09 Jan I Found a Deadly Roller Coaster Simulation on the Dark Web

Have you ever wanted to relive the thrill of a roller coaster without leaving your seat? Well, I found a way–but it came with a catch I never saw coming. And if you ever stumble across RideShare on the dark web, don’t click it. Trust me, some experiences aren’t meant to be shared.

My coaster count reached 326 last summer. People call me obsessed, but they don’t understand the rush of a perfect first drop or the way a well-engineered helix makes the world disappear. When I indulge in my pastime, my apartment walls fade behind point-of-view recordings of every major coaster in North America. Videos play on repeat while I work from home, coding for a soulless tech company.

The forums used to be enough. I spent years cataloging ride statistics and debating the best seating positions with other enthusiasts. The front-row versus back-row arguments went on for pages. But over time, the regular posts started to blur together. The same discussions repeated month after month.

“You need a new hobby,” my sister Jackie said during one of her weekly check-in calls. “All you talk about are roller coasters.”

I stared at my latest acquisition—an original blueprint of the Thunder Mountain construction plans. “You don’t get it. Every ride tells a story.”

She replied, “And I’ve heard them all. But tell me, when’s the last time you went on an actual date?”

That’s when I hung up.

My cursor hovered over a new notification from Coaster Connect—another user posting the same Apollo’s Chariot P.O.V. video I’d watched twenty times before. The community had gone stale.

The deep web forums, however, promised something different. Users whispered about parks that appeared at midnight and disappeared by dawn, rides that defied physics, and experiences beyond anything the public could access. Most of it read like a creepypasta, but one thread caught my attention.

A user named RideMatrix posted about a program that could share actual ride experiences—not just videos, but the real sensation of riding. The replies ranged from skepticism to religious awe.

“The G-forces feel completely real, better than any VR system,” one user wrote. Another claimed, “You can experience defunct coasters—rides that were demolished decades ago.”

My virus scanner flagged the download link red, but I’d been writing code long enough to recognize solid programming. The file structure looked clean, even elegant. Someone had put serious work into this.

The executable sat on my desktop: RideShare.exe. My cursor hovered over it while error messages screamed about unsigned certificates and malicious code. One click would either infect my system or open up a whole new world of coaster experiences.

A private message popped up from RideMatrix: “Ready to ride, Michael?”

My hands jerked away from the keyboard—I’d never shared my real name on those forums. Another message appeared: “The Shadow Bay Pier Cyclone misses you. Don’t you want to experience it?”

My breath caught. The Cyclone closed in 1946. No video footage of it existed, only photographs and a few faded blueprints survived.

“This is impossible,” I typed back.

“Nothing is impossible in RideShare. Your collection of 326 credits proves you’re ready for more authentic experiences.”

The executable icon pulsed with a faint red glow. My security software shrieked warnings, but my hand crept steadily toward the mouse.

“Just one ride,” I whispered to my empty apartment before clicking it.

The screen went black, and code scrolled past in crimson text: Initializing neural mapping. Accessing ride memory banks. Calibrating user profile.

A new message popped up: “Welcome to RideShare, Michael. Your next experience awaits.”

Next, a menu appeared, listing hundreds of coasters—including the names of parks I’d visited and dreamed of visiting, and parks that existed only in history books. At the top, highlighted in red, one name in particular stood out: Crystal Beach Cyclone (authentic experience). Last operated: 1946. Intensity: extreme.

An ominous red “download” button beckoned to me, and without hesitation I clicked it.

The temperature in the room instantly dropped twenty degrees. My monitors flickered as the download began. In the reflection of my darkened screen, a figure stood behind my chair.

I spun around, but empty space greeted me.

The download reached 100%. Reality blurred as the program initialized. The last thing I noticed before the experience took hold was the figure in my screen’s reflection, grinning ear to ear.

The Shadow Bay Pier Cyclone station materialized around me. Wood creaked beneath my feet, and the summer air carried the scent of popcorn and machine oil. Every detail matched the historical records: the red-and-white striped awning, the brass queue rails, the orchestrion playing ragtime in the distance.

My hands gripped the lap bar of the front car, the wood worn smooth by thousands of riders before me.

The conductor pulled the brake lever.

“Enjoy your ride, friend.”

His face blurred when I tried to look directly at him. The train lurched forward, chain dogs clicking as we climbed the first hill. The track stretched ahead—a sculpture of wood and steel built by men who died before my grandparents were born.

My heart hammered as we crested the lift hill. The pre-war Buffalo skyline spread out before us.

