Halo Corrupt Evolved

• Thomas Donaldson, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2018

I was looking through my PC game shelf when I came across a blank DVD cover. I took it from its dusty shelf to find written in permanent marker “Halo CE alpha”. I was so excited to play since I didn’t know they had released an Alpha to the public. I opened my PC drive to put in the Halo disk. No problem! The disk opened a new Icon on my PC. I was so excited, I was shaking. When it clicked it asked if I would like to make changes to my computer. I said yes, unknowing of the consequences. The game then launched with the original Halo CE theme and title screen. I looked for any obvious differences in the title screen and just clicked campaign to begin.

The game began as normal because I could remember the beginning from anywhere. I decided to not skip the opening scene since I needed to find any cut scenes or any lower quality scenes. Nothing looked out of the ordinary from what I could remember, the only thing different was my PC seemed to be struggling to run the alpha version. I assumed it was because it was a hot day.

When the actual gaming started nothing was different, no difference in voices or textures. I was then considering that this was actually just a regular copy of the game until the actual action started. When I shot the pistol at the first enemies it didn’t make a noise except for a light scratching sound. It scared me at first because I thought my speakers where broken since they were old. I was guessing that the audio was just buggy and it would fix itself. The scratching was really starting to bother me now and I was on edge. When I was shooting the Covenant it was a lot more realistic and the fallen bodies sprawled and moved around as they were down as if it was real.

A few minutes later, I walked into a different room with only one covenant elite. I walked towards it and shot it and it played a loud screaming sound and showed the elites bloodied head that I had shot. I immediately felt sick and wanted to stop playing. Another enemy walked into the room and I shot it without hesitation, only to be greeted with a high pitch “ree” noise as the bullet traveled in slow motion towards the elite and went through it's tough armor. The loud sounds had became softer as the elite fell to his knees. A player without the control took out the pistol I was given at the start and shot the body several more times. The shots opened it up and it just convulsed there with its innards hanging out.

I couldn't take it so I switched off the monitor, took out the disk and destroyed it.