CreepCast - Creepy Grab Bag #1 | Creep Cast

Episode Date: June 1, 2024

Today the boys read Ben drowned, normal porn for normal people and squidwards suicide…. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 It is the cold habitual and it is the fruroy of the mountains blue. The froy at its summit. Coors Light. T'envue in a fraud. Celebrate in a fashion responsible, you have to have the age legal to consume the alcohol.
Starting point is 00:00:13 Welcome back to another enthralling creepy, dare I say satisfying episode of Creepcast. Today we are going over three classics. We've been talking about doing this for a while. it was going to be a little grab bag of shorter, older horror stories and the ones that we've came out with are been drowned, normal corn for normal people and Squidward's Sewer Slide.
Starting point is 00:00:54 Woo! Let's go. Sewer Slide. YouTube Censorship, baby. Let's get it. Let's do it. I'm so excited. Patented my friend Harry. He just said that yesterday and I was like, that's a really great. I feel like sewer slide is a lot more fun to say. Also,
Starting point is 00:01:08 I get ding still. We'll have to we'll have to definitely see if it if it just immediately he's like no we know what you're saying yeah it'll be even funnier it's like you and i talking and it's like you going bleep and i'm like oh i love bleep like that's awesome i love bleep yeah but anyway yeah we're covering three classics today these are ones that i've known about for a long time i know a lot of you all have as well uh we haven't covered them just because they're like too short for their own standalone episode unless you guys yeah want like a 20
Starting point is 00:01:38 minute episode or whatever, but judging by the views on the left, right game, I don't think that's true. Yeah. So we're going to combine these. We'll see how you all like it, like broken up three different stories. If you all like it, we can do this with more because honestly, most old school creepy pasta that at least got really famous, I think was shorter form like this. So if this does well, we'll do more of it in the future. And if you hate it, then we'll pretend like it didn't happen. And it's all hunter's fault. So I know it is my fault. It's all, it's my fault. But I wanted to say that it kind of seemed when we were talking about initially that you were like oh we might as
Starting point is 00:02:11 well not cover those because they're so well known or like they're just like they're such like old classics or whatever but in a different in a different way where you I once again I have just assume I've never read any of these so it seemed like you were extremely surprised when I had because it kind of seemed like you were like oh I feel like everyone's heard of you know been drowned or normal corn and that kind of stuff. So, you know, I'm still new this. It's not so much everyone, as much as it is someone who has a horror YouTube channel. Right, right, right, right.
Starting point is 00:02:45 That's more so what I'm mad about. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I completely missed out on all the good internet stuff when I was younger. I didn't have internet until I was like 18, a freshman in college. So I missed out on all of the goodness of this when I was growing up. Well, starting it off on our triptic gambit here is going to be normal corn for normal people on our slash no sleep the classic, the classic Reddit 12 years ago by a user named Reith, R-E-A-T-H-E. Oh, actually, oh, I get to start the story off. It's in quotes. Oh, my God, I'm so excited. Hold on, hold on. Let me clarify, as I do with most of these episodes. Oh, my dearest Hunter, I've never read this before. There's no telling what Tom Foolery we may come across.
Starting point is 00:03:30 Don't worry, Hunter. All we have to do is go back into the French quarter and everything will be okay. Hey everyone, I want to take a quick break from the show to talk about today's sponsor, Factor. Factor delivers fresh, never frozen, dietitian approved meals straight to your door. And these fresh, easy to make meals, means that meeting your nutritional goals have never been easier. I understand that a lot of us eat unhealthy because it tends to be the most affordable and easiest option. But now Factor is here to also be both of those. things and make you not miserable. That's because factor meals can be ready in as little as two
Starting point is 00:04:05 minutes and compared to other options are less expensive and way healthier, as all of the meals are made by gourmet chefs and then approved by dieticians. And on top of that, you have a meal that's ready to heat and eat, meaning there's no prep work, no cleanup, no cooking, etc. You can also get as little or as much factor as needed to fit into your schedule, as you can choose between six to 18 meals every week. And of course, this can be paused or rescheduled at any time. You can also get as little or as much factor as needed for your schedule as you can choose
Starting point is 00:04:37 between four to 18 meals to be delivered each week. With 35 meal options each week and over 60 add-ons, it's never been easier to get a variety of delicious foods that are also good for you and won't break the bank. All I assume to you are good things. Factor is now owned by HelloFresh, a company that we've worked with before on the show
Starting point is 00:04:55 because all of the products they send us are fantastic and we can't recommend enough. And here they are just as committed to delivering healthy, delicious food straight to you. So while you're enjoying Hunter and I deliver our weaponized stupidity, you might as well get in on something that's actually good for you. And right now, there's never been a better time to get in on this offer. That's because if you head to Factor75.com or click the link below and use code Creepcast 50, you'll get 50% off your first factor box and 20% off your next month of orders.
