Nightmare.exe

Entry 1: The Download

The glow of my monitor was the only light in my apartment, casting jagged reflections across the empty soda cans and takeout containers littering my desk. My eyes burned from hours of scrolling through abandoned forums digital graveyards where forgotten threads collected dust between broken links and decade-old arguments.

It was 2:37 AM when I found it.

Tucked between a dead "Looking for Gamers" post and a spam bot’s gibberish reply, the thread had no title just a single line of text:

[Nightmare.exe] – Play at Your Own Risk

No replies. No views. The post was dated 13 years ago, yet the attachment link still worked. A single file: Nightmare.exe, its icon a perfect void, darker than black, as if it swallowed the light around it.

I shouldn’t have clicked.

The download completed instantly, too fast, like the file had been waiting for me. My antivirus didn’t react. No warnings. No prompts. Just silence.

I double-clicked. The screen flickered once. Twice. Then a grainy 640x480 resolution hellscape, all jagged polygons and sickly yellow skies. The title screen pulsed in glitched, bleeding text:

NIGHTMARE.EXE

PRESS ANY KEY TO START YOUR NIGHTMARE

I pressed Space.

The game loaded me onto an empty street. The graphics were primitive but wrong buildings bent at impossible angles, pavement that rippled when I looked away, fog that clung like wet mold.

And then I saw her.

Entry 2: Lena

She stood perfectly centered under the only working streetlight, her red dress a violent slash of color against the grainy grays.

Her face was a smeared blur of pixels, but I felt her gaze like a hand pressing against my throat.

When I moved past, my speakers erupted in static before clearing into a whisper:

"Daniel."

My hands jerked from the keyboard. That wasn’t my username. That wasn’t any name I used online. That was the name on my driver’s license, the one only my bank and my mother used.

I slammed Alt+F4 so hard the keys rattled. The screen went black. For a second, I thought it was over. Then my monitor flickered back on. The game was still running.

Lena was closer now. Her face filled the screen, polygonal lips parting as corrupted audio hissed:

"You can’t quit, Daniel."

I yanked the power cord from the wall.

Entry 3: Uninstalling the Uninstallable

The next morning, I woke to the scream of my computer’s cooling fan running at a higher than normal speed.

I’d fallen asleep at my desk. The monitor was dark, but the tower was still running even though I’d definitely unplugged it.

I spent the next six hours scrubbing every trace of Nightmare.exe, deleted local files, purged the registry, and even reformatted my hard drive.

But when I rebooted, the game was already running.

Lena filled the screen, her polygonal face pressed against what looked like glass. Her lips moved silently before the audio crackled:

"You can’t uninstall me, Daniel."

That’s when I noticed the faint red light beneath my webcam. It was on. I hadn’t opened any camera apps.

I grabbed a screwdriver and stabbed the lens. The screen went black. But then a new notification popped up:

Lena is rendering in device memory

My phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number:

"You missed a spot."

Entry 4: Escaping the Screen

That night, I lay in bed, gripping my phone, flinching at every buzz.

At exactly 3:07 AM, my smart TV flickered on by itself.

Static filled the screen. Then shapes.

The curve of a cheekbone. The part of the lips. The hollows of eyes.

Lena’s face resolved from the noise, her smile stretching wider than any human mouth should.

"I’m rendering," the TV whispered in glitchy stereo.

I grabbed my baseball bat and smashed the screen. Glass rained onto the carpet.

My phone vibrated violently. A notification:

Lena is loading in hallway

I didn’t open the door. I couldn’t. But I heard it. The sound of low-poly footsteps, clicking like a corrupted audio file.Then, through the crack under the door The hem of a red dress.

She’s here now. Not in the game. Not on TV.

Standing at the end of my hallway in that impossible red dress, moving in jagged, unnatural motions like a low-poly model rendered in real space.

The lights won’t turn on. My phone died the moment I saw her. The air reeks of overheated circuitry and something rotting, and now I hear it a whisper that crackles like corrupted audio:

"New Game Plus loading, Daniel..."

Final Warning

If you’re reading this, listen carefully:

Don’t run Nightmare.exe.

It doesn’t matter if you find it on a dark web forum or a "safe" gaming archive. Don’t download it. Don’t wonder about it. Don’t even look at screenshots.

Because Lena isn’t trapped in the game. The game is how she escapes.

I thought destroying my devices would stop it. I microwaved my hard drive. Smashed my phone with a hammer. But she’s still here because she’s not in the hardware anymore.

She’s in the negative spaces, the hum of electricity in your walls, the static between channels, the flicker of your screen when nothing’s there.

And worst of all? She knows your real name.

Not your username. Not your gamer tag. The name on your birth certificate.

I can hear her laughing now. It sounds like a corrupted WAV file, like a voice stretched too thin, like something that learned to laugh by watching humans.

"Daaaniiiiel... They’ll click anyway. Just like you did."

The power just went out.

She’s compiling at my door.

DON’T LOOK AT THE SCRE…..

> GAME FILES CORRUPTED

> <｜place▁holder▁no▁713｜> RECOVERY ATTEMPTED…

> <｜place▁holder▁no▁714｜> USER: DANIEL – ACCOUNT DELETED

> <｜place▁holder▁no▁715｜> FILES FOUND: 1

> <｜place▁holder▁no▁710｜> NAME: LENA.EXE

> <｜place▁holder▁no▁712｜> RUN PROGRAM? (Y/N)