Retributors

Some time ago, there was a picture surfacing on the internet. It came with a text file and a video. The picture was called "Cold.png," the video was called "Gaze.mov," and the text document was called "Initialize.txt."

The three files had a list of different things they did to the viewer, each separate of the other.

Cold.png was an image of Perch Creek's sewer system overlaid on a map of Perch Creek. Overlaid over this was an image of Ichor Forest and a picture of an old man with very tired eyes.

The eyes, as people claim, look into the viewer's soul. Bowel problems, as well as Nausea, have been reported. Opening the file freezes your pointer and, after fifteen minutes, the computer the file was opened on crashes.

Gaze.mov is said to be a video of a sleeping baby in a crib. After ten minutes of this, distortions begin to occur. The final three minutes of the video are of a woman with an abnormally long neck brushing her hair. Something is wrong with this woman, but the cause cannot be placed... besides her neck, that is.

The video is not inherently bad for your heath. However, viewing it causes others around you to be disturbed by you. This will cause psychosis in you because, after all, humans are social creatures.

Initialize.txt was by far the worst. It was actually an executable file in disguise. Executing this file would download a torrent of viruses that would wipe most of your information and crash your computer. The motherboard itself would be corrupted beyond repair of even the most talented hackers.

This 'txt' file, however, did open a text document. The only thing written there was eleven words that explain what exactly the Piche is. This is fabled to be what the teenage Andrea Cole wrote on a note before killing herself.

Andrea's picture - the picture of the Piche - has been unrecoverable, but that is a different story completely.

Regardless, there was a group of ten hackers that called themselves the Retributors. They mostly plagued forums about Perch Creek and how "God wants his retribution." Even those who believed in the Piche knew these guys were spewing bullshit.

However, one of them started acting really weird. As it turns out, he had gotten his hands on the first of the three files: Cold.png. He delivered it to the rest of the Retributors and they looked at it to check up on it.

None of them dared open it on their own computers. Instead, they pulled the file up on a separate computer that promptly crashed not long after. After a week of nausea, they came back together and sold all their laptops and bought a $25,000 supercomputer.

This computer was used to hack into Cold.png. The hackers noticed something fishy in the binary, however.

They removed the code and copy/pasted it into another document, assuming this was the cause for the computer crashing every time it was opened. They didn't open the picture, though. They were too smart for that.

A day later, they opened up the binary to check again and found that it had rewritten itself. The hackers made sure to copy this to a paper document and left it at one of the members' houses.

There were no more leads for almost another month. Then, out of the blue, the group received Graze.mov from an anonymous user by email.

They didn't dare open this file, either. They simply opened the binary and traced every character until they found a list of numbers that didn't quite fit. It was the same for Initialize.txt. They pulled these numbers into a new program and began working on it.

They locked themselves into their leader's house and took turns working on solving the program for two months. After that, the numbers finally set out to a pattern. It was miraculous - so much so they finally left the house for one day.

They had breakfast and came back to the house, only to see a note one of them wrote on their door, scribbled out with an arrow indicating to turn the paper around. On the back was written BreakaSweat.mov.

When they ran the numbers, it produced a similar file they named BreakaSweat.mov. It was comprised of 55 binary digits, mostly 0s, in a demented loop. As it was with the files before, they didn't dare open it.

They put the file onto a flash drive and chose one member to watch the movie and record himself so the rest of the team could see what happens and promptly discuss what to do. The member was chose and he set up the video camera and turned on the movie.

The sound became distorted as soon as the movie opened, but the member didn't have any emotion for almost three minutes (about the length of the video).

Once it was over, the member stood up. Screaming could be heard in the background. After some time, the member sat back down. Both his eyes had needles plunged into them. He took a screwdriver and stabbed himself in the neck. The video was sent to the leader.

They all realized they couldn't watch the video. They let it rest and returned to their "God is angry" ways. One member, however, started his own project. He said he was going to watch the video and hand write everything he could about it.

The note was sloppy, at best. It won't be transcribed here, since it didn't make much sense. However, there were a few key things that should be mentioned. The video began at Ichor Forest's edge and ended at the tower. Between the two places were direct views of the Piche; it was almost as if it was looking back at you.

The member stopped the video before it ended and wrote one last thing: eleven words that struck horror into the rest of the hackers, who immediately disbanded, erased all files related to all of their work, and rebuilt their laptops. Those words were some of the most horrific words to a few members who strongly believed in the Piche.

The words?

Anything that takes the form of the Piche becomes the Piche.

So, remember as you read this. This speaks of the Piche. It takes the form of the spirit of the Piche and anything that takes the form of the Piche is the Piche.

(This story is credited to a person called Guiv.)