SpeciesDropper.exe

December 12th, 2011

My name is Melinda [removed], and I’d like to share a strange event with you.

Now, I have a pretty nice laptop. It’s an HP Pavilion running Windows 7 (and it’s much better than my now-dead old Vaio laptop that sounded like a motorcycle and shut off randomly, but that’s a different story). Naturally, I must have a good antivirus on it; my choice is Kaspersky.

Kaspersky is a pretty good program, I’ve found, though sometimes it’s oversensitive and labels non-threatening programs as threatening, so I’ve come to ignore it unless it gives me an ‘urgent’ message, or tells me I have a Trojan… I’ve had some bad, bad, experiences with Trojan viruses; twice, I’ve had to restart my computer from factory condition. But never anything like this.

I was roaming Wikipedia. Specifically, I was satisfying my curiosity on the range of the tufted titmouse, because I had seen some in the front yard, which was a strange event here. I noticed that my computer began to lag, which was very unusual for it. I silently prayed to whatever deity is out there that my computer was not already reaching the end of its life.

… And up popped Kaspersky in the lower right corner! It told me I had a Trojan. Drat!

I used the ‘disinfect and reboot’ option.

Well, it seemed to work fine at first. It took and ‘disinfected’ the Trojan virus—which was called ‘SpeciesDropper.exe.’ It took a lot more time than the ‘estimated time’ was, but it still wasn’t that long. I had left it for a moment because it said it had less than a minute left in time but had already been going for two minutes since the time it said that, but I came back about five minutes later and it was finished.

Except, well, there was an error on the screen that had a bunch of jumbled up letters and signs, with ***METAZOA*** (in all caps like that and with the surrounding asterisks) among them.

Honestly, I was a little peeved: the disinfect scan didn’t take that long, but it was still a waste of precious time if it didn’t work, which I didn’t know, it might’ve not. I take my important classes on the internet, I don’t need some virus to stop me!

I force-shut it down, and started it back up. I immediately noticed some strange things.

Firstly, my desktop picture was missing.

Secondly, the color of the bar at the bottom of the screen had changed from my lovely blue color to a sort of silver.

Third… what is that thing with all my desktop files?

SpeciesDropper.exe

Huh. I knew I shouldn’t open it, but curiosity overcame me. It had already survived a Kaspersky scan anyway—so if that was any sign, yes, my laptop was screwed no matter what.

It actually took a few tries to open it. I’d click, and it would do nothing. Double-click, wait a minute, nothing happens yet. Only the third time I tried did it come up.

It was a program held in a window with a minimize button and an exit button, but both were grayed out at the moment. Its opening sequence was a simple ‘Loading…’ text in Arial on a gray background with a green loading bar showing its loading progress.

Once it had finished that, it brought me to a screen where it said:

SPECIES DROPPER EXPERIMENT

S.N. 482

(NEXT>)

What the heck was that supposed to mean? I clicked the ‘next’ button. The next thing was some strange thing that sort of resembled a file picker, but they weren’t my computer files, oh no. I quickly recognized all the names. The mother file was ‘METAZOA.’ The files beneath were as follows:

ANNELIDA

ARTHROPODA

BRYOZOA

CHORDATA

CNIDARIA

ECHINODERMATA

MOLLUSCA

NEMATODA

PLATYHELMINTHES

PORIFERA

The…. Main groups of the animal kingdom?

Being a bit of a dork, I navigated through with no real aim, but I knew where I was going. ‘Chordata’ to ‘Reptilia’ to ‘Crocodylomorpha’ to ‘Crocodylidae’ to ‘Crocodylinae’ to ‘Crocodylus’ and finally to my Crocodylus niloticus.

I’m a big reptile-lover, particularly a crocodile fan, so I figured I’d just use my favorite animal to see what this program did.

I clicked on the ‘USE’ button (it was the only one there) and just about jumped out of my chair. This awful frequency from the computer filled my ears; I can only describe it as sounding similar to a half-a-millisecond-long clip of a Therizinosaurus grating its claws on a blackboard while stepping on a screeching cat, played over again so it’s one, long, single-toned, sound.

It was awful, so I tried to press the mute button on my keyboard, but it didn’t register until about five seconds later… at which point the sound was finished.

My head throbbed. My fingers quivered. My mouth hung open slightly. All of my muscles were tense.

On the screen, it said

PHASE SUCCESS.

DETECTED

FINISHING PROCESS

I’m pretty sure I thought something like ‘Oh, oh Lord no, no more sounds!’ and tried to exit out of it, or at least minimize it—but those buttons were still grayed out. There was nothing I could do. The screen brightness adjusted itself for a moment without my doing anything, and all I remember is then seeing black for a few moments.

Alright. I was alone in the house, being attacked by some computer-controlling virus, and I had just possibly had a blackout. Such a comforting atmosphere.

Well, anyway, when my mother got home… I didn’t consult with her anyway. I have never really trusted her.

I went on with my normal life.

December 29th update

Christmas was nice. Yes, yes, I’m doing well, all that pointless stuff. Yes, yes, I got nice presents. A few expensive necklaces in ancient Egyptian and ancient Roman styles, in particular. You should be jealous.

But that’s not the reason for the update, obviously. I’m updating to say I feel like I’m being watched. Constantly. I’ve always been paranoid (that doesn’t make me weak, don’t you dare say a thing like that!), but now I feel like wherever I go, someone’s standing there behind me watching me do my daily tasks.

In other words, I’ve been having digestion problems since the last issue, and I also don’t resist the cold anymore, but it could be coincidence. Whatever. I’m still not telling anyone.

January 4th update

More weird things have happened. I think I have a disease. The (very small, dangit!) amount of hair on my breasts and loin have thinned out noticeably and I’m starting to develop a rash there. It doesn’t itch or hurt or anything, but it’s still there.

Still not enough to tell anyone.

And I’m thinking it was a coincidence, with the computer virus. By the way, Kaspersky just had a regular scan and now it’s not there anymore. Oh well.

January 12th update

The rashes look like scales now.

In other news, does anyone have any even tanning techniques? My back’s tanning, but my stomach and chest won’t.

January 20th update

Just got rid of retainer. Teeth are already shifting back to messy places. They hurt. Maybe causing my bad grades. Weather is also cold. Distracting…

February 1st update

Dating advice? No one wants.

February 16th update

No one want to love crocodile woman

February 25th update

All done, all done dont want to this any more

—

Shortly after this online journal was discovered, it came to various Internet-goers’ attention that on February 26th, 2012, there was a recorded attack in Massachusetts from a ‘wild animal’ that was said to be ‘scaly and snaggle-toothed, but somehow humanoid in appearance,’ with what appeared to be a mane on its head and behind its neck. The victim also said that it appeared to have the number #482 branded on its arm.

The victim is in stable condition, and was given vaccinations and treatment for rabies, but has strange symptoms. His pubic and chest hair is beginning to fall out at a notable rate, and he has been shown to have diarrhea whenever he eats fruits, vegetables, or greens.

Authorities have been uncovering information out of the public eye. A leaked statement claims that they believe it is ‘a coincidence, nothing more, but we are looking for a cure to this disease.’ Nothing has been said so far about the creature, but many hunters have gone out in an attempt to track down the creature.

All we can recommend is for New England residents to utilize extreme caution outdoors until more is learned about this situation.

---

Credited to Indie-go

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