H4l0 3

H410 3
Now, I'm not sure exactly what to think of what just happened... So, I'm going to let you try and figure out what all this means...

Let's start off with my name. I'm Cameron, and I'm an avid Halo fan. I have the mindset that most of my friends follow, which is that Halo 3 was the best Halo. For quite a while, I had wanted to see Halo 3 on the PC, but alas, all of the rumors I had heard about it happening were proven false. So, I just played it on the Xbox with friends.

Recently, my Halo 3 broke. My Xbox has an overheating problem where the whole console heats up so much that pieces from the middle of the disc come off. This has now broken my Halo 3, which came with me Halo 3 Limited Edition Xbox, and my Halo Reach: Legendary Edition disc. So, being the avid Halo fan that I am, I still needed to play some Halo. I decided to check the internet for Halo PC versions, but I could only find Halo 1 and Halo 2. So, I decided to look for the most recent Halo I could find for the PC, which was Halo 2.

Since I had no money at the time, I had to look up a free download... A torrent, or maybe a site that allowed large uploads. So, when I searched Halo 2, I couldn't seem to find one that matched my expectations... Until I found it.

While searching for Halo 2, I came across a RAR file titled, "H410 3.RAR". I eagerly investigated the file, as I immediately assumed it was Halo 3. I proceeded to download the torrent, but it was ridiculously slow, as there was only one seeder... Finally, after two days, the download finished. I was extensively excited to play Halo 3 on the PC.

I proceeded to open the RAR file, and extracted it to a folder I called "H410", just to make fun of the poor naming of the file. After about 5 minutes, the RAR was extracted, and I was ready to begin playing.

As I started the game, I was met by some graphical artifacts- little lines about 10 pixels wide and about 20 long would appear for split seconds. This bothered me, as this would most likely be an issue with my graphics card, yet it was relatively good. I had gotten the laptop I was playing on about a year before the incident. I had received it because my father had taken my previous one and left with it, and I needed something to be able to do school projects. I ended up receiving an HP Pavilion g7 1368dx, with an AMD Radon 6520g video card and quad-core A6 AMD processor, overclocked to 1.8GHz per core.

So, I guess I just kinda dealt with those ridiculously annoying lines blocking my view... I would regret dealing with these occurances.

I started by testing to see if multiplayer worked correctly, but all it said when I entered the multiplayer screen was "Bungie servers are not availible at this time. Please try again later." So, I proceeded to play the campaign.

The campaign seemed pretty normal, with the exception of the little lines showing up on my screen. I played through the first few missions quite easily- I really did prefer the keyboard and mouse playing over the sluggish controls of a controller. Now, the strange things started happening when I got to the mission where you start with the battle rifle and the spartan laser. Instead of starting with those, I started with a sentinal beam and a skull, which is extremely odd, considering that those were not what I was supposed to start with, and, as any Halo fan should know, you should not be able to permanently hold a skull- it simply gets dropped when you try to switch weapons. So, thinking this was some sort of easter egg, I continued... And was immediately shocked. All of my enemies were dead, the anti-air wraith obliterated, the grunts shot, and the brutes lying on the ground, blood pouring out... And only one marine was there.

When I walked near the marine, it said "Press 'F' to talk." This was quite odd, considering that dialogue in Halo begins when you walk near somebody. So, I tried talking to him... But it didn't work. I tried again. And again. And again... But no results. So, I just shook it off and walked forward to the area where you encounter the ghosts, but all of the ghosts were destroyed, the grunts who were driving them killed and lying there, bloodied on the floor, and that same marine, standing next to one, just staring it it. It said that I could, again, press F to talk to him, so I tried it 3 times- again, nothing. So, I continued.