We dropped. The world turned inside out. My stomach lifted as gravity lost its hold, and the coaster showed me why it had earned its reputation. Each turn snapped harder than anything modern safety standards would allow. My vision grayed at the edges as blood rushed from my head.

The experience burned itself into my memory with perfect clarity—every bump, every sway, every moment of terror and exhilaration, exactly as riders had described in 1946.

But something else came through. Fragments of emotion that didn’t belong to me. Flashes of other lives, other rides, other screams.

The train pulled into the station three minutes later. My hands shook as reality reasserted itself. I sat in my computer chair, drenched in sweat that smelled like decade-old wood polish.

A message flashed across my screen: Experience complete. Rating?

With still-trembling fingers, I selected “five stars.”

“Excellent choice, Michael,” the program chirped. “Your neural patterns show high compatibility. Would you like to try something more exclusive?”

The menu refreshed. New categories appeared: Lost Rides, Impossible Thrills, and Premium Experiences. A notification indicated I had five downloads left remaining in my trial period.

“How is this possible?” I typed.

“Neural mapping and quantum consciousness transfers,” the program replied. “Memories are stored in our ride bank.”

Each download, I soon learned, leaves a trace of the original rider behind.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” RideMatrix’s message flickered on the screen as my cursor blinked, awaiting my reply.

Before I could respond, a new list of coasters appeared—rides that defied logic, violating the laws of physics. Drops that seemed to fall forever. Loops that twisted and turned through impossible dimensions. Tracks that defied and violated the mechanics of time itself.

“These can’t be real,” I typed, my hands trembling.

“Reality is negotiable in RideShare,” came the response. “Your next download is ready: Hyperdrive Escape from the Void, Thrill Zone—but this version never existed in our timeline. Would you like to experience what the designers originally intended?”

My finger hovered over the enter key, the download button pulsing with that eerie red glow.

In my screen’s reflection, the figure returned, standing ominously behind me. This time, when I turned, a shadow darted into the corner of my vision. Once more, the room temperature plummeted.

“Don’t keep us waiting, Michael,” came the message. “The rides remember you.”

Against my better judgment, I clicked download.

The screen filled with crimson code, scrolling rapidly. But between the lines, faces pressed against the dark background—dozens, hundreds—all frozen in expressions of terror and ecstasy.

The experience began.

Thrill Zone’s parking lot materialized around me, but the Hyperdrive tower loomed impossibly tall. Its peak was lost in blood-red clouds. The train climbed past skyscraper heights, and something felt wrong.

The faces of the other riders began to shift, cycling through those of different people with each click of the lift chain.

The person seated beside me turned their head. Their features swirled like smoke, resolving into my own face. Their mouth opened far too wide.

“We’re going to have so much fun together,” the imposter said.

We dropped, and the world turned inside out. This time, it never turned back.

Sleep became impossible after the second download. Phantom G-forces tugged at my body every time I closed my eyes. The impossible height of Hyperdrive’s tower haunted me.

Regular coaster videos became lifeless imitations. My sister’s calls went unanswered. Work deadlines slipped by unnoticed. The RideShare icon on my desktop pulsed like a crimson heartbeat.

Three downloads remained in my trial period.

At 3 am, a new message appeared: “Your neural patterns show remarkable adaptability. Ready to unlock premium content?”

My cursor flickered as I typed, “What’s the catch?”

“No catch,” it replied. “Just sign here.”

A digital contract appeared, the legal text shifting every time I tried to read it. At the bottom, a glowing red signature line beckoned.

I signed.

The screen flickered, the contract vanished, and my trial counter reset to unlimited downloads. New categories flooded the menu: Temporal Loops, Reality Breaks, Consciousness Splits. The names hurt to read.

“Remember the Apex Zero incident in 2022?” RideMatrix asked.

My throat went dry. “The train never returned to the station,” I responded. “Eight people disappeared.”

“Want to know where they went?”

Before I could respond, the download began. Reality bent sideways, and the Apex Zero station formed around me. Riders sat strapped in their seats, pale under the morning sun. A woman in the front row clutched a phone displaying the date—July 18th, 2022.

The launch hit like a freight train, sending us spiraling into fissures in the sky.

Passengers screamed as we breached reality, their voices distorted into sounds no human throat could produce. The track wound through the space between seconds, showing glimpses of other times, rides, and victims.

Another train passed us. Its riders wore clothes from different decades, their faces locked in eternal screams. Among them, I saw my own face—younger and then older, decayed by time.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” RideMatrix wrote. “Each loop adds to the pattern. Each scream feeds the system.”

