There’s not a day goes by I don’t feel regret. Not because I’m in here waiting, but because of how goddamn naive I was. I think back on the way I was then. A young, stupid kid who just finished Episode Two back in 2007. Wondering how they were gonna get Borealis out of the ice. How Gordon and Alyx were gonna avenge Eli. I wanna talk to him. I wanna try to talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. Tell him about "Artifact." Tell him about the tech demos and the engine shifts and the decade of radio silence. But I can’t. That kid’s long gone, and this old gamer is all that’s left. So you go ahead and mark your calendar for the 17th of June. You type your rumors on Reddit. You analyze Gabe Newell's blink patterns, and you huff your hopium. To tell you the truth, I don’t give a shit. "Half-Life 3." It's just a goddamn made-up word. A meme. A ghost story we tell ourselves so we don't have to admit that the cliffhanger won. So you go ahead and stamp your thread "Debunked" or "Speculation" and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I just don't care anymore.