Learn My Lesson

by Matthew Grubb

I want to start of by saying, if you’re looking for an answer at the end, don’t expect one. I worked in the art department at Valve Headquarters, the creators of games such as the Half-Life series, the Portal series, and Team Fortress 2. I was helping make Episode 3 in the Half-Life 2 series. It was late at night, and my intern and I were working on some models for Alyx, the female “sidekick” in the game. I was just making the final touches in Photoshop when the power went out. It was dark for about 5 minutes, but then the lights came back online and the whirring of the server boxes started back up. Well, there was thunder and lightning going on outside. We ran some diagnostics testing on the servers to make sure nothing of value was lost, and due to the reliability of Linux, nothing was lost. I went back to working on the model, but then the power went out again.

“Now this is just bull.” my intern said.
“Whatever, just give it some time.”

The lights came back on, but this time it took longer. We blew it off and blamed it on the rain again. Another diagnostics test showed that 2 files were lost, the Half-Life 2 “README.txt” and one of the not used .gcf files for Portal 2. I booted up my PC and this is when things started to get strange. My desktop was blue and my folders were gone.

“Dang it, my work better not be gone, and if so, I’m calling Gabe!” I said.

There was one weird thing, there was a “README.txt” file on my desktop. Maybe it was the Half-Life 2 “README” notes. I opened it and it had a link.

“Hmm, Mediafire? Eh.”

I went to the link. I regret doing that. It had a download link and I clicked it.

“learnmylesson.avi. Who sent me a video called ‘learnmylesson’?”

I clicked it and VLC opened. VLC closed right after I opened it.

“Oh great, another skiddie trying to get access to Episode 3.”

I did a scan with my antivirus and it showed nothing. Maybe it was too fresh to detect if it was malicious? I tried to open it again, this time with Windows Media Player. It played. What I saw was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I don’t even know if I should be writing this down. What if he sees this? What if this just happens again? OK, I think I can do this.

When I opened Windows Media Player, a video played. It started out playing very low music, covered with light groans. It sounded like the zombies from the second Half-Life game. Maybe I’d been working with HL2 material too long.

“Is this some sort of sick joke?”

A light came on. There was a man in his 20s sitting in a chair, he didn’t look tied down, but he looked like he was forced to sit there. It was like that for about 3 minutes. There was no audio, absolutely none. My speakers were on, but there wasn’t even feedback. A man with a dark cloak came in the room and walked over to the chair. He was holding something, but the quality was so horrible, I could only make out a rectangular shape. The man started to scream for help, there was no cloaked man in the room. The room started to fog. The man kept yelling, but nobody helped.  This is when I called over my intern.

“Hey Jake, can you come over here for a second?
“Yeah, sure? Why?”
“I found this link to a video on my desktop and I’m watching it. It’s messed up, dude.”
“Okay, sure...”

We started watching from where I paused. The man was still yelling. This time, it was something that was in English. I still couldn’t comprehend it, because of the bad quality. A man walked in the room again. As soon as he was about to pull something out of his coat, the power shut off.

“What..the..h-”
“I don’t know, Jake, I don’t know.”

We sat and waited for the power to come on, and of course, it did. This time the “learnmylesson.avi” was gone.
The link of the original video was gone, and my browser history was cleared. No video, and no link.

“Oh come on! Now nobody will believe me!”
“I saw it with my own eyes, I believe you!”
“I know you do, but, what was going to happen?”
“Nobody knows.”

I tried to do a System Restore to 10 minutes ago, but my computer had completely froze. I shut off, and this time there was another link. My intern and I were reluctant, but we knew we had to. Another Mediafire link, and the file was called “haveyoulearned.avi”. We opened it with Windows Media Player and a video started. 2 minutes and 51 seconds long. The contents of the video were not what we expected. Jake had to leave the room.