So last week a friend of mine sent me an e-mail. He isn’t an online nameless faceless friend or a new friend I don’t know personally that well or some old Chinese man I met at a garage sale or a flea market, I’ve known this guy for fourteen years. I have always considered him someone to trust, so I trusted his message when it said simply, “Play this. The ending, it’s… ugh.” I clicked on the mediafire link in the message and saw a download link titled Façade.rar.
I have played Façade before and had some fun swearing at Trip and Grace until I got kicked out or playing along for the nice ending, but I never found an ending that would inspire an “ugh.” I figured I may as well download it. When it finished I had a .rar I opened it with winrar and got a file, inside were three items, an installer, the game application, and a folder titled openlast. Following the instructions I opened the installer, the game installed a usual, and then I opened the game saving the folder for last. The game opened in the usual fashion with the answering machine message playing, but something was different. The voice was not that of Trip. It had a thick southern drawl and sounded unrehearsed and monotone, but still somehow deeply sad even a little drunk maybe. “Hey Jack, It’s Mike, we need to talk about Krissy.”
The screen faded to black as normal and next thing I saw was the door to Trip and Grace’s (Mike and Krissy’s now, I guess) apartment. I walked up to the door and knocked, Mike answered, “Get the fuck in here.” It was Mike’s drawl again I walked into the apartment and I saw Krissy staring at the floor. “I’m gonna ask you this one time, Jack,” the drawl said “have you been sleeping with my wife?” The voice was so clearly drunk by this point; I could almost smell the alcohol on Mike’s breath through the screen. I typed my response, “no.” I decided to keep it simple until I figured out what the hell was going on. “YOU FUCKER! DON’T YOU FUCKIN’ LIE TO ME YOU PIECE-O-SHIT!! DID YOU FUCK HER!!?” The voice was very angry, it almost seemed to sober up a bit from my answer. Still the sadness in the voice grew. I decided no was the wrong answer and said, “yes.” I was scared for the response.
He turned to Krissy, “You fuckin whore,” Krissy looked up and he slapped her across the face, I don’t recall that particular animation from playing the game before, “you’re pathetic! I wasn’t good enough?!” at the end of that last sentence I could hear a soft sob through the angry drawl. Mike spoke again facing me “Get out; I need to deal with this.” I recognized the next animation from being kicked out of this apartment several times in the past. I was forced out the door and into the hallway. It was silent and there was nothing left to do but enter the elevator.
The screen cuts to black and I hear something awful, BANG thud ….. BANG. Two loud gunshots rang out of my speakers making me jump and the program closed. What the fuck is all I could think. Then I remembered the “open last” file. I opened it and inside there was a jpg and an audio file. I opened the jpg; it was a scanned newspaper clipping about a murder suicide. It told the story of a man who shot his pregnant wife one Saturday evening and turned the gun on himself leaving no note or explanation of any kind for his actions. Then I played the audio file; it seemed to be the same voice actor who played Mike in the game, but less of a drawl and an overall kinder voice. He was completely drunk and crying heavily. “You sonofabitch,” He sobbed. “It’s my fault… all my fault,” a bottle sloshes, “Krissy… our baby… I love you.” … BANG thud.