In 1994, I met my best friend named Derek. One day at school, I was running around during recess and noticed a kid playing by himself. I introduced myself to him, to which he replied with, "Hi, I'm Derek." This began a near 10-year friendship. We were both in the same grade but in different classes, so during school we only saw each other at recess and lunch. We hung out after school all the time, alternating between each other's houses. It was a very brotherly friendship, where we'd do nearly everything together, including inviting the other on respective family vacations. We were truly attached to the hip.

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Derek was a very interesting kid. To best describe him, he was very emotionless, wide-eyed and forthcoming. If he were upset with you, he would let you know, in a very not-so-nice way. He didn't fear offending anyone, so anyone he disliked knew of his distaste for them. He also rarely laughed, smiled or expressed joy. He facial expression 99.9% of the time was blank, sort of like a "poker face". He also had very unusual interests for a kid, like psychology and anatomy. At random times he would do things like stick his finger in his throat and then say, "Just testing my gag reflex!" On days when he was moody, he would make bizarre exclamations like, "My dopamine and serotonin levels are wonky." All of this from a kid!

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His hobbies were even more bizarre. One of the things he loved doing was sneaking out of the house at night and spying on homeless encampments in the woods. Some nights he would take me with him and have me look through binoculars at homeless people partaking in various drug-induced activities. It was terrifying for me as I knew we were in great danger if we got caught but Derek was absolutely fearless. He never brought a weapon for self-defense -- the thought of being spotted and/or attacked never seemed to faze him. Another activity he partook in was going up to random strangers and saying morbid, disturbing things to them, just to see their reactions. I'll never forget the time he went up to an elderly couple and told them that his dad was a Vietnam veteran who has a collection of scalps of various Vietcong soldiers he had killed. To say that the couple's reaction was one of stunned shock is an understatement. These are things he would do on the regular.

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As he reached his teenaged years, he started getting into creative writing. He would write very layered, detailed stories of very horrific, morbid and macabre incidents. His main thing was writing stories from the perspective of serial criminals. The main characters would never kill anyone, but would commit brutal acts of violence, mostly of sexual nature, and they would never get caught. In the early 2000s, he discovered a newsgroup system called "Usenet". There he would frequent various weird fetish newsgroups and post his stories under the username "inquisitive_flea," to huge adulation from the fetishists. He got so popular on these newsgroups that people would offer him money to write "custom stories". Ultimately, he would end up getting envelopes of cash sent to his dad's PO box. He told his parents they were sent specifically for a school-related charity that he advertised on the internet, and they believed him!

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Writing these very disturbing stories occupied a lot of his time. I would hang out at his place playing his Nintendo 64 and he'd be on his computer typing away like a madman. He would randomly read out some of his stories to me, asking if I thought it sounded good. I would always tell him that it didn't, and that it was beyond creepy. I think he took those comments from me as affirmation. Sometimes he would call me over to his computer and have me read some of the emails these creepy fetishists would send him, including all of their wants in their custom stories. They were so nasty that at times I was on the verge of vomiting. Being a teenager at the time, I was completely ignorant to the potential ramifications of Derek's actions. I just thought he was "unique" and would eventually grow out of it.

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By the time we hit 16 years of age, we almost simultaneously expressed interest in dating. Derek was a very handsome, well-kempt guy, whereas I was the complete opposite. Though what I lacked in looks I made up for in personality. I loved imitating my favorite old Hollywood actors like Jimmy Stewart, Marlon Brando and Vincent Price. Derek, as mentioned earlier, had very little personality. When it came to looking for girls to date, I often had to speak for him. Hooking him up was easy, though, as most girls found him to be cute. We eventually hooked up with a pair of sisters. These girls were very normal, yuppie-type people. The girl I dated was named Donna and her year-older sister, Paula, dated Derek. These girls were as close to each other as Derek and I were -- attached to the hip and dependent on one another for emotional support. All four of us would often go on double dates, and they were fun, despite Derek's awkwardness. I told him *not* to mention his peculiar hobbies, and try to express some level of interest in Paula's pastimes. He did as well as he could.

