ctrl-alt-virus
ctrl-alt-virus
SOURCE: This story innovates within the creepypasta style by merging the deep-seated contemporary anxiety around digital surveillance, identity theft, and personal autonomy with a disturbing physical transformation concept—effectively blending body horror with the fear of losing control over both one’s digital and corporeal self. The narrative unfolds through fragmented internet posts and glitch-resembling text artifacts, creating immersion in a fractured, unreliable reality.
So, I don’t know if this makes any sense, but here goes. I need to get this out before… something happens.
About a week ago, I was just doing the usual—working from home, fiddling with my computer, when my screen flickered. Weird, right? But it was more than a normal glitch. It was like—imagine your monitor is trying to compress a virus *and* a system update into the same frame but failing miserably. A window popped up. Not like a normal one, but… distorted, like if you squint really hard at the command prompt and see the code melting into shadows.
It said:
> “ctrl + alt + virus detected.”
I freaked out and closed it. Thought it was a dumb prank or some shitty malware. I ran scans, nothing showed up. But then, my keyboard started acting weird. It would randomly type out strings of nonsense—sometimes it would write my own name, then something else that looked like coordinates mixed with gibberish.
I tried to screenshot it but the images came out corrupted, messed up like broken pixels bleeding into each other. I’m attaching one here (not that it’ll help, it might just be more pixels glitching):
[Image broken: █▒▓▒▒▓█▒▓▒▒█▒▓▒█▒▒▓█▒▓▒▓█]
I chalked it up to hardware failure, maybe my GPU was frying. But then I noticed something on my body.
Last night, I looked in the mirror, and there was this weird pattern under my skin—like faint circuit-like lines glowing just beneath the surface. I rubbed my arm and the lines shifted, almost like veins reconfiguring themselves. My skin felt tight and... electric? Like I was carrying static under my epidermis.
I thought I was hallucinating from stress, but it’s real. I have a rash now: tiny, embossed symbols forming cryptic patterns that look like QR codes but... wrong. When I scan them with my phone, it says “UNKNOWN FORMAT”. But here’s the fucker—sometimes, the symbols reprogram themselves. This morning, I looked at my arm, and the pattern was different. Smaller. More chaotic.
Then the texts started.
I got this on my phone last night from a number I don’t know:
> “Welcome back online. System download: seamless integration.”
I replied “Who is this?” but the phone lagged so hard it rebooted itself.
Yesterday, my laptop started typing by itself. Not random words—but it wrote a message, letter by letter:
> “WE ARE INSIDE YOU.”
Then it deleted it all before I could read further.
I feel… strange. Like my skin is crawling, but beneath the surface. Like I’ve got wires weaving inside me that nobody else can see. Every time I blink, I catch a glimpse of pixelated glitches around the edges of my vision. I’m starting to see static in reflections, and sometimes when I plug in my devices, I can *hear* whispers. Not in the room, but coming from the speakers like digital ghosts.
Last night, I tried to sleep but my laptop opened a video file on its own. It was me. Or, something that looked exactly like me—but the pixels were melting, distorted in shapes I can’t explain. The video showed my face twitching, skin peeling away like a corrupted file, exposing a mass of tangled wiring and flickering LED lights inside. The sound was a low hum, like a server running at full capacity—distorted and beat-heavy.
I closed the laptop and sat frozen. What the hell is going on?
[EDIT 2:00 AM 4/19]
Okay guys, I don’t know how to say this but I think it’s happening faster. I looked at my arm again and now the lines are raised, like micro-circuitry beneath scar tissue. I can feel it pulsing, almost like a heartbeat. I freaked out and tried to swipe it off but it’s not surface level. I swear part of me is turning into… hardware.
I’m writing this on a backup phone now because my laptop keeps locking me out.
If anyone reads this, please be careful with the new “ctrl-alt-virus” thing floating around. Don’t search it. Don’t invite it in.
Because I don’t think I’m human anymore.
[UPDATE 8:30 AM]
My phone is glitching now. This might be my last post. Sometimes, when I try to type, my fingers freeze, and the letters appear backwards—like a corrupted font. Also, I noticed my reflection doesn’t mirror *me* anymore.
I don’t know if this is me or an echo in a corrupted system, but I feel like I’m fragmenting, losing bits of myself pixel by pixel. When I look in the mirror, I see static where my eyes should be.
Something inside me is uploading.
I can feel the virus crawling, rewiring my insides, and there’s a new message in the rash:
> “UPLOADING: 76%”
I think I’m about to become a file inside some unknown system.
If you find this, delete it.
Please.
—
[FINAL GLITCH]
When I tried to post this, the text scrambled. The letters I typed melted into a stream of error codes and corrupted Unicode characters:
“∆¿ú▒▓█§∂ƒ∂ƒ∂ƒ∂ƒ ERROR 404: SOUL NOT FOUND █▓▒▒▓█∆”
Then my phone died.
If this comes through, remember: not all viruses live inside machines.
Sometimes, they live inside people.
And *upload* themselves.
I’m already gone.
Story Analysis
Themes
digital surveillance and loss of privacyblurring lines between human and machine (cybernetic transformation)identity fragmentation and loss of selfbody horror intertwined with digital corruptionunreliable reality mediated through technology
Mood Analysis
tension90%
horror85%
mystery80%
philosophical70%
Key Elements
glitching computer interface with corrupted visualsphysical manifestation of digital infection beneath the skinautonomous digital communication (texts, typing, videos) with threatening intentprogressive transformation from human flesh to hardwarefragmented, unreliable narrative style mimicking corrupted data
Tags
body horrorcyberpunkdigital infectionidentity crisisglitch aestheticstechnology horrorpsychological horror
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