Chatroom Predator - an original story

WARNING! This story has some sensitive subjects - suicide mainly. Please be aware when starting to read.

While I was in college, my brother Darrin committed suicide.

He’d been getting more and more depressed and though my parents could see it happening, they were powerless to prevent it. He just wouldn’t reach out to them.

They begged him to talk to someone, the Samaritans, a counsellor, a therapist – anyone. Darrin promised he would but they guessed he hadn’t.

I came home as soon as I found out about his death. It was an absolutely awful time. Parents and younger sister blaming themselves. I took it in turns to blame myself and them, respectively.

After the funeral, I spoke with a few of Darrin’s friends at school. They had also begged him to speak to someone. Apparently, he HAD.

I heard from a few of his friends that mentioned he’d joined an online therapy class and they met just about every night, all online. Talking to each other, keeping each other up-beat, I don’t know.

When I got home from the funeral, I went right up to Darrin’s room and set about cracking his password for his computer.

Then I logged into the chat room.

I sat reading the messages of greeting to ‘Daz’, and the messages of mutual support from the members and I thought, ‘They don’t know he’s dead.’

I sat, stunned for a moment at the enormity of that thought. I was just about to type, ‘Hi, I have some bad news,’ when the PM box flashed up and ‘Az’ messaged me.

Hi, how R U?

I typed back ‘Good, but wait, I have some news’ and before I hit enter, I glanced at some of the messages in the history of the PM box.

I was dumbfounded, lost for words.

This guy had been telling my brother how to kill himself. I mean, EXACTLY how to off himself.

I deleted the ‘but wait, I have some news’ and hit enter on ‘Good’ – to give myself a little time to imitate my brother’s way of chatting. You know, the abbreviations, shortcuts etc so ‘Az’ would think he was talking to my brother for at least a little longer.

I thought U had a plan bro?

I did. I do.

I dropped out of the chatroom and logged off, keeping the PM box open.

I read all the messages and by the time I’d finished, I was a mess. My head ached, my eyes were red and swollen from all the crying.

My brother hadn’t even THOUGHT about killing himself until this guy, ‘Az’ got his hooks into him.

I looked through the computer’s history. The chat program was one that backed itself up and if I really wanted to, I could find ALL the chat logs from that room for the time my brother had used the chatroom.

I really wanted to.

I spent so much time in Darrin’s room that my parents were starting to get worried about MY mental health.

What I found was that ‘Az’ had joined a few days before Darrin and while the chatroom was by no means run professionally, they actually WERE keeping each others’ spirits up, encouraging each other to go to therapy.

‘Az’ didn’t really interact in the room. He’d say ‘Hi’ as his name popped up as joining, and then he’d be silent, brooding, watching.

Some members would log out and say a specific ‘bye’ to ‘Az’ and I started highlighting a few names that said bye to him.

Most of the ones that said bye directly to ‘Az’ had committed suicide – or at least had dropped off the chatroom.

No one made the connection.

I emailed myself the logs and went back to college to study some more.

The chatroom had been going for a couple of years. Set up by the person sitting at the top of the names list with @ before their name.

I PM’d the name.

Hi, Could I trouble you to ask a few questions about the room please? I’m ‘Daz’s brother and I have some horrible news.

The reply came back almost instantly.

It’s Az isn’t it? He’s killed another.

What The Fuck?

Yeah, Darrin is dead, he committed suicide a few weeks ago.

I’m so sorry. I’ve tried to do something about Az but if I ban him, he’ll just come back under a different name. At least knowing who he is and where he is, I can keep an eye on him.

So that’s what happened. Some sick muthafucker took it into his hands to persuade my brother to kill himself.

I thought about what I could do.

Not a fucking lot. How can I do anything when I have no idea who ‘Az’ is?

Maybe I couldn’t, but I know someone that may be able to.

I’m not a computer geek but I know a few who are.

It didn’t take long with triangulations, algorithms and science stuff – please don’t ask me to explain it, I can’t. But they found the bastard.

Now all I have to do is put the second part of my plan into action.

I joined a number of Oh My God, FREAKY as FUCK chatrooms before I found the one that suited my purpose.

Using the blockers and uber-tech stuff borrowed from friends of friends to mask and bounce IPs, I logged on to chat rooms and I told people about ‘Az’.

I didn’t log onto the rooms that supported depressed and vulnerable people needing help and support.

No, I logged in to the chatrooms dedicated to those that had lost loved ones to suicide and were ANGRY about it.

Contacting people who had murder in their hearts BEFORE finding out that someone was preying on vulnerable people, just like their loved ones, gave certain angry people a focus.

Now, when that focus is directed on one particular person, all hell can be let loose.

‘Az’ – short for Azriel, The Angel of Death, I found out – may not live close to MY home town, but he does live close to SOMEONE’s home town.

The last thing I check before logging off, wiping the memory of this computer, removing the hard-drive and then taking it and dumping it in a sinkhole-deep lake, is the freakiest chatroom of them all.

Invite-only, passworded and encrypted to hell and back, the vigilantes post images of the revenge missions.

Azriel meets his own Angel of Death folder was only uploaded for a short time, but those that knew about it, those that needed to see it, were satisfied.

And a small chatroom devoted to helping out those with depression and suicidal thoughts could remain safe from at least one predator.

Images from Pixabay