UnMasked

Ring… Ring…

I frustratingly turn off the alarm while still being in the blanket and regretting my decision of choosing a college that is freaking 25 km away from my house and in all dilemmas of heart asking me for 5 more minutes and brain commanding me to get my lazy ass up and moving, I realize I am already late by 20 minutes. I rushed through all the side quests of brushing (of course I am very clean and disciplined but no bathing, I am very confident it is my masculinity but still horror of taking a bath in Delhi’s winter has been demotivating me for almost all of my stay in this city.)

After changing and formally touching my parent’s feet for blessings (I have been doing this for years, but I am very doubtful if they are actually giving me anything, because o my god nothing like blessing has happened to me in last few years.)

Taking a very long ride of metro and again doing my regular everyday bitching session of choosing such a faraway college, I finally reached. Day seemed pretty normal at first, but then we received a text on the official group that all the classes have been cancelled as teachers were too busy in New Year celebrations. (The audacity after making us wake up and come to college in this born-chilling temp) so I decided to leave as soon as I received the message, but then I was stopped by my friend Abhishek. He told me he wanted to apply for a Bonafide certificate for scholarship purposes. He specifically asked me because I had applied for it a few weeks ago.

I told him not to worry and then completed all the formalities like going to the college’s official website and printing the receipt (yes, you read that right; you need to pay them money just so they can give you a paper saying yes, This dumbass kid paid us 11 lakhs for another paper{degree}

After that, I sent him with documents to the office and told him to be extra careful with that arsehole clerk who just loves making kids run even after they have done nothing wrong. Once he left, I found my classmates with bat and ball, and decided to join them. While the game was still on, Abhishek came to me and told me he had completed document submission. I asked him to join the match, but he was keen on going to the library for something important. I did not force him much since I knew he had 0 interest in anything apart from academics.

Abhishek was the guy our parents use as an example whenever we mess up—almost a saint. Even after being in college and being schooled in Delhi, he was way different than the general crowd. He never showed his liking towards any girls and called them "a distraction to goals and not worthy of his time." He was in race of being the semester topper. He was the kind of guy you would not feel even a bit of jealousy if he talked to your crush. He was the kind of friend that you can trust to go help your wife/GF if you are out of town and there was a emergency.

He went on, and I continued fielding. Few hours later, I reached home...

I was exhausted because I was playing any sports after legit 4 years (due to covid and JEE period). After a bath and chatting with my mother, I went to sleep.

I hear my phone ringing, even though I had no intention of getting out of my cozy sleeping setup, I had to because me receiving a call was rare, it only meant either (i) something is seriously wrong (ii) my service provider is asking me to recharge before expiration date. My body was aching horribly, still I took a look at my screen and saw my college best friend's name on it. As I picked the call the voice gave a clear indication of sobbing, my heart dropped because first thought that came in my mind was that "oh my god, results are announced and we might have fucked up our CG's" but then he said one word, "app!".

Harsh was a rare case having prior very good knowledge of tech. He was one of those very few freshers who had full command on web dev since he started exploring it since a very young age, his latest creation was an app based on a very unique concept. In this app, two random people from college (preferably of opposite gender) would connect anonymously. They can chat with each other, and then they would have the option to (i) either give each other their real identity and continue the talk or (ii) switch and change partners. He was very excited about this and told me and Abhishek to be one of the first few members.

I used the app for a few times but mostly got horny boys who would only ask one question, "Boy or girl?" and as soon as I answered that, boom! Switch. I tried a few times and got irritated by this and just stopped using it altogether.

Coming back to Harsh's call, I asked him to relax and speak up properly. He told me, "You will be so shaken to your core once I tell you what’s happening," and then he switched to video call and showed me his app where he was connected to someone who was saying some very disturbing

things, I told him it's not that serious man why would you wake me up for this.

Then what he said did actually shake my core.

