Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25322596-20140823212918

I wrote a creepypasta titled "Gallrund", but it didn't meet qulity standards and immediately got deleted. I've tried to improve and I would like everone's input as to what I can now improve.

Here's the revised story:

Gallrund:



It all started on August 31st, 2005.

Hurricane Katrina did a number on my hometown in New Orleans. My friends and I knew we were going to need money if we were to start over. We had no choice but to loot abandoned houses of anything that might’ve had potential value. We started at my house, which didn’t have much, and then we scoured out my friends houses. Then we began looting any place that didn’t look like it was about to collapse on us, all the while we tried to hide from the troops that were cracking down onto people like us. We had to swim our way through the murky waters and sometimes even jump from one house to another. After three days of this we decided to stop before we either got caught or got ourselves killed, but not after checking out an apartment complex which seemed relatively intact. We seemed to have found the jackpot when we found this one room filled to the brim with electronics. We took what we could when I noticed, at the very back of the room, was an old computer which was somehow still on.

It was in sleep mode, and the computer mouse wasn’t working. We decided to take it back to Keith’s brother’s house, which we figured could serve as a temporary new home for us. It wasn’t too far away, and it was completely unaffected be the hurricane, so we figure it was a good bet.



By September 3rd, we made to Keith’s brother’s house. There we cleaned up the computer that we got from the apartment complex and debated on who would keep what stuff that we found during our looting spree. I ended up with the computer, since I was the one who found it and nobody else really cared about it.



A month later I finally got my own place, and as I set everything up, I decide to check and see if the computer was still functional. I plugged it in and got everything all set up, and pressed the power button.



Nothing happened.



“Shit”, I said to myself. “I knew I should’ve gone for the box of jewelry instead.

I figured that a computer as old as this one would have SOME value to a PC enthusiast, but only if it worked. I was just about to leave my room when I heard a noise.



BEEP!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">The computer booted up the moment I set foot outside of my room. Then I noticed something odd about it…

<p class="MsoNormal">It was an Apple II computer, but somehow it managed to run Windows 7 on it perfectly fine. That shouldn’t even be possible!

<p class="MsoNormal">I guess whoever owned it must’ve done some heavy modifications to it. It logged me on as “Lloyd”, who I figured was the original owner of it. When it went to the desktop, I saw something… disturbing.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">There was an open Notepad document in the middle of the screen, that read-

<p class="MsoNormal">“If you ever find this, PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DESTROY THIS DAMNED COMPUTER!”

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">-I suspected it to be a prank at first, and thought nothing of it.

<p class="MsoNormal">When I closed the notepad document, however, I saw the desktop background.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">I almost freaked out! It was a weird, robotic looking skull with weird eyes and a devilish grin, with its head slightly tilted, giving it a demented look. It seemed to have been drawn in MSPaint, which, again, wouldn’t be found on a normal Apple II computer.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">The picture creeped me out, so I decided to change the desktop background to the blank default one. That’s when I got a message-

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">“Are you SURE you want to do this?

<p class="MsoNormal">Y/N”

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">-the way it was written sent chills down my spine, but I clicked no anyway. I figured that this “Lloyd” person intentionally set up this computer to be like this, to mess with anyone who finds it.

<p class="MsoNormal">I had to admit, it did seem REALLY odd, but I decided not to think about it. I noticed there was an Internet Explorer icon, and decided to check it out. It opened up the latest IE Browser. I took it out for a spin and searched the web, and I was surprised on how fast it was. It took less then a second for it to respond to every command. I realized that this computer, while odd, was definitely special.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">If only I knew how “special” it really was.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">I eventually got bored with it and decided to go to bed. That night, I had a strange dream…

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">I was in a dark red room, which was completely empty. There were no doors or windows in there, not even a light. Somehow, it was still illuminated, and in the corner I saw a figure. As I looked closer, I realized it was a human, but… different…

<p class="MsoNormal">His clothes were messed up and stained with sweat, he was white-pale, had messy, overgrown hair, and was VERY thin, almost skeleton like. I tried to say “hello”, to get his attention, but no sound came out. And yet, almost immediately, the person turned around like he heard me, and I saw him face to face. His messy hair covered his eyes, but his mouth was hanging open, almost like zombie. He looked up at me, and there I saw his eyes…

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">They were IDENTICAL to that weird skeleton thing on the computer.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Then I heard a dry moan. He was about to speak. What he said nearly scared me frozen-

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">“…Please, destroy it… before it takes you too…”

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">-then I woke up. I was sweating bullets, breathing heavily and shaking uncontrollably.

<p class="MsoNormal">It was morning.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">BEEP!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">The computer booted itself up, even though I turned it off last night. “Weird”, I thought to myself, “Did it just turn itself on, but…”, then I froze. “What if someone ELSE turned it on?”

<p class="MsoNormal">I began to panic. Someone might’ve broken into my house. I checked the doors and windows, and they were locked, just like before. Then it hit me:

<p class="MsoNormal">Someone is hacking this computer! I went to the computer, which finished booting up, when I notice something:

<p class="MsoNormal">The log-in changed from “Lloyd” to “Jarod”. “What the hell?” I said to myself, “It knows my NAME?!”

