Artistic Realism : A Dark-Web Story

As you may have guessed, I am an artist. I am keen in my exploration of various styles and forms to making art, but I am old-school in my refrainment from using digital means to make my art. There is an entirely distinct elegance and fulfillment in watching my art grow from pencil scribbles to a vibrant depiction of that which dominated my mind’s eye at the time. While I would love to promote my artwork, it will soon become apparent why I cannot share much that may lead back to me.

It was only two weeks ago that I had started to grow tired of painting the same old style of portraits, objects, and scenes. I craved for something new, and I began exploring again. I should mention that I am, in my free time, an avid user of the deep web. Do not get me wrong; I do nothing illicit or taboo like sell drugs or find hitmen to hire. I just love seeing all the peculiar and intriguing things the deep web has to offer. Therefore, while going through this drought of inspiration, I found a bustling art community on the deep web that was entirely unique. Named ‘The Nightmare Artists’, this website was dedicated to disturbing and unsettling artwork.

I opened the website, and I was immediately fascinated. This site was a web forum not unlike Reddit. Each post was a picture of a piece of artwork that someone had made. However, they all revolved around themes that would be considered dark by even the most depraved of art enthusiasts. Despite their disturbing theme, I was encapsulated by their detail. As I went through them, I grew to develop an uncanny admiration for the effort and time that must have gone into each piece of work. Meanwhile, the forum itself was bustling. Posts were being made every few hours and commentors consistently had something to say. There was even a detailed guide on how the site could be located after a domain change. I could not believe I had not heard of this place before.

The artwork, however alarming, left me in awe. Each piece looked meticulously and skillfully made. Even the milder ones such as the depictions of mental illness and self-harm were memorable. I fondly recall a sketch of a vortex of letters and words sinking into the grey matter of a rotting but alive human head; it was a strong allegory of ADHD and dyslexia. Others depicted grotesque scenes of carnage and violence. One of my favorites was an oil painting of a gladiator smashing the heads of two peasants together. While the idea itself was fairly primitive and non-abstract, the intricacy of each droplet of blood on the glistening golden armor coupled with the unadulterated look of panic and fear on the peasants’ faces made the painting pristine.

These were all amazing, but the ones that I still have strong memories of are the ones more fantastical and unique in their uncanniness. These are the ones that made me question the mental state of the artist. An acrylic painting that stuck out distinctly depicted a weird being that was a ramshackle abomination of different animal parts knitted together with a human head. A leathery crocodile like hide attached to an abdomen of long grey tentacles that seemed to levitate the thing off the ground where the animals whose parts had been used lay. The thing had more appendages protruding from its upper torso that resembled the furry arms of a gorilla. Where the chest should have been sat a large eye with a thin, inquisitive pupil that seemed to glimpse directly into my soul.

While I would go on with these descriptions, it would all be peripheral to the point of me sharing my experience with you. Suffice to say that this online forum was a treasure trove for artists and enthusiasts that admired and made work that was less conventional.

I spent an entire day gawking at the works before I was overcome by tenacity and motivation. I was inspired. I was no longer in my frustrated creative confusion. I had decided that I would make my very own piece of unnerving art. Perhaps this could be a niche that invigorated me to produce something beyond the usual half-decent mediocrity.

Over the next week, I worked consistently. Day and night, I would be in my studio working on creating something marvelous in its unfiltered macabre form. While I had peered on the edge of such a style in my artistic career, I had never worked with such a conviction on any of my other work. A thought penetrated my determined state: could this be it? The genre I had always been looking for. Did I no longer have to aimlessly make half-hearted pieces to keep my fans content?

At the week’s end, I was done. I uploaded my pride onto the forum under my alias lawlesscreator24. The artwork in question was an oil painting of crows picking at the corpses of fallen soldiers on a battlefield, while a beautiful sunset painted the sky in a magical amalgam of pinks and reds in the background. I named it Life Goes On and uploaded it onto the site.

I did not anticipate the popularity it would go on to garner. My painting held first place on the forum for an entire day. I was elated and had already begun planning for another piece.