When I entered the next area, once again, the enemies were killed, lying there bloodied on the floor, the wraith looking like someone had shots rockets at it, and the prowler looking like someone as strong as master chief had just gone up to the thing and started beating it... And again, that marine was standing there, looking at the dead aliens. But, this time, when I walked near him, it said "Press 'F' to talk to H410." I was shocked by this. An easter egg for the PC version, perhaps? Well, I tried talking to him once more. No response. Was my F key broken? I went to the desktop and tried typing on notepad to make sure my keys were working correctly, and they were. So, I went back to "H4l0," and tried talking to the marine once more. Nothing. I began to become fed-up with this, and told myself that if he didn't respond this time, then I would just not talk to him anymore. I tried once more- nothing. I proceeded to move on, but once I got in front of the Covenant-made cavern, a covenant door seemed to appear out of nowhere, and it closed right in front me. What was I supposed to do? That's where I'm supposed to go to progress in the game! That's when I saw it...

"Press 'F' to wonder."

I didn't know what to say. I had never seen this in any Halo game. This wasn't right. So, I pressed F. The game then started a cutscene showing Amanda Keyes and Sargent Johnson... But they were killing me. They were killing master chief. So there he was, no armor, just a t-shirt and jeans, strapped by metal bars to a tall, metallic object. Being murdered.

Keyes had a huge knife, which I would describe as some form of a bowie knife. Johnson was holding a large spade with a wooden handle. I just wasn't prepared for what I saw next... Keyes dragged the knife over the chief's skin, making a perfect cutting out a perfect circle in his chest. The chief cried out in pain and agony. After Keyes pulled away the skin, Johnson walked over to him with the shovel and started ripping the organs out and shoveling them into a pale gray bucket. All that was said was one dialogue, stated by Keyes- and was terrified to hear that it was the real voice actor of Keyes, or at the very least, an amazing replica.

"This is what we do to people who wonder... Who wonder how they can influence the world. Who wonder how they can save it... Who wonder how they can destroy it." The next part of the dialogue is what shocked me the most. "YOU. Cameron... That's right. We know you, and we're coming." At that moment, I legitimately fell back in my chair... How in god's name did that accursed game know my name? And it wasn't just a text dialogue or something... No, they said my name, in Keyes' voice. I didn't enter my name or anything- the username I used was STaRPhoNiCS. I was beginning to get scared... But I had no idea what was coming next.

After the cutscene, my computer black-screened for about five minutes. About a minute through, I tried restarting it, but the power button wasn't doing anything, no matter how long I held it... But finally, the game continued. I was back at the same area where I saw the "Press 'F' to wonder," but instead, I saw "Press 'F' to talk to H4l0." It was the marine. He was standing in front of me. I wanted no more to do with this, it was creeping me out... I tried to move past him, but it seemed as though I couldn't move. I remember myself wondering, "Is this some kind of sick joke from Bungie...?" So, I took a minute to breath, then pressed F.

Just as I pressed F, it went to a cutscene of many men standing in a circle in a relatively dark area. But, the weirdest part was- I was in the middle. I was in the game. I was there. The game's camera panned and zoomed in on the chests of the men in the circle... One of them was clearly master chief, as he had no chest and no organs. This was too much for me. I simply walked up and left the room for a minute. I then walked back, and looked at the screen, and screamed- it was me, in the middle, with men stabbing me and ripping my organs out. I was screaming in the game with the exact same screech I had in real life- they had copied everything about me into this demonic game. As soon as I saw that, I closed the game, and deleted it- but, even today, it still haunts me...

It's now been four months since the H4l0 3 incident, and I am still not done with the threat. It's still there. Every once in a while, will open my laptop to play some gold ol' Ace Combat: Assault Horizon, and I'll see a folder on my desktop, titled H4l0. I finally opened it for the first time on the day I am writing this. Inside the folder was a .TXT file, to be used in notepad. It was titled READMENOW. I needed to read it to see if it would tell me what was going on. So, I opened it... I'll copy and paste directly what it said.

Bungie Studios proudly presents: H4l0 3 YOU. Cameron... That's right. We know you, and we're coming."

I don't know why any of this happened, and most likely never will... But I already told you, it's up to you to decide what this was.