Computers Have It All

Author's note: Hi. I am a 12 year old 7th grade student who wrote this as an alternative assignment to get out of some other work (haha). So enjoy!

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It’s been a hard day.

15-year-old Neil Burchard was coming home from working as a fry cook. He’d only been there a day, and he hated it already. His boss was strict, his co-workers were playing jokes on him and already, he’d burnt himself on the fry vat.

Walking home from his grueling job, he noticed something on the sidewalk about ten feet in front of him.

Hey, what’s this?

An old computer tower, double-bagged with clear garbage bags and marked "DO NOT OPEN” sat in front of a dumpster. Neil’s curiosity took over. His heart raced. He was excited to uncover any old documents that the previous owner left behind.

What could be on here?

Excited, he heaved it up with all his might and carried back to his house. When he entered the door, his mother looked at him funny. "Where did you get that, Neil? Put that down, where did you get that?”

"Mom, don’t worry about it! It’s just an old Dell Dimension machine. I’m going to take it to my room and try to get it to work.”

"Okay, but be careful. There was a strange guy around here carrying that same bag asking if we would take it. Who knows what’s on that computer.”

Neil took the tower up to his room and hooked it up to an old monitor he’d found in the basement. He didn’t even have to turn it on. When he plugged it in, fans started whirring, lights were blinking and the old Windows 95 start screen showed up on the screen.

Wow! This computer is older than me! This is amazing!

But the computer was being really strange. The computer’s date was December 21, 2012 and the real date wasn’t even close. It wasn’t December, it wasn’t the 21st, and it definitely wasn’t 2012. The time wouldn’t tick past midnight. The computer’s background was pure black, even darker than black itself. It seemed to be an abyss.

Something is very wrong here.

There were three folders on the desktop. They all had no name. Each folder contained three video clips, none of them the same as the last. All of the video were of a baby in a stroller, but all had completely different premises.

That’s odd.

Neil hooked the strange computer up to the internet and started to browse. On every site he went on, the same sentence would appear:

"You will be sorry that you found my machine". This shocked him, wondering if he shouldn’t have hooked up the computer.

The instant he closed out of the internet, his cell phone got a text message.

"Where is my computer? Where is my computer? Where?"

Neil was getting scared. He looked around him. He thought he saw something in the mirror. He did a double take, saw nothing, and brushed it off as being his imagination.

He walked outside to clear his head. He decided he would walk to the spot where he found the tower. He found a note taped to the dumpster. It was dated Neil’s birthday, January 23, 1996.

"Dear Linda Burchard,

A new soul has come into the world today. Baby Neil, how sweet. I am writing something in dedication of your little newborn. I’m sure he will like it. I’m also sure many people that aren’t your little Neil will find my program, but the people who aren’t Neil will be affected differently, scaring them for life and making sure they don’t across it again.

Yours truly,

Michael Souther"

Neil now felt very scared. What would happen to him if he continued using the computer? Would somebody come and take him from his home and into the computer?

Neil, tell yourself to stop thinking silly.

Neil walked back to his house and saw the all three folders were open, his television was on and was playing clips of extremely devastating computer viruses in action, and his cell phone was going haywire, with over five hundred text messages. Knowing that texting was free on his plan, he read five of them. They all said:

I am the brainchild of Michael Souther’s years and years of training to be a computer technician. Every nerd, geek or dork has dreams of writing something like me, and it’s the computer that does the rest.

The television switched to the screen of the computer. Slowly, the mouse pointer dragged itself around, and then the computer shut down.

He decided he’d had enough. It was 11:30 already and he needed to get to bed. He unplugged the computer and went to sleep. He counted sheep and finally nodded off.

The next day at work the thought of he computer started to take over his life. He drew a monitor on a customer’s burger in ketchup. Quickly he got rid of it with the bun and apologized.

This was too much for him. He told his boss what was going on.

"Boss, I’m having daydreams about this weird, haunted computer I found on the street.”

"Neil, don’t talk to me about that. I found it once too. Double bagged, ‘do not open’, the works. You may want to get rid of it.”

Neil went home and laid in bed, finally going to sleep.

He woke up to the computer screen glowing blood red. He pressed the power button on the computer. Nothing. He looked and everything was still unplugged. This was torture. He asked out loud, "Why me?” No answer. He ripped the connections out of the computer, double bagged it, and wrote "DO NOT OPEN” on it. He remembered the note.

I’m sure too many people that aren’t your little Neil will find my program, but the people who aren’t Neil will affected differently, scarring them for life and making sure they don’t across it again.

It wasn’t true. The program had a bug and affected him badly for life. He wouldn’t ever forget it. He kept walking down Main Street and took a right onto East Grand Avenue toward the big cliff. Before he could make it, he stumbled upon a house that caught his eye. The mailbox was the only "Souther” in town. He knocked on the door.

"What do you w—Neil? Neil! What happened?”

"Mr. Souther, how do you know me?”

"Your mother was a friend of mine and you just happened to catch my eye.”

"Well your little program didn’t work. It scared me.”

"Oh goodness! Come in. Come in. I have the only known antidote.”

Neil slammed the door in his face. He couldn’t take anymore of this. He kept going toward the cliff and plunged off it’s rocky ledge. It felt endless. But an unknown force swept him out of the air and back to land. He saw the monitor, glowing a cheerful combination of dandelion yellow and sky blue. It chirped in a computerized voice: "Don’t fear me....”

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Credited to Robotkat 

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