About a year ago I discovered a game called Fortnite – yeah me and millions of other poor souls. At first I didn’t get it, I found the game extremely boring. Jump out of plane, look for weapons and materials, and try to stay alive until the end. Even though I wasn’t having a lot of fun I stuck with it because others loved it so I should love it too...right? After a few days of playing the game just clicked and boom — I was addicted. Each day I spent more and more time playing. When I wasn’t playing I was on Reddit reading about Fortnite or on Twitch and YouTube watching others play Fortnite.

The game took over my life and my bank account. Well, I say bank account but that didn’t last long as those funds ran out rather quickly then it was the credit cards that funded my addiction.

The game is free 2 play what are you talking about? To play the game, it is free, but you will want the swag. Skins, back blings, pick axes, emotes, and battle passes will sink their teeth in you and you will spend more money than you would have ever dreamed. I was buying everything, I was spending thousands of dollars I didn’t have on these digital items. They made me feel cool and I didn’t feel cool in my real life so this was a welcome change. I was guild master of a Fortnite guild with over 100 members. I was treated with respect which is something I didn’t have in real life. I eventually dropped out of college and quit my part time job to give myself 100% to Fortnite. The real world ceased to exist, in my mind at least.

A gamer named drGruesome666, became a member of my guild “The Masons.” We started to play duos together on a daily basis; DG as I called him for short was an odd fellow but an elite player so I looked past the odd stuff. There were times when he wouldn’t chat at all or would just breathe heavily. When he did talk he sounded like he was using one of those filters to disguise his voice. Like I said, he was odd but he was an amazing player so that didn’t matter to me. One night about two weeks after he joined he said he was going to leave the guild. I was shocked and didn’t want this to happen, he helped us win a lot of matches and even some tournaments. I asked him what game was he migrating too? He asked if I was familiar with the deep web. I told him I was as far as knowing what it was but I had never accessed it. He told me that there was a hacked Fortnite client that was being played on the deep web. It was called Lastrite. I immediately was thinking bullcrap, but DG never joked about anything.

He told me that the core game play was the same but the game was darker and much more macabre. The map was laid out the same but sections were named differently and were more sinister aesthetically. I was rather shocked by some of the names...instead of Risky Reels it was called Rapist Thrills. Dusty Divot was named Bloody Wound. Pleasant Park was renamed Agony Avenue and Greasy Grove was renamed Disembowel Drive. I won’t list the other places but you get the idea. The water in the game was of course blood according to DG. He said the skins were very disturbing. He said he found one that went perfectly with his name drGruesome666.

He said the skin was called the Abortionist. He said the he looked like a zombie with a ripped bloody smock on. The pickaxe was a huge rusty bloody scalpel with chunks of gore dripping off it and his back bling was an aborted fetus. The glider that went with the set was a trio of babies stitched up like human centipede movie with baby crying sound effects. He said his favorite emote was his skin masturbating until climax complete with ejaculation. I couldn’t believe it and finally called ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. He got really angry and told me to go to Hell and stick with Fortnite. He said all the elites are heading to Lastrite and he thought I would be interested or he wouldn’t have even brought it up.

I of course didn’t want to be left out of anything even remotely having to do with Fortnite so I took the bait. DG said he would IM me the directions of how to download the TOR browser and setting up all the security I would need. After I got that set up he would send me the link to download Lastrite. I had always had a curiosity about the deep web but I was too apprehensive to actually check it out for myself. I have listened to dozens of the supposedly true deep web stories on YouTube and they made me think twice even though I was pretty sure they were all ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

I got everything up and running and away I went into the deep web muwhahahaha. DG sent me a link which was just a bunch of numbers, certainly nothing like I have seen before. It came to a black screen with a blinking cursor in the center. I figured I had keyed the address in wrong. As I was about to leave the page I saw “hello” appear where the cursor was. And a text box appeared below and all I thought to type was “hi” back.

“State your intention.”

“I’m sorry I must be at the wrong site. I was looking for a game called Lastrite that my friend told me about.”

“Who sent you?”

Hmmm, this is getting weirder by the second. Why the heck does it matter who sent me?

“A friend”

“Name”

“drGruesome666”

I waited for about 20 seconds thinking this was not where I was supposed to be.

“Prepare for Entry. Welcome to Lastrite”

Now there was a small meat cleaver that was spinning and slinging blood all over the screen. My assumption was that the next page was loading. After about a minute the screen stayed black but the word Lastrite was in red and appeared in a font that looked like throbbing blood vessels. I put my mouse over the title and clicked. I noticed a download began immediately for an “fnhehe.exe”.

It was pretty disconcerting that something was automatically downloading. I was inclined to just unplug but curiosity is a ♥♥♥♥♥. The download size was 666 MB. I must admit that seeing that number gave me the creeps. This whole situation was starting to freak me out a bit. After about 5 minutes the download had finished and it was automatically installing. Isn’t this freaking thing supposed to ask me if I want to install? Of course my whole screen goes black and I just see the word “installing” in a white bone looking font.

After the installation finished I got a message in this client from DG. It said “hey Mike glad you made it, I hope you didn’t have any difficulties.” How the hell is DG messaging me? I haven’t even registered or selected a name. Jesus how the hell does he even know my real name?

“Mike, I am the owner and architect of Lastrite and I want to thank you for being such a good friend to me. I am going to design a skin just for you. Do you want male or female?”

I am starting to ♥♥♥♥ bricks at this point. However I go along and say “male”?

“You got it Mike”

A video feed immediately pops up. The video quality is very crisp and clear, probably 1080p. A curtain pulls back and there is a nude man chained up by his arms and legs. He appears to have one of those ball gags in his mouth and he is breathing heavily and sweating like pig. His eyes are wide open and he is terrified out of his mind. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. What the hell is going on? Where the hell am I? What in the hell am I watching? Then a metal door opens slowly behind the man. It is a man in a white bloody smock that a doctor would wear. He waves at the camera and walks in front of the man.

“Hi Mike Anderson, how is the weather in Wilmington?”

“What the hell is going on? Who is that guy? How do you know all this stuff?”

“I am Dr. Gruesome and I know everything about you Mike. Ole buddy ole pal, you are my buddy right Mike? Here is a special gift for you. It isn’t everyday that a player can design his own skin. This sweaty fellow back here is going to play an important role in making that happen. Aren’t you