Starting point is 00:05:26 That is right. That means you get half off the first box and 20% off. your next four boxes again use code creepcast 50 at factor 75.com to get in on this fantastic offer today thank you all so much for watching the ad thank you so much to factor for sponsoring the show it really does mean the most hope you all check them out link is in the description and we are back to the episode all right okay normal normal corn for normal people i'm so excited i get to start the story all right everybody knows that if you surf the web long enough you'll see some sick shit you intentionally dwell into the dark underbelly of the internet.
Starting point is 00:06:03 I've seen quite a few things I don't care to admit. One thing that I'll always remember is a site called normal corn for normal people.com. The first strange thing about this site was that I didn't find it by actually looking for it. It was emailed to me by someone I didn't know. The email was as follows. Hi there! Found this site is very nice. Thought you might like normal corn for normal people.com. Pass it on for the good of mankind.
Starting point is 00:06:33 Pretty standard issue chain letter, although the URL and the last remark really piqued my curiosity. I was having a very boring day when I got this, so I made sure my antivirus was working, and then I clicked on it. It was a very average, very generic looking site. It gave the impression that the creators just barely gave a shit about making it look professional. The authors seemed to have a very tenuous grasp on English, and on the front page, was a long, boring, and incoherent rant that I don't remember or have saved. The site had a strange tagline, which even today people haven't figured out the meaning of, which was, Normal Corn for Normal People, a website dedicated to the eradication of abnormal sexuality.
Starting point is 00:07:18 And from the sound of that, I wasn't sure whether I was here to watch corn. That's so funny. I wasn't sure if I was here to watch it. or if I had stumbled onto some kind of eugenics program but I was here now and I was very very curious to see what normal people get their rocks off to
Starting point is 00:07:39 so I scroll down through the rant and nothing page didn't seem to link anywhere else and I was about to leave when I noticed every word of the rant was its own hyperlink oh I like that first of I just want to say
Starting point is 00:07:54 just to interject I just want to say that getting this kind of email too is I really liked how casually he's approaching, you know, the aspect of being like, oh, someone sent me this and it's just like a goof I said, like, you know, I checked it out. Yeah. But honestly, that's like, it's a pretty
Starting point is 00:08:10 fucking horrifying thing to get an email or like to get a message of. Yeah. It's also so not threatening that it feels threatening in my eyes. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, you know, normal corn for normal people. It's fine. Yeah. It's not, I mean, it's not weird stuff on here.