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Derek would grow particularly fond of Paula, to the point where he would hang out with her instead of me most of the time. Me and Donna's relationship moved from one of romance to friendship -- we broke up about a month after dating but remained close. I would ask Donna about Paula and Derek's relationship all the time, and things seemed to be going well. Paula seemed very content with Derek and didn't express any fear or concern about him for several months. I would call Derek on the phone, but often times he was away with Paula or busy typing up his stories on his computer. I would go over to his house but he clearly wasn't interested in hanging out for extended periods of time. It was upsetting but I understood and was accepting of it, given that Paula was his first real girlfriend and Derek in his hormone-fueled state of mind was infatuated with her.

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After about 6 months, things started changing. Donna called me up and told me Paula found a folder of very explicit fetish pornography in Derek's possession. I tried with all my might to make excuses for him by saying he printed those for the sole intention of creeping me out as a prank. Later that day, I called Derek and berated him on the phone. He told me those were mailed to him by one of his clients as -- and this is how he put it -- "inspirational material". I told him Paula was very unsettled by this but he promised me he would do better. The complete opposite would happen, as according to Donna, Derek and Paula started getting intimate. This is where things truly went off the tracks.

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Everything seemed to go normally at first, but then Derek started expressing interest in acting out some bizarre fantasies. I should note that despite Derek's weirdness, he was never violent. In fact, the only time I ever saw him get physical with anyone was when some kid in our class was messing with a grasshopper -- Derek grabbed the grasshopper from the kid's hand and let it loose. I do not want to go into detail as to the extent of Derek's fantasies, but let's just say they were very deviant and violent in nature... very similar to the things he would write about in his stories. Paula rejected Derek's requests, to which Derek would not get angry, but express disappointment. One night I get a call from Derek. He asked me what I thought would happen to him if he was caught putting a roofie in someone's drink. I told him sternly and angrily that whatever he was planning on doing, he should forget about immediately. He told me he wasn't planning on doing anything, but trying to make his stories more realistic. I didn't believe him, but what was I to do besides tell him not to do anything nefarious?

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It all came to an abrupt end one day. Paula was a soccer and field hockey player, and so she would occasionally suffer minor cuts and scratches. While Derek was out getting food for Paula and Donna, both girls noticed he had left his fanny back behind. Paula opened the fanny pack and noticed a baggy full of her used, bloodied bandages and -- oh jeez -- sanitary pads. Also in the pack was a bottle of prescription-strength sleeping pills. Donna immediately called me and told me what had happened. Derek returned to their house with two bags of Arby's but they locked him out. I got in my mom's car and immediately drove to their house and confronted Derek. Derek got in my car and we had a long chat. He told me in thorough detail that for as long as he remembered, he had had fantasies of consuming blood and human flesh. He knew it was abnormal and perverse so he kept it hidden and bottled inside. He said he never wanted to act upon his urges until now, and he planned on drugging Paula and cutting off bits of her skin to consume. He satisfied his blood urge by collecting her bloodied bandages and you-know-what's, and occasionally consuming them.

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Needless to say, I told Paula everything, to which she immediately broke off the relationship. I ended up going to Derek's house whilst he was away and having a long, detailed discussion with his mother. She took away his computer, ransacked his room and removed all traces of pornography. She had him institutionalized and he spent months in a mental facility. Derek knew full well that I was responsible for informing his parents and ever since then I haven't heard a word from him. Like, he didn't even bitterly tell me off -- he just stopped speaking to me altogether. That was in 2004 and now we are both in our mid-30s. Derek has very little social media presence, and I never once tried to reconcile with him. I am still very friendly with Donna and Paula, though, and we often reminisce of Derek and theorize what would have become of him had he not been institutionalized.

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Recently a friend of mine who has a very morbid curiosity came across a cannibalism fetish story. He sent it to me and I recognized the writing style almost immediately. What I also recognized was the username of the writer: it was "inquisitive_flea".