Welcome To Hellville - Part 5 (1/2) By Rich Mills 15th November 2040

Next Page, Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

I slept the long sleep, dead to the world; I lost a day in there somewhere. Now refreshed I'm ready to start transcribing what I've found. The two VHS video tapes seem to contain a variety of TV programmes. I'm going to get Keith down to give these the once over. He's a retro-TV geek, and has an incomprehensible knowledge of old television shows. What he doesn't know, he can find out, as he has the largest collection of late 20th and early 21st Century TV Guides in the country that I know of.

I'm having trouble accessing the DVD that I found, they always were a notoriously shit storage format. Bloody things were so easily damaged, a format that rose quickly but was soon superseded by direct hardwired solid-state portable storage systems.

Another piece of the puzzle I'm having problems with is the C90 tape. I just don't have the right equipment necessary to find out what is on it. I've posted on an audio-enthusiast bulletin-board, in the hope that someone has a working tape-player. There are hundreds of audio-geeks out there, so I'm sure someone will be able to help me out on that one.

The CD's are back-up's from the hard-drive, from what I can tell. They are giving me some problems, as the software used to create the back-ups on the CD's has encrypted them. I'm running various pieces of decryption software on them, just not found the right key as yet.

The hard-drive! That is the big find, and the one I've had most success with. Its surface has been somewhat damaged by the damp environment in which it was found, and what information I've managed to extract is quite fragmented. However there is enough for me start on.

Interestingly, and this is absolutely true, the first extracted file I pulled off is dated the same day I started all this. It's a diary entry, of sorts. A bit weird, and refers to a cartoon program from the 1980's. I think that maybe is some of what is on one of the VHS tapes, Keith will be able to clarify that one for me. Anyway, below is what I've managed to pull off. The first piece of the puzzle. November 11th It's been a couple of months since it last happened to me, that very first time. Tonight the TV talked to me.

Colours flashed across the screen, from dark to light and all the hues of blue in-between. Lightening blue white, trying to convey a message from across the ether. The TV wanted to interact with me. Forcing its way out of the cathode ray tube into a 3-D world beyond. Desperate to be understood, desperate to understand, only a convex glass shield stands between us. Turn off, tune out, drop into my world for a while...

When I came to I was laid headfirst towards the television, staring up at the rushing mass of black and white dots screaming for a signal. However I knew that I could see that there was something still there, as I spun round back to my true-plane, the tension in my stressed body groaned and strained against what is for me an unnaturally athletic motion.

Continued Welcome To Hellville - Part 5 By Rich Mills.. Next Page

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