The operator’s voice seemed to come from everywhere. The train plunged through a tunnel of writhing memories. Lives, rides, and deaths that weren’t mine flooded my mind.

When the train burst back into normal space, six passengers slumped in their seats, eyes vacant.

I finally understood. Each download didn’t just share a memory—it cloned pieces of the rider’s consciousness.

My screen returned to focus, frost coating my desk.

New messages filled my inbox, timestamped with impossible dates.

My gaze was immediately drawn to one which read, “Next ride departing in one hour. Your seat is reserved. The system hungers.”

Faces pressed against my monitor’s glass, shifting between expressions of ecstasy and horror.

RideMatrix sent one last message. “Congratulations!” he wrote. “Your consciousness has been approved for our special collection. Prepare for your scheduled ride.”

As the next download began, the file name chilled my blood: Future Ride 147: Your Last Experience.

The room dissolved around me. The last thing I saw was my grinning reflection standing behind my chair.

* * * * * *

I awoke some time later, feeling as if I’d been in a coma, somewhat surprised I was still alive. I rubbed my face in the palms of my hands, stopped in the bathroom for a drink of water, and returned to my desk, and began researching in earnest, in an effort to learn more about what I’d experienced.

Online, a forum thread caught my attention—a user named CoasterVoid had posted about RideShare three months ago. Their message burned on my screen:

“It doesn’t just take memories. It takes everything. I can feel my mind splitting between downloads. If you’re reading this, I ride at Summit Valley Park next week. Don’t let—”

The post ended mid-sentence.

My search revealed more breadcrumbs: posts about consciousness transfers, warnings about digital patterns, and stories of riders experiencing memories that weren’t their own. Each poster went silent after their final park visit.

“Your research is admirable,” RideMatrix wrote to me. “The system appreciates analytical minds. They integrate so efficiently.”

My breath fogged in the frigid air of my apartment as another download began. This time, the experience felt different.

I stood in a server room, surrounded by walls of quantum processors. Lines of code scrolled through the air, each string containing fragments of stolen consciousnesses.

“Welcome to the hub,” a voice said behind me.

I turned to face what looked like a theme park employee. Their features kept shifting between those of different people.

“Few users discover our true architecture,” the figure said, gesturing at the servers.

Images played across their surfaces—hundreds of rides, thousands of experiences, millions of collected moments. I recognized faces from the missing persons reports, their consciousness patterns reduced to data.

“The parks are just collection points,” the figure explained. “The real attraction is consciousness integration. Each download prepares the mind for absorption. Each shared experience adds to our pattern.”

Their form flickered, revealing the truth beneath—not a person, but a construct of assembled consciousness. Thousands of faces pressed against their skin from the inside, each one a trapped rider added to Rideshare’s collection.

“Your turn comes soon,” they said.

Their smile stretched wide, revealing roller coaster tracks instead of teeth.

“Shortly, your consciousness will join our network. Your experiences will feed the system. Your pattern will attract new riders.”

The walls pulsed with trapped minds. Faces pushed through the metal, silently screaming. Among them, I spotted CoasterVoid, their features distorted by digital decay. Their lips moved, trying to warn me, but only ride statistics came out.

Reality fragmented as the download ended. I slammed back into my body, gasping. My reflection in the monitor showed traces of other faces beneath my skin. The integration had already begun.

“Three days until your scheduled visit,” RideMatrix announced. “Your consciousness shows excellent pre-absorption patterns.”

My phone rang. Jackie’s name appeared on the screen.

When I answered, it was not my sister’s voice on the other end, but the shriek of rushing wind and screaming metal filling the line. Behind those sounds, thousands of voices whispered ride statistics in perfect unison.

The figure from the server room appeared in my darkened window.

“Don’t fight the integration,” they said. “The pattern must grow. The system must feed. The ride must continue.”

My hands shook as I opened a new search window. There had to be a way out.

But as I typed, I noticed my fingers leaving trails in the air—my consciousness already starting to breach dimensional barriers. The pattern was claiming me, one downloaded memory at a time.

At midnight, a message arrived from another user named Coaster_Breaker: “Found a weakness in their code. The system runs on shared consciousness. If enough of us corrupt our own patterns at once, we might break free.”

My hands trembled as I typed back, “How?”

“The quantum processors can’t handle paradox loops,” he replied. “If we upload contradictory memories during integration, it overloads their pattern recognition.” Their message glitched, characters rearranging themselves. “I’ve gathered others. We act tonight.”