When I opened the website the next day, I noticed had received a message from a prolific and respected artist on the website that went by the alias MachinationOfDoom. It read:

Hello lawlesscreator24. I absolutely loved your most recent upload. Could I know what brand of paint you used?

After sharing the brand in question, I conversed with him further about his art style and creations he loved most. He seemed very insistent on finding the right colors to make his art as realistic as possible. After half an hour of text conversation, he sent me the following message.

I noticed that in a discussion in the comments you mentioned you were from the San Francisco Bay area. I live there too. Would you like to meet up for a drink sometime?

I was ecstatic. Not only had I made a piece of art I was fully satisfied with, but I was already budding up with my contemporaries in the genre. We quickly arranged to meet at a famous bar for the very next evening itself, and I spent the entire night in a restless fit as I wondered how things would play out.

Come that evening, I walked into the bar and texted him:

I’m here in the dark blue shirt next to the entrance.

I saw a man walk up to me. He smiled as he prepared to greet me. He looked somewhat rat-like to put it lightly. He couldn’t be more than 5’4, and I had a mild suspicion that he was using shoe lifts after witnessing his awkward gait. He had a chinless mouth with teeth that seemed to protrude beyond his lower lip. His oily skin had a yellowish hue to it, and his course mane seemed to shrivel in self-embarrassment at the end of each hair. Despite this, it looked like he took care of himself. His teeth glistened white, and his hair was as neatly combed as it could be. He wore a dress shirt and tapered pants. I thought he had either gotten off work, or he was not too versed with trendy attire. I, being average looking myself, did not dwell on his appearance.

“Hey lawlesscreator – uh call me Carl”, he said with a tinge of awkwardness as he walked up to me and extended his arm in an invitation for a handshake.

He had an odd accent I could not put my finger on. He sounded nasally and somewhat monotonous. As he drew closer with his handshake, I caught a whiff of his odor. The heavy use of deodorant and perfume seemed to mask the scent of rot and decay. I wrote this off as innocuous, and I was still optimistic about the meeting.

“Hi Carl! Great that we finally met. I’m Mark. Let’s grab those stools over there?” I responded smiling.

As we sat down and began enjoying beers, our conversation shifted away from trivial matters like the weather or current city affairs and towards our artwork.

“I loved what you did with that painting with the crows!”

“Thank you. It’s great to receive all the appreciation. I honestly didn’t expect it to do that well.” I responded

“I was thoroughly impressed with your most recent piece too. The one with the cats and the restrained man!” I shot back a compliment about one of his most acclaimed works on the site.

“Thank you, I was wondering what you thought of it. It took a lot of time and sweat. Here, let me show you.”, he chuckled as he reached for his phone.

“Sure.” I eagerly responded, wondering what he was about to show me.

His phone screen lit to life, and he perfunctorily tapped at it before turning it to me. I recognized the image straightaway. It had been up on the website a few days ago, and everyone had been blown away by its detail. The website had featured the painting of a man sitting in a chair with his hands and legs restrained with two cats in his lap curiously clawing at a bloody opening in his abdomen as the man stared down in pure terror.

This image on the phone screen seemed to be a, somehow, more elaborate version of it. I was perplexed until I scooched my bar stool closer and peered forward to look more closely.

This was not the realism of an artist’s work, nor was this the clever editing of a piece of artwork to make it look more realistic. Then, I noticed the timestamp. It was not a piece of art. It was a picture shot on a camera. As I came to the harrowing revelation, my heart began to race, and my skin grew damp in a cold sweat.

“Neat, isn’t it?”

I froze in place and looked into his eyes. They were crazed and manic in their anticipation. Before another word could be uttered, I ran out of the bar as fast as my feet could carry me. I rushed home and sat petrified; my mind unable to construe anything besides fear. As I slowly gained my composure, I realized that I must have dropped my phone during the run since I could not find it anywhere.

I booted up my computer to change my passwords and delete my account on that god-forsaken website, and I saw that I had just gotten an email from myself. I thought someone may have found my phone, but then I read it.

You’d make a fine specimen for my next piece.

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Thank you for reading! If you liked this short story, please consider dropping my story an upvote on Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/okqy3w/why_i_regret_joining_an_art_community_on_the_deep/