The Dark-Net

It's time for a story. A dark tale designed to scare the living daylights out of you. It begins in a small town in northeast New England, where for centuries the children were scared out of their wits every time they tried to reach the promatory overlooking the Cape.

To do this, one had to cross a deep mysterious wood and climb a large hill to get there. And if you tried, you would always be turned back by thunder lightning and huge winds that would spring up driving you right into the ground, making you seek shelter.

They say the Promatory was a witching ground, and anyone reaching it successfully would become a hero. The talk of the... Lately, an ominous dark cloud was seen hanging over the Promatory. It never moved. There were strange moaning sounds coming from the adjoining cemetery.

The groans and shrieks and laughs were heard sometimes in the middle of the night. The town librarian found an old registry book in the Old Basement of City Hall. The land was purchased over 300 years ago by someone in Switzerland.

In spite of the wonderful view, nothing was ever built there. In the middle of the town lived a young boy named Tom Gallagher, whose passion was computers. He had a printer, a powerful hard drive, a large screen, games and other software to entertain and educate him.

And he had a modem, a telephone link to the far corners of the globe. One ordinary night, while surfing the internet, he stumbled onto the dark net. His excitement mounted because he had never seen it before, springing onto the screen as if by magic. He clicked to enter, the screen glowed purple and then a sickening green.