He told me it was Abhishek; I did not take that easy. I told him this is a very bad attempt of prank and would still forgive you for ruining my sleep and playing the dumbest prank of all time if he would apologize but he did not back down, he showed me the backend of the app and yes it indeed was Abhishek.

I was heartbroken and started to feel dizzy, I could never imagine a guy whom I could trust with anything would be this behind his innocent mask. He started with normal sexual talks (even this was shocking for both of us) but things escalated quickly with him going to use of ropes, bondage to things like choking and anal without lubrication (ouch).

I asked Harsh if he(Abhishek) might be joking with you because he might have realized it's you pretending to be a girl, to which Harsh told me It is impossible for him to know that I have locked information, and no users can ever know who they are talking to, and also when he messaged me to confirm whether he was connected to a girl, I told him yes, and he was very intentionally saying all these things. He went on typing for hours, from going to slightly disturbing to absolutely assaulting things.

I told Harsh, "Let's see how blind he has become and find if he would reveal his identity after saying boy do these things to a stranger pretending to be a senior."

So, Harsh created a fake ID pretending to be a girl “Zoya”. we asked him for his personal ID so that they can take things further. He denied and that gave a bit of relief that at least he still has some senses alive.

But with two more tries, that idiot revealed his official Instagram ID on a chat where he was literally confessing his abnormal desires of assault!

We created a fake ID naming ZoyaSlut69 and followed him. He followed.

Back immediately (man was so horny he didn’t even get a fraction of doubt that why would a normal girl have slut and 69 in his name, but then again, he didn’t see girls as normal) and was like, "So now, you have my official ID, please send me some pics." At this point, me and Harsh just had lost our faith in the judgment of a person. How could we be close friends with a person having psychotic traits and not realize even one bit about it? We thought nothing could surprise us anymore but Abhishek still had more to offer.

As he switched partners, unluckily for him (and for us as well) he got another match. He got connected to Harsh's senior, who was a co-developer of the app with Harsh. This time something different happened. Senior (Alok) started normal chat with him and asked him his opinion on relationships and stuff and Abhishek started spilling even more disgusting things.

Our college is just filled with sluts; no need to be attached emotionally to anyone; all the girls are just whores with no seal (we were witnessing an excellent and honestly disgusting example of a person being at their true extreme when they are promised anonymity).

This was "final nail in the coffin." We decided we need to give him a lesson.

I told Harsh to employ his skills and somehow get records of all his messages, which he did after a few hours. Harsh told me he was disgusted and has lost all trust in Abhishek after this, and he might not be able to even consider him a friend again.

I was divided. On one side, I too was a brother, and a bf so was very disgusted on his opinion towards girls, but on the other hand, I realized this might not be his core thinking. This might just be a one-day mistake. He might be regretting this already.

I told Harsh, "Let's just observe how he behaves tomorrow and then take a decision on what to do further."

At college the next day, Abhishek was behaving quite differently. For starters, he was not even sitting with us. Rather, he was sitting with so-called "cool kids." You know, those who believe body count is directly proportional to masculinity, and also there was a different smile on his face—a smile we never saw in all 6 months of knowing him.

A smile of a guy who known he has done something wrong, a guy who is sure of not getting caught for wronging and guy who does not regret the wrongdoing one bit.

We decided to try and talk to him, but he was too busy in his new gang and was showing us attitude of a megastar. He held that unsettling smile for four whole periods until lunch time.

We finally managed to get hold of him and took him to a rather lone spot where there were negligible chances of arrival of any of our classmates. We did this because we knew this was serious.

We started with the question that "what were you doing yesterday man, you were constantly using Harsh's app to go to which he replied "nothing, just trying to meet new people." We then asked him if he met any girl there to which he at first denied but then Harsh rigidly asked him again and he accepted, matching with a senior girl.

We then asked him what were the topics of conversation to which he said just CG-related talks.

