Hunting Ground

Omegle. The home of freaks and perverts. There's one different category I forgot to mention there: Demons. Well, one to be precise. Where to start? I'm assuming I don´t have much time left before my computer fizzes out again...before I'm in the darkness again. So let´s start at the beginning then.

I was at my friends house one day. Jed, a normal guy just like me. We got bored after a while, so we decided to hop onto 'Omegle', a site I hadn´t previously heard of. He said it was a random chat site, and that sometimes it can be really funny. I went with it, anything could be better than sitting around in his dingy flat. So we went on, and I got the general idea of it. It basically just paired you up with a random person also on the site, and let you talk to them. We had some good conversations, some bad.

After a while we bumped into one that really caught my attention. It was strange because...well it just was. Anyway, basically it just reversed the meaning of everything we typed. We typed 'Hello', it typed 'Goodbye'. It really wasn't anything special. Then just as we were about to disconnect, it said 'I like your poster. I saw them once. Have you?'.

This shocked us.

The poster behind us was Linkin Park, nothing special. But we weren't on cam, so there is no way he could have seen what was in Jed's room. We didn't type anything for a few minutes, trying to work out how he's been able to see. Did he hack the site? Was it a lucky guess?

We decided to ask him. His only answer was 'Look'. Great. We've stumbled into a loonatic. We decided the best thing was to disconnect. He typed one more thing before we did. 'My room's H.O.T'. Whatever we thought. Just another stranger.

Next, we decided to try out the video option. Now we could see who we were talking to, and they could see us. It took forever to connect to the server, and when it finally did, our heart rates increased rapidly. From the strangers camera all that was visible was a burnt room. Strange, we thought. We disconnected, but it threw us back into the same person, although "person" wasn't exactly the best word. This time, a door was open. The room had before just looked like a box, with items too burnt to identify. But now we could see the room was at the end of a long corridor, with what looked like stairs at the end of the hall. Once again, we disconnected and tried to get someone different. We failed. Swung back to the same thing, but this time there was a figure at the end of the hall. Shivers went down our spines as we drew closer to the screen. The figure didn't seem to be doing anything, just looking down the hall. It looked humanoid in shape, but the head looked different from a human's, and the arms seemed to be hanging at an unnatural angle. At first we didn't see any connection with our earlier acquaintance. It was Jed who made the link first. He nearly yelled his thoughts. I told him there was a difference between hot and burnt, and we disconnected again. There was no escape though. Thrown back into the same thing. Another change.

The figure was closer, as if it had stumbled forwards in the short time we had left it. I told Jed I wasn't happy, and that we should leave the site. He insisted we found out what the figure would do. He thought we had found a prankster, who was hacking our computer so that we would return to him. He was so terribly wrong. He started disconnecting and reconnecting at a faster rate, the figure now moving closer and closer to the room. I grabbed his hand before he could click it one last time. The figure was now in the burnt room, over in a corner. The darkness of the room shielded the face and body, but we could see the figure was clearly not well. Its arms looked broken, legs slouching. I estimated that one more click and we would be able to see its face. I told Jed this, and he was more than eager to do it. I however, was frightened by now and wanted to leave the site and never return. He agreed, and closed the web browser. I left and went home, hoping this would be the end of it. I was wrong.

A couple of weeks later, Jed was involved in a terrible accident. His flat had suffered a fire from an unknown source, the police were baffled. The body was never found, and I doubt it ever will be. Naturally, the whole area was blocked from the public, but I needed to get inside. So one night, when the police were tired and less likely to notice, I ran to a path Jed had shown me. It was small and cramped, but out of view from the patrolling officers. It got me close enough to the entrance so that I could slip in and out without getting noticed.

Walking down the halls to his flat was so strange. There was a feel of discovery in the air, tinted by something indescribable. I quickly reached his room. Most of the items had been removed by the police, anything that was left had a small imprint indicating the police needed to take it. The room was burnt, navigating it was strange. Not so long ago I'd been in this room laughing and joking. Now look at it. One of the items left was his laptop. Wasting no time, I booted it up and instantly went online to look at his history. Last site he was ever on: Omegle. I turned to run, but a stench in the air stopped me. I looked out of the room to see a figure stumbling down the hall. just as I thought. It was singing in a low tone, the words I can't be sure of but as a best guess:

Burnt is cold, burnt is hot

Hell on Earth, as I like to call it

Stupid boy, thinks he's safe

On the internet, of all the places

Stupid people, giving me a new hunting ground

More prey, without a doubt

Stupid humans, think they're safe

From there on was inaudible. I could feel it getting closer. Every noise it made. The banging, the sickening laughter. I decided I would run. Push it out of the way, escape. I came from the behind the charred door, and the sight appalled me. It's too disgusting to describe. Like a sum of hatred thrown into one person. Horribly formed, like a baby trying to perform brain surgery. I screamed. It laughed. I ran. I tripped. I got away. I won't be alive for much longer.

I can hear it now, affecting everything in my house. It has a weird effect on electricity. It can't be far. Laughing. It knows which one of us is going to win. There's no point fighting. At least I'll know what happened to Jed. My time's running out. Avoid the Omegle at all costs, go there at your own risk. Or else you might come face to face with him...

The Hunter.