come home that night, since there was a lot of pending work.
They had left my little sister, Aliya, with me, who could barely walk. She cannot
even pronounce my name clearly as of now. “Ra..Ra..bhaiya,” she would say after
trying a lot and would always end up laughing through her toothless mouth. She
was with me, sleeping like a horse beside me.
Listening to the howling of the
dogs and clicking on links that I found exciting, I reached a website which
said that I could earn money by a simple process. The popup stated that I could
earn up to 100,000$ depending upon the ‘weight’. I had no idea what it was
talking about and what it meant by weight. So I entered the website and found a
rather chubby man’s photograph, wearing a grey T-shirt. He had a knife in one
hand and a fork in the other. I realised that the white man looked jolly, and
that it was a thumbnail for a video and not an image. I clicked on the video
and it played.
The man kept smiling like a
child for a few seconds. Then he
motioned his hands in the air, holding a knife in one hand and a fork in the
other, as if he were a child playing with an aeroplane. “It’s time for my lunch,”
he spoke innocently and made sounds with his tongue. Then the camera lowered a
bit and I saw what he was about to have for his lunch. What he was about to eat
was not kept in a plate, but was kept directly on his dining table. Well, how
can a newborn baby be kept in a plate, it had to be made to lie down on the
table itself. The man thrust the fork in the baby’s left palm. It wasn’t
moving, the child was dead of course.
The man looked into the camera. “It looks delicious,” he said and used
his knife to cut a finger out.
I stopped the video and tried
controlling my heartbeat. I wanted to turn the lights on, but was too
terrorised to step out from the bed. But darkness was not the scariest part, my
heart skipped half a dozen beat when I got a glance of my little sister beside
me. I feel guilty about it, but looking at my little sister really scared me,
but I couldn’t help it. My mind had begun showing me images of her being eaten
by the white man in the video. I was too scared to look at anything. Neither the
sight of my phone nor the sight of Aliya and not even the idea of turning on
the light could sooth me. I was even more afraid of keeping my eyes shut. Whenever
I tried to remain lying with my eyes closed, the scene of the fat man eating
Aliya flashed in my head. I finally hugged my sister and pampered her—though it
was I who needed to be pampered. I scrolled the website again, in the hope that
I might find in the description that the whole thing was a joke. But it was
not. Instead, in the description, it gave details about how one can sell little
children to the man, and on what bases the price would be calculated. After,
some more scrolling, I accidently clicked on something. I don’t know what it
was, but a message appeared on the screen which said, “Thank you. You will get
it.”
And below this was some blank
space, and further below it the text actually said, “We saw you. You look good
and your sister is cute. Almost perfect.”
I don’t know how the night
passed. But, I don’t remember using my phone any further. I couldn’t call my
parents out of fear.
###
Today, I sit in my room,
studying some comic books. The more I read them, the more I am convinced that
whatever happened last night was either a bad dream or was a joke prepared over
the internet. My sister is still asleep, and my parents have not yet arrived. I
phoned them about half an hour ago, mumma said they’d be arriving by 12 O’
clock. It is still just 9:30 and I cannot find anything better to do than
reading comic books.
The doorbell rings and I jump
from my chair. Taking a long breathe, I move to the door and open it. There
stand Mumma and Papa. I cannot describe the happiness of the moment. I am
finally with my parents and no one can scare me anymore. I hug them together
and they look quite puzzled at my gesture. They look at each other, they smile,
and then they hug me back.
“Look, Ranbir, what papa has
brought for you,” Mumma says and I look up.
Papa hands me a large white
polybag containing a large box which is packed with decoratives. I take the box
with me to my room and keep it on my bed, deciding to open it later. And
indulge myself in reading comic books again.
###
It is 12 O’clock now. I have
been reading comic books continuously for hours today. I even finished the ones
which I have already read quite a few times before. The doorbell rings again.
Mumma must be in the kitchen. She would open the door, I think.
The doorbell rings for the
tenth time and I finally get up to open the door. As I hold the knob and flung
the door wide open, I am shocked beyond belief to find my parents standing
there with warm smiles.
“But, Mumma,” I struggle for
words.
“We are home, Ranbir,” Papa
smiles. “I hope we are not late.”
“No we are not,” Mumma says,
looking at her wristwatch. “It’s just about 12.”
Then who were they who paid a
visit at 9:30? And, more importantly, what is in that large box that they
brought for me?
I run towards my room, almost
shuddering. I hurriedly jump onto my bed and open the box. There is something packed
in yet another black packet. With it is a note. It reads:
Dear Ranbir,
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| Image Source: Pinterest |
We are glad that you chose to barter the most delicious body
part from us. Your order is in the black pack. We find you interesting, as you
did not want money in exchange for your little sister but something to taste. We
are glad to provide you with the skin of the child shown to you in the video. Looking
forward to have more deals with you.
Love,
Plump Man.
I drop the note and open the
black packet in the box. I tear the packet in two and take out what lies
inside. I lift it up and see blood dripping from its sides. The child looked
darker in the video; this skin is quite fairer in comparison.
“Ranbir,” I hear Mum calling
from the kitchen, “where is Aliya?”
THE END
Note: The story is not real
unlike the fact about Deep Web. Deep Web is real and studies show that almost
80% of the content on the internet is hidden in Deep Web and are not accessible
through common browsers and cannot be reached through any search engine. What we
know in the name of Internet is just the surface of the sea. There exist
websites in Deep Web which have been found guilty of drug and weapon dealings.
Many people have shared their horrific experiences of the darker side of Deep
Web known as Dark Web, including a site which explained step by step how to
cook a woman. I would recommend you to never ever try to access these websites
if you do not wish to get your privacy intruded.
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Thank you.
AlSO READ: Puppets of the Magician (a story)