Starting point is 00:08:25 It's normal. I mean, the concept alone raises weird questions, right? Like, what would, what would you define as normal, right? Or why is there a website dedicated to it? It made me, like, a lot of people have commented on this story being like, I would assume a title like this would be like some weird gay conversion thing or something like that, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:08:46 That's what you, kind of the train you're expecting it to go down, but I don't know where this story's going to go, honey. I don't know where you're going to do. I'm a baby. I'm a little baby. mommy want milky baby want milk that is a wild accusation
Starting point is 00:09:02 you're right though like it does have the same vibe it's funny that you see like gay conversion camp because it has that kind of fanatic kind of thing where it's like it's like a passive aggressive sign is what it feels like yeah the eradication
Starting point is 00:09:18 of abnormal sexuality it like smacks with the pulpit yeah you know and also like you have to kind of transport yourself back this is 12 years ago right so oh yeah I got guess we should have said that. This is posted 12 years ago, so it's been a while. Yes, by user Reith, by the way, R-A-T-A-E. So for credit. We were going to mention that at the beginning, but at the end, I mean, but, oh, you did? Oh, okay. Well, I said it. It's just that
Starting point is 00:09:43 whenever you start talking, my brain just kind of like zones it out and quits paying attention because I don't care. I don't know how to process words. I just a little baby. So you have to take yourself to like 12 years ago Because now like you open Twitter and it's like Oh, there's three people that died. That's cool. You know like Right. It's kind of everywhere. But back then you had to go looking for weird stuff, right? Live leak. Lively. Yeah. Like live leak stuff. Yeah. Like it was much harder to come across than just general internet browsing. So that's like you can have to be in that mindset like oh, a weird website. Who knows what could be on it?
Starting point is 00:10:21 Right. So I clicked one of them and was sent to a white page with very long list of links in the form of normal corn for normal people.com slash and then random letters. So I stopped for a minute
Starting point is 00:10:33 and asked myself if I really wanted to waste God knows how much time clicking random links that will likely give me a virus that will rape my computer. God! I figured I'd just try it
Starting point is 00:10:46 for maybe five minutes just to see if anything came up. I clicked one of the links and was sent to another page. This page apparently had totally different URLs than the last one. I was just about to say, Fuck this! When I clicked on the third link, and a video download came up.
Starting point is 00:11:04 It was called peanut.aVI.i. It was a 30-minute video of a man, a woman, and a dog in a kitchen. The woman would make a peanut butter sandwich, and the man would set it down for the dog to eat. This was all that happened for 30 minutes. It was obvious that the cameraman had to stop filming and wait until the dog was ready to eat again and the dog seemed rather sick by the end of it.
Starting point is 00:11:29 I know what you're thinking. What the hell does that have to do with corn? I have no clue. I've seen a little over two dozen videos from this site and the majority had no sexual activity at all. After watching peanut.aVI, I went on a certain image board I frequent to play online show and tell like I always do with weird shit like this.
Starting point is 00:11:47 But someone had already made a thread about it, some guy who had received the same chain letter I did. The image board thread got lots of people with nothing better to do dig through the site. That's how I saw other videos. Most of those two dozen videos were very uneventful. And consisted of people talking to the cameraman in a room with nothing in it but a desk and a few chairs. I mean literally nothing on the walls or in terms of furniture. The whole room had a very cold, sterile feel to it.
Starting point is 00:12:19 You know what this kind of reminds me of is that old video online. Soup.AVI.I. Yeah, exactly. So I actually... Do you think that it was born from this? I can't remember, but I remember, I can't remember which way it was, but I remember hearing speculation that one inspired the other. I can't remember which came first, though.
Starting point is 00:12:37 It's interesting. They're reading definitely the same. Like, even just so far with the peanut butter, like of the... Because the thing with the soup.A.V.I., whatever, is that it's so like nothing happens to the point where it does feel like a snuff film like it feels like this is a video
Starting point is 00:12:54 we should not be seeing kind of thing even though nothing explicit truly happens it's so uncanny and like just vile it's odd I think it's far more menacing to me that it's so I mean we're going to get to more intense stuff
Starting point is 00:13:09 but it begins so sterile right like what what could possibly be the motivation of a dog eating a sandwich right but it like i don't know i mean the implications and stuff feel very very weird you know i'm very very bought in i love
Starting point is 00:13:24 i love these old stories too because they read so much like actual social media posts or forums or blogs this thing happened to someone yeah yeah yeah yeah i really appreciate the like i don't know the
Starting point is 00:13:38 maybe legitimacy is the wrong word but it feels very sincere that's right i think yeah it feels legitimate like it actually Like, sure, it's fiction, but it feels like unfiction, almost, you know? Yeah. Yeah. No, definitely. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:13:53 The conversations were just idle banner about previous jobs or embarrassing childhood moments. I kept expecting some kind of discussion about what the people were filming or what the site was about, but of course, nothing. You would never know these videos had anything to do with corn if you saw it out of context. I will say one thing, though. The people who appeared in these videos were quite attractive. However, the other videos that actually did feature content, which I suppose could be called sexual, is where things got weird. I'll give a brief descriptions of the stranger videos.