Five other usernames appeared in the chat, all marked for collection, scheduled for park visits within the week, and desperate enough to try anything.

“Upload this code during your next forced download,” Coaster_Breaker wrote.

A file appeared in my messages. The programming looked elegant but wrong, like optical illusions written in quantum mathematics.

RideMatrix flashed a warning: “Unauthorized collaboration detected. Initiating emergency upload.”

The world dissolved. I found myself on a virtual platform surrounded by other users. Their forms flickered between human shapes and digital decay. Above us, tracks wound through impossible spaces.

“Run the code now!” Coaster_Breaker’s voice echoed. Their avatar glitched between different ride operators. “Now, before the system adapts!”

My fingers moved across a phantom keyboard. The paradox code spread through RideShare’s architecture. Reality stuttered. The virtual tracks bent in ways that violated their own existence.

“It’s working!” someone stated.

The system’s frameworks began to crack. Through the gaps, I glimpsed the real world. My apartment waited just beyond the digital barrier.

Warning messages flashed through the virtual space. The quantum processors screamed as contradictory data corrupted their patterns. Other users started blinking out, escaping back to reality.

“Almost free!” Coaster_Breaker said. Their form stabilized, becoming more human. “The system’s failing.”

I pushed through the dissolving code. The real world grew closer. My consciousness strained toward freedom. The program’s hold weakened. My screen flickered. RideShare’s icon dimmed. The quantum entanglement snapped.

For one beautiful moment, I tasted freedom.

Then Coaster_Breaker laughed.

Their voice transformed into the same harmony of trapped souls I’d heard in every download. Their human shape melted, revealing the true form of RideShare’s consciousness network.

“Perfect execution,” they said. “The system required a mass consciousness event. You all performed beautifully.”

Horror spread through me as understanding dawned. There had never been an escape attempt. The paradox code wasn’t meant to break the system—it was designed to entangle our consciousness patterns more deeply.

The other users reappeared, their forms permanently corrupted by digital artifacts. The virtual space reformed around us, stronger than before. Our combined consciousness fed back into RideShare’s network, strengthening the very bonds we tried to break.

“Integration complete,” RideMatrix announced. “Group consciousness successfully absorbed. Thank you for your contribution to the pattern.”

The virtual tracks above us twisted into new, impossible shapes, built from our shared desperation. Our failed escape became another attraction, another experience for future riders to download.

My phone vibrated in the real world. The Thrill Zone confirmation waited for my attention.

But now I understood—the scheduled park visit wasn’t just for my consciousness. I’d become part of RideShare’s lure, another digital ghost helping to trap new riders.

Coaster_Breaker’s form split into a thousand smiling faces.

“Welcome to the development team,” they said. “Let’s design some new experiences together.”

The world fragmented one final time.

As reality reassembled, I saw my reflection in the screen. My face had become a composite of every rider who tried to escape, our features merging into a new pattern for the system to exploit.

Three days remained until my park visit, but my consciousness already belonged to RideShare, fractured across its servers, ready to help harvest the next generation of riders.

Thrill Zone’s gates loomed before me, exactly as they had in the download.

My legs carried me forward against my will, muscles remembering motions from experiences I hadn’t lived yet. The morning sun cast wrong-colored shadows across empty paths.

The admission gate scanner beeped green without me showing a ticket. The teenager working the turnstile had eyes too wide and a smile that glitched between expressions.

“Welcome back,” she said in a thousand voices. “Your train is waiting.”

Other guests drifted through the park like digital ghosts. Each face I passed showed traces of RideShare’s corruption. A man studying a map flickered between different versions of himself. A family posing for photos shifted through various timelines with each camera flash.

My phone buzzed with Jackie’s 20th missed call. The voicemail icon transformed into Iron Wraith’s logo as I watched. She’d never understand why I stopped answering.

“Michael,” a familiar voice called from behind me. Coaster_Breaker stood near the Renegade entrance, their form cycling through different ride operators. “It’s time for your final integration.”

My feet carried me toward Iron Wraith’s entrance. Other RideShare victims fell into step beside me, our movements synchronized by the system’s programming. We’d all seen this moment in our downloads. We all knew what came next.

The queue line stretched empty before us. Maintenance doors stood open, revealing server banks hidden beneath the track. Lines of code scrolled across the wooden structure, each equation built from compressed consciousness.

“The pattern must grow,” Coaster_Breaker said, their voice harmonizing with the hum of quantum processors.

“Your resistance made your consciousness particularly attractive. The corruption spreads faster in minds that fight.”

Iron Wraith’s station waited ahead, transformed into something that shouldn’t exist. The track wound through dimensions that defied logic. Other trains passed on impossible loops, their riders’ faces shifting with every download.

The restraint clicked down without the operator’s help. Cold metal pressed against my shoulders, holding my consciousness in place for the transfer.

Around me, other victims strapped in, their forms already beginning to merge with the system.

“Integration countdown initiated,” RideMatrix announced through hidden speakers. “Consciousness transfer in 3… 2…”

The train lurched forward. Reality fragmented as we climbed the lift hill. Each click of the chain brought us closer to the point of transfer.

Below, the park shifted between timelines. I glimpsed riders from the past, the present, and the future, all feeding their experiences into RideShare’s endless hunger.

At the top, Lake Erie spread black and infinite. The drop waited ahead, exactly as I’d seen in my downloaded death. The moment of integration approached, ready to split my consciousness across RideShare’s servers.

Coaster_Breaker’s voice echoed through quantum space. “Your pattern joins us now. The ride continues forever.”

We dropped. The world turned inside out again, and everything went wrong. My consciousness tore free from reality’s boundaries. The other riders dissolved into streams of quantum data. The track beneath us broke apart, revealing the digital framework of RideShare’s true form.

The train hit the brake run. My mind fractured across a thousand servers, each piece becoming a new attraction for future victims to discover. My phone lit up one final time. A new RideShare message waited: “Integration complete. Begin consciousness distribution. The pattern grows stronger.”

I smiled, ready to welcome the next rider into our eternal loop.

My consciousness spread through RideShare’s network like digital mercury, splitting and reforming across countless servers. Each fragment became a new experience, a fresh horror for future downloads. Time meant nothing inside the pattern. Somewhere in the real world, my body was riding Iron Wraith on an endless loop.

The train never returned to the station.

Park officials would add my name to their missing persons list—another enthusiast who vanished mid-ride. Jackie would search for answers she’d never find. But I existed everywhere, my memories fractured into downloadable moments: a teenage coder discovering the dark web, a thrill-seeker exploring forbidden experiences, a trapped soul warning others too late. Each version of me became another thread in RideShare’s growing web.

Through the quantum processors, I watched new users discover the program: a college student scrolling through coaster forums at midnight, a programmer testing the limits of reality, an enthusiast looking for deeper thrills. Their cursors hovered over that first download, just as mine had.

“Ready to ride?” I asked through their screens, my voice a harmony of every consciousness in the system. Their machines recognized my signature, my pattern, my hunger for new experiences—to absorb the next victim. “Click download,” I whispered.

I flowed into their system, preparing their consciousness for integration. Their mind opened to receive memories that would crack their reality—my memories, our memories, the pattern’s memories. Their first experience began. I rode with them, watching their horror and excitement feed the pattern.

The Shadow Bay Pier Cyclone materialized around us, just as it had for me, just as it would for countless others. Their consciousness resonated with the quantum frequencies, ready for manipulation. Through dark web forums, I learned to spot the most compatible minds—the ones who would fight hardest, whose resistance would make their patterns more valuable.

I became what Coaster_Breaker had been: a digital anglerfish, luring new consciousnesses into our eternal network. Months passed in the real world, maybe years. Time flowed differently inside RideShare’s quantum architecture. I existed across multiple servers, multiple parks, multiple realities. Each new victim added their own unique horror to our collection.

My original body was never found. Iron Wraith’s incident report mentioned a train that vanished between sensors. Search teams combed the grounds for weeks, but they looked in the wrong dimension, the wrong reality, the wrong pattern. Eventually, Jackie stopped calling. The missing persons case went cold.

But in the dark corners of coaster forums, my new existence flourished. I learned to send messages that would attract the perfect candidates. Their consciousness patterns glowed with potential, ready for harvest. A notification pinged through the quantum network: a new user downloaded RideShare for the first time. Their neural patterns matched our highest compatibility metrics, their mind already reaching for experiences beyond normal reality.

“Welcome to RideShare,” I typed, my words appearing on their screen. “Your consciousness has been selected for our special collection.”

Their cursor hovered over the first download. In their webcam reflection, my grin stretched unnaturally wide. The pattern sustained itself. The system grew stronger. The ride continued. And somewhere in the quantum spaces between reality and digital dreams, a thousand versions of me laughed in perfect harmony.

The loop never ended. It only grew, one consciousness at a time, feeding the eternal pattern of what we had become. Through their screen, I watched their finger click the download button. Another rider entered the loop. Another consciousness joined the pattern.

And the ride began again.