Ground Control To Major Thorne

If you are a millennial, some of the most formative years of your life on the internet were likely spent in chat rooms and forums. This also means you probably made a whole lot of online friends who, one day, simply stopped logging on. I often wonder about them. Every now and then, I’ll see a familiar handle on social media and wonder if it’s the same person from back in the day. Usually, it isn’t. Finding an old internet friend is like looking for a needle—not just in a haystack, but in a barn full of them.

So imagine my surprise when the name Elias Thorne recently started showing up everywhere. I remember that name from all the way back in 2004.

One of the earliest forums I was part of was filled with people talking about the colour of sand, the flora and fauna in the inter-tidal zones, and lighthouses. One of the top contributors on the forum was Elias Thorne. He lived in a small beachside town and spent most of his time with his father in the lighthouse his family had maintained for generations. He would share photos of the ships he saw from the top of the tower, and he even pinned a highly detailed table listing the specifications of all those ships. As someone who grew up in a very landlocked city, his breathtaking visuals completely captivated me. A part of me desperately wanted to live near the beach where I could easily look out at the ocean. Honestly, that early obsession might have played a part when I eventually applied for my PhD in Bombay.

I spent a lot of time on that forum over the next two years. While the membership was in a constant state of flux, Elias was always around. But around the two-year mark, something weird happened.

Like I said, you never really know when an online friend is logging on for the last time, so maybe “weird” isn’t the right word—but for over a week, Elias hadn’t made a single post. I started a new thread to point this out. Within an hour, it had hundreds of replies. People wondered where he went, and a few nerdy sleuths tried to figure out his real-world location based on his ship logs. The next week was absolute madness—and, honestly, pretty exciting, like a real-life mystery.

But all the time people spent trying to figure out what happened to him was in vain. On the sixth day after I made my post, a massive chunk of the forum simply vanished. Every single post Elias had ever made, and every thread mentioning him, was completely gone. If anyone tried to start a new thread about it, it would get deleted within an hour. Within two weeks, the entire forum went dark.

I’ve often wondered about this. Back in the day, when I used to write short stories, I would make Elias the main character and build mysteries around him. So imagine my shock when, over the last year, the internet suddenly filled up with his exploits!

Was it the same guy? Was someone else using his name? Or had he been using someone else’s name all along?

It’s an answer I’ll probably never find. But hey, Elias—if you were indeed that member of DeepSeaCodex and you’re reading this, please don’t get this post deleted. Maybe just leave a comment instead.

p.s. This post is a work of fiction, mostly a jab at LLMs using Elias Thorne in all the genAI stories—read more here.

Publications

Since my last post, a few of my stories have been published. You can read them here:

1. The Leviathan’s Mercy was published by The Berlin Literary Review (Nov 2025)
2. Break in the Routine was published by Effy: A Literary Art Magazine (Mar 2026)
3. The Digital Familiar was published by Brown Hound Press (Apr 2026)
4. The Visible Burden of Invisibility was published by Twisted Tongue Press (Apr 2026)
5. The Weaver’s Thicket was published by HEXFILED (May 2026)
6. A Gnawing Silence of my Sleep Demon was published by Novels & Nightmares (Jun 2026)

I’ve also gotten acceptance for multiple Anthologies this year, and I have a post on my Patreon with details on how to order them, or even back some of the projects!.

You should follow my Patreon for regular updates, and new stories straight in your inbox.

Support Me

If you’d like to pick up The Forgotten Alley e-book, you can check Amazon or any other store that you prefer. You can also support me on Ko-Fi. Check out Darkroom with new photo prints, INPRNT for art prints, and RedBubble for more art merch options. Want to commission me to design movie posters, or write stories that you can gift someone? Just drop me a mail. Every bit helps me make rent and cover utilities for next month.

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