Starting point is 00:14:30 If you're really eating up with curiosity, you can try to hunt them down on a torrent site. First up, lickedclean.a.i. A 10-minute video filmed by a hidden camera in which we see a repair man working on a washing machine for the first two minutes. When it's fixed, the repairman talks to the owner briefly and then leaves. The owner checks to make sure the repairman is gone. He begins to lick all over the top of the washing machine. This goes on for seven minutes. Isn't this like so much worse than just like normal snuff film stuff, you know?
Starting point is 00:15:04 Well, you know what's weird? It's like, which I don't want to get ahead of myself, but so far, even like the vignettes or how it's set up, I kind of like it more than 1999, if I'm being honest. Really? I think so. I mean, like, the deal with 19, I mean, I, I'll redact that statement. It's the first one, but I'm, I feel like I'm a little more bought in, if I'm being honest. Okay. I respect that. You did get taken out of 1999 a little bit whenever he talked about his personal life and stuff like that. Well, even just the aspect of like, oh, it's in his basement. It kind of has the Poughkeepsie tapes vibe, which I like, but it is very like one note of like, it's like a guy, like a kidnapper who is recording these things. And I feel like we're getting ready to, it feels like we're propelled into various odd, live leaky kind of videos that is going to go all over the place. Gimbo.combe. A five-minute video of an obese mime performing his act. It was actually pretty funny, particularly one part where he pretends to pull up a chair, then pretends that it breaks because
Starting point is 00:16:08 of his weight. In the last 30 seconds of the video, the camera cuts to static briefly and cuts back to the man sobbing quietly, still wearing the mime outfit and makeup. Some kind of obscure fetish? Diana.A.I. Four-minute video in which the cameraman talks to a woman in a room different than the interview room. This room looks like one you'd find in a normal person's house. Exactly where they are is never specified, as Diana only talks about her violin playing. She obviously plays her violin, but she keeps getting distracted by some.
Starting point is 00:16:43 something. I didn't notice this until someone on the image board thread pointed it out, but if you look at a mirror in the background, you can see a fat man in a chicken mask masturbating. Jessica.aV. Another four-minute cameraman video. This time, he's outside a house talking to another young woman. They talk about canoe rides. The camera zooms out to reveal the city streets behind them occasionally. A strange thing is, no one so far has been able to identify where this street is. Guesses have ranged everywhere from Europe to Australia to the Philippines, but there's yet to be a match for the street shown in the video. Tungtide.A.I. 10-minute video. The first five minutes consist of an elderly woman making out with a mannequin. The video cuts out like it did in
Starting point is 00:17:31 Jimbo.A.I halfway through, and the scene is now a group of mannequins huddled together in a circle around the camera. The lights have been dimmed, and the elderly woman is nowhere to be seen. From this point on, there's no sound. Well, stuff like this, you have to assume that people have recreated these, right? I mean, probably. That one actually kind of, I've, manikins are always kind of like a, I don't like them. So creepy. So the idea of like, it just cuts to them around the camera.
Starting point is 00:17:59 And that's it for five minutes. That's not fun. In complete silence, yeah. Kind of imagine like a, just like the gain of the camera mic just kind of playing. so it's just like weird little slight crackles and pops almost like that's what that you can hear maybe like the fluorescent lights buzzing or something yeah exactly it's almost imitates these kind of like weird pickups and feedbacks almost read like little bits of fire like fire crackling or something it's it's it's very it's very menacing yeah stumps dot a vii five minute long video where a man with no legs is attempting to break dance on a dDR mat and what looks like is something funny? Is there something you want to, something you want to bring up?
