A dead vintage computer to be specific, but in order for you (whomever reads this) to understand, I need to go back in time a little bit so you understand how I found it.
I was driving to my friend Simon, he lives quite far away and he was having computer problems. You see when you have a passion or even a hobby that even relates to computers (I restore vintage computers as a hobby) , you automatically become the free tech support for all the friends and family. And I honestly didn’t mind, I love fixing problems, it’s what I’m best at… but I don’t think I can fix this…
You see, on that drive I made a discovery, on the side of the road someone had just decided to dump a Commodore 64, it wasn’t even that badly yellowed, so I thought “sweet a free computer, I’ll take that”..
Anyway so I threw it in the trunk of my car and went on my way to help my friend, it was a pretty easy fix so we had time to catch up over a few beers, I stayed the night and went home the following morning, and I had completely forgotten about the computer. I think a week passed before I needed to open my trunk again and was quickly reminded of it and brought it back in to my repair table.
Foolishly in my excitement I just threw in a power adapter and tried turning it on, which immediately sparked and filled the room with smoke, “capacitors, it’s always capacitors” I thought as I muttered to myself how stupid I was over that mistake. I opened it up and to my utter surprise I was right, but for the wrong reason, someone had put a nail in the main 5 volt capacitor!
Another thing I noticed was that the basic Roms had been replaced by a brand I didn’t recognize, but that happens from time to time, so I replaced the capacitor with a working one and started it up, what I saw on the screen was something I definitely didn’t expect to see..
Everything was flashing for a moment, cycling through all kinds of colors, until it suddenly stopped and there was a text editor open, a really early one, and there was a bunch of text, it almost looked like….. no, no it did look like a diary, I started reading and just couldn’t stop.
———————————————————————- May, 3rd, 1996
I’ve decided to write this on an obsolete piece of junk as a precaution, I have discovered some code in an abandoned Atari factory, I won’t tell you how I obtained it, but I decided that it’s probably best to log everything about it.
Ran the code, just seems like a test pattern program, was pretty disappointed, I was hoping for something more, all that happened was some colors cycled through on the screen and then the computer turned off.
May, 5th, 1996
I’ve been getting some weird thoughts lately, very disturbing thoughts actually, maybe it’s that new horror movie I watched or maybe it has something to do with this code that I ran. Either way I thought it’d be a good idea to put it here in this log.
I went back to the place where I found the code to see if I could find any documents or anything that could give me a hint as to who wrote this, or why, or to what purpose, the more I think of it, the less sense it makes. And I ended up not finding anything more, But every time I think of the code my head starts hurting, so far I’ve been able to numb it with a shot or two of whisky, it’s also getting harder to focus on my everyday tasks, it almost feels like my thoughts are being scattered, fragmented and obsessed with something that I can’t quite put my finger on.
May, 9th? Or 11th?, 1996
I’ve been starting to loose track of the days, my thoughts are more and more scattered, I went to the hospital to see if they could help me, they said they couldn’t find anything wrong with me, fuck.. just writing this takes a lot of effort.
I went down to my basement to get another bottle of whiskey, felt a really sharp pain in my neck and next thing I know, I’m sitting here and writing this.. I’m going to try again and see if I can remember something more..
It’s May, 8th you idiot.
5 8 13 3 7 4 17
WHAT!? I didn’t write that !!
May, ….. you know what… I don’t know anymore, I’ve been freaking out because I keep ending up here typing, what’s worse is…. I think I’ve killed someone… it started smelling really bad, like iron and rot, I tried finding out where it came from, it seemed like it came from the basement so I went down there to check it out, what I saw down there almost made whatever I have in my stomach jump right out again.
I saw one of the nurses from the hospital laying out on a toolbox tied down with zip ties, she had something sticking out of her eye and her back was split open skin folded over her sides, blood and guts absolutely everywhere.. how have I not seen this before! What’s worse is that she still seemed to be breathing!
I don’t know what the hell has happened to my brain, but some part of me felt a bit excited to see this, but the rest of me, the part that is still me I think, turned around too quickly and fell, I hit my head on something hard, and now I’m back here again… was that a nightmare or was that really happening ?! I don’t know anymore, I feel so confused.
The smell has disappeared, and it seems like I can’t do anything but sit here and type, I tried going out the front door but something won’t let me, every time I try to force my hand onto the door handle, I can’t get any further, it stops me, it feels like it’s taking over my thoughts, PLEASE HELP ME!
Hah, stupid human, you have no idea how much pain and suffering I put her through, she deserved it though, I made her feel every single bit of that amazing feeling you call pain, I just granted her the ability to feel it, more and more and more, until she has completely given up all hope, her pain won’t stop till she regrets every single word she said to you.. she knows… she has the secret.. you will find it… she is lying to you, do not believe a single word she says, she is not real.
——————————————————————-
The computer suddenly powered off without any hint of what was wrong this time, I just barely had time to copy all that over to here, I feel like there is way more to be found here, I’ll report back when I got the machine running again.