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">I logged in and was hit with another surprise: The desktop background changed back to that weird skeleton thing.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Then I was hit with yet ANOTHER surprise: In the tabs section, there was a Notepad document titled, “To Jarod…”

<p class="MsoNormal">I opened it and I got a bunch of binary code:

<p class="MsoNormal">“01001001 00100111 01101101 00100000 01001110 01001111 01010100 00100000 01101100 01100101 01100001 01110110 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01110011 01100011 01110010 01100101 01100101 01101110 00100001”

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">I went online and found a free online translator, and when I put the message in it, it translated it to-

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">“I’m NOT leaving your screen!”

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">-at this point, I was about to call the cops, but then I got an idea: Write a notepad document asking who ever is doing this to the computer to stop, and title it “To whoever is messing with my computer…”

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">The instant I saved it, I heard it again-

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">BEEP!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">-And the message typed out immediately changed into “To Jarod” and inside of it was another set of binary code, which translated to-

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">“I am Gallrund, and I control this computer.”

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">“Oh really?” I said to myself. I decided to the Control Panel and search for any program named “Gallrund”, and I got two results:

<p class="MsoNormal">A bitmap image of the creepy skeleton thing on the desktop background.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">And a program file titled “GALLRUND”.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">I clicked on “GALLRUND” and pressed the delete option, which in turn gave me a message:

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">“Are you SURE you want to do this?

<p class="MsoNormal">Y/N”

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">I clicked yes, and then, all of the sudden, the screen shut off. A few seconds later, the computer started to emit an awful wringing noise. It steadily got louder, and louder, and LOUDER, until finally, I blacked out.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Next thing I know, I’m in the Psychiatric Hospital with my wrists bandaged and in hospice care. Apparently, I tried to kill myself by slitting my wrists, but managed to survive and called 911. I didn’t remember the last part, but I decided not to mention it, nor did I mention what was going on with my computer. A week later I was released from the hospital and the first thing I did was check the computer.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">When I logged in, I saw a Notepad document titled “I warned you”

<p class="MsoNormal">I opened it up and, once again, it was in binary. Upon translation, it read-

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">“I warned you Jarod. Remember, I can do whatever I want with you.”

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">I typed in a message for “Gallrund”, asking it what it wanted from me. Sure enough, the computer beeped and the message changed from “WTF DO YOU WANT?!” to “For Jarod”, and its translation said-

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">“I just want to have some fun. By the way, have you seen Lloyd?”

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">I typed in another message, asking it who Lloyd was, and I got a chilling response:

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">“Lloyd was… fun, until the end.”

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">It all made sense. This “Gallrund” thing is a sadistic computer program that’s self aware and tortures whoever uses its computer, and Lloyd was his last victim. Lloyd may very well have been that person that I saw in my dream, and the one who left the warning message, telling me to get rid of this computer, which is inhabited by Gallrund.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">So I decided to do something stupid…

<p class="MsoNormal">I went onto MSPaint and opened up “Gallrund.bmp” and decided to edit it.

<p class="MsoNormal">Bad idea…

<p class="MsoNormal">The moment I used the paintbrush tool on the picture, I felt a burning sensation on my face. It was so sudden that I got startled and the mouse slipped, painting onto Gallrund’s face, which in turn peeled the skin off of mine in the exact same manner.

<p class="MsoNormal">I immediately exited out of paint, and when asked whether or not I wanted to save the changes I made to Gallrund’s face. As soon as I selected “No”, my face stopped hurting.

<p class="MsoNormal">My face immediately reverted back to normal, with no scars left behind. Then I got another message from Gallrund, which translated as-

<p class="MsoNormal">“Now that was fun.”

<p class="MsoNormal">That’s when I got an idea.

<p class="MsoNormal">If I could make the public aware of this thing, then someone who may also have known about Gallrund could help me.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Unfortunately, Gallrund would probably kill me if I tried, so I decided to try and trick him.

<p class="MsoNormal">I sent him a message asking if I could go to my friends’ houses and have them come over to mine and have some “fun” with him.

<p class="MsoNormal">He fell for it, and as soon as I got to one of my friend’s places, I immediately went onto their computer so I could type a message.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">This message. Please, if anyone is out there who knows about Gallrund, please, help me.

<p class="MsoNormal">I need to get rid of him as soon as possibERROR

<p class="MsoNormal">01010100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100111 01110011 00100000 01100101 01101110 01101111 01110101 01100111 01101000 00101110 00100000 01010100 01101111 00100000 01110111 01101000 01101111 01101101 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01100100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00101100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100111 01110110 01100101 00100000 01101010 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01110011 01100101 01100101 01101110 00100000 01001010 01100001 01110010 01101111 01100100 00100111 01110011 00100000 01100100 01100101 01100001 01110100 01101000 00100000 01100011 01100101 01110010 01110100 01101001 01100110 01101001 01100011 01100001 01110100 01100101 00101110 00101110 00101110 01010100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110011 01110100 01101111 01110010 01111001 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110111 00100000 01100010 01100101 01101100 01101111 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01001001 00100000 01110000 01110010 01100101 01100110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100010 01100101 00111010 00100000 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101 00101110

<p class="MsoNormal">Sorry if I'm doing this wrong, I'm pretty new here to this site's rule format and stuff. <ac_metadata title="Any way I can make my story acceptable to quality standards?"> </ac_metadata>