Starting point is 00:18:51 Well, the, the structure of that, a five-minute-long video where a man with no legs is attempting to break dance. The phrase is the word attempting is pretty funny.
Starting point is 00:19:03 Literally, literally, it's just the word putting attempting in there that makes it very funny and tragic. What's funny about a disability, Hunter? Yeah, nothing. Nothing, sorry.
Starting point is 00:19:13 In what looks like the kitchen from peanut.aVI, but much dirtier. There's a radio playing music unseen in the background, but it stops at the four-minute mark when the man collapses on the mat in exhaustion. He breathes heavily and pleads with someone off-screen to let him rest. This off-screen person becomes terrifyingly enraged and yells at him to keep dancing, which he does. You can hear this off-screen person begin to scream as the video ends abruptly. that became a lot less funny at the end of the... Yeah, you want to talk about how funny that was, Hunter?
Starting point is 00:19:46 Talk about how funny that was. No. That's good. That one does kind of amp it up to me because you imagine whoever's running this site has some sick game or, like, motive behind this, right? But to hear, like... To me, it's always scary when people or creatures
Starting point is 00:20:06 or something like that exhibit rage, you know? Because we're used to seeing, like, know, kind of like this dulcent, like, you know, watcher, wonder, you know, character. Like, we see a bunch of stuff about serial killers being these stoic figures that stalk people or whatever. But the idea of like something full of anger, you know, like it, I don't know, it always bothers me a bit. I mean, we've officially entered into snuff film territory is what I think it is. Like, I mean, it's literal torture now. So, yeah, well, wait, wait for this last one. I mean...
Starting point is 00:20:39 Privacy.AVI The woman from diana.AVI is masturbating on a mat... Do we need to censor that word? Y'all know what I mean. On a mattress in the interview room, while the man from Stumps.AVI walks around on his hands while wearing some kind of goblin mask. The door in this room was always closed in other videos,
Starting point is 00:20:59 but now it's open. In this video, the only light is in the room, and the hallway is dark. Near the end of the video, you can see an animal quickly... run through the hallway. Finally, the last video we uncovered, which was Useless.AVI.I. In this 18-minute video, a blonde woman from one of the previous interview videos is tied down to a mattress in the interview room. She attempts to scream, but her mouth
Starting point is 00:21:25 is taped over. After seven minutes, a man in a black suit and mask opens the door, but he does not enter. He holds the door open for the animal that was running in the hall in the previous video, it's revealed to be an adult chimpanzee, its hair shaved and its entire body painted red. It seemed to be starved and abused, with several wounds along its shoulders and back. When the chimp enters the room, the masked man closes the door behind it. The chimpanzee sniffs the air for a moment, may have been blind, and notices the woman tied to the mattress. It goes into a frenzy and begins to maul her. The assault goes on for a grueling seven minutes until the woman finally dies. The chimp eats flesh from her corpse for four minutes as the
Starting point is 00:22:16 video ends. The thread exploded with activity after this video was uncovered and people discussed it long into the night. When I came back to the image board the next day, I found that the thread was deleted. I tried to start another one and they banned me. I tried emailing the guy who sent me the chain letter with the site's URL, sent in five messages, never got a response. I've tried to discuss this website on various places, and I got banned frequently. The site itself was also deleted about three days after useless.AVI was uncovered, likely because someone contacted the authorities about it. The only proof that normal corn for normal people.com ever existed was a few screen caps people took
Starting point is 00:22:57 and videos from the site that people saved and uploaded on torrents. the most popular of which being useless.AVI, which found its way onto a few gore sites. Wherever you upload them to, all of the videos from normal corn for normal people.com, get deleted after a while. So, what do you think? Man, that's the end.
Starting point is 00:23:19 First off, is that at the end? So as far as I know, yes, that is the end of the story. As far as I know, there's no sequels or anything. I think it's, especially 12 years ago. What I interested, I mean, like, there has to be no way that like 1999 isn't influenced by this kind of thing or even that this story isn't influenced by the Poughkeepsie tapes in some kind of way is what I would say