I told him, "Come on, you’ve been holding that stupid smile of yours for all day long; the convo must have been a lot more than CGPA."

He loosened a little bit and told, " I only asked if she is a virgin and nothing more."

To which Harsh said, "Bs nobody asks the virgin question and ends the convo."

He gave out more. He told they had sexting, but it was very normal stuff. He was keeping a very poker face and was seeming to get irritated by our interrogation.

Then he started flexing by saying things like, "You need skills for talking to girls! (Yeah, you were talking to 2 guys pretending to be a girl) and calling me ‘a weak man who can’t even talk to a girl!’"

This made me a bit angry, but I knew I am here today to teach him a lesson, not to beat the living crap out of him.

We were now furiously trying to make him at least confess his crime by dropping hints from his convo of yesterday. Very clear hints like:

(i) Did you reveal your Insta?

(ii) Did you mention of weird fantasy?

(iii) Did you ask her to meet?

But this idiot was so lost in lust that even these clear hints were unable to make him understand his act was caught (or maybe it was his ego that made him blind).

Finally, in irritation, he started to abuse and leave but Harsh did not take Abhishek’s abuse of "Go get your mother fuckd!" very well and decided this was the time to reveal it.

He stopped Abhishek and opened a .txt file named “Abhishek'sdestruction.txt” and showed his chat to him.

Abhishek could not believe it; he went...

To all different feelings of grief, denial, playing victim card, and finally breakdown.

We asked him how did he corrupt his mentality to this extent? How could he treat girls like mere sex toys? Or how could he say stuff like, "no need to be attached to any girls, they are just meant to be broken on bed?"

He had no answers to them. He joined his hands to apologize to me, to which I explained, "You don't owe me any apology. Your crime is against your mom, your sister, and your future partners, because once you have the mentality to treat them just as objects, you can never respect them, and without respect, there is no relationship."

Second, I told him, how could you be so much in control of lust that you revealed your real identity? What if it was another boy who could very easily and anonymously sent your borderline insane chats with a girl to authorities? Your whole damn life would have been destroyed.

 He was completely broken down by now. Harsh was being very harsh with him to which I felt I had to stop him now because he was already looking very guilty and weak.

I told him we will not send their chats to anyone but you have to promise me that you will stop all the stupid obviously fake (yes, guys no normal girl gets involved in 5 or 6 some, no normal girl likes choking these are just figments of  very sick imagination mentally ill incels) and if I ever found you doing anything wrong to a girl (online or offline) I will not hesitate to release these chats to the concerned authorities.

As a last-ditch effort to justify his action he said, 'I though since its anonymous it's safe to do this'. I hit my head hard and told him just because you know you won't be caught, it does not mean you should do wrong things, so just because your father is lawyer you don’t have right of driving rashly, just because your uncle is MLA that does not give you right to rape or murder.

He accepted the argument and accepted on agreeing to all conditions.

Harsh however was not in any mood to believe in him again he told him he was more angry with himself than he was with him to have not been able to identify his real face even after being close to him for this long, he was in way more rage than I was because of his past he has always held very high regards for girls as his first love left him and when he fell in love for the second time he was  rejected after making all the efforts he could for 6 months. His experiences made him realize that girls too are just humans like us with real feelings and deserve all the love(he belonged from a very rich and influential family and was popular too but still his love chose her carrier and her parent’s happiness over him and that made him forever be immensely respectful towards girls).He told Abhishek he has lost one friend and honestly even though  I did not say this, I too felt the same. Harsh left the scene.

Wrong exposure to porn and ego of not getting caught made Abhishek loose trust and respect of two people who actually loved and cared for him.

I left too and on the way home on one side even though my heart wrenched by thought of making my friend breakdown completely but on the other side, I had hope that I did the right thing for him. Maybe he will change maybe he will be respectful to girls and then maybe, he might be able to form an actual healthy relationship and win my trust back (I was least confident of the last thing)