1 Michael and the modern world

Michael sat in his chair while his classmates laughed and made fun of him. 'Why do they bully me?' he asked himself. He had done nothing wrong and was just trying to learn something, but these people had been bullying and making fun of him for as long as he could remember.

"Guys, stop it!" Michael loudly said.

His words had no effect and just caused more snickering amongst his classmates. They saw him as a retard. Michael's rage was slowly building, but he just sighed and put his head down.

The school day was over. Michael returned home and sat at his computer like he did every day. Strangely, all of his YouTube recommendations were related to the Dark Web and how to get onto it. 'Weird. Oh, what the hell,' he thought, as he clicked on the video with the most views. By the time he had finished the video, he was very curious to see what the Dark Web hid. Michael downloaded the Tor Browser and a VPN and started to view some websites on The Hidden Wiki. Most websites were innocent with the worst one being gore, but as he was browsing the wiki something caught his eye. A URL had "xie" in it, was dark grey and at the bottom of the page, as if it were hiding from the viewer. Michael instinctively and unsuspectingly clicked on it, and was met with a simple white screen with black text in the default font.

"Michael, you were a god. Choose one. Learn yourself, or keep living your life in ignorance and hatred."

Michael suddenly felt very scared. He could hear his heart pounding in his chest and sensed impending doom.

"Speak up, I can hear you. Which one?"

Michael looked at the top right of the screen for the minimize, restore and close buttons but they were not there. This caused him to panic even more. 'Shit,' he thought.

"Learn....." Michael quietly whispered.

"Say no more." The page refreshed and an Error 404 displayed. Michael looked to the top right and the three buttons were there again. He closed the tab and looked at the Wiki page, trying to find the URL, but it had suspiciously disappeared. This did not help his feeling of impending doom, rather increased it. Swiftly, he exited out of the Tor Browser and made a vow to never go on the Deep Web again. 'What have I done?' he asked himself in fear.

"The only way from the bottom is up, Michael." A voice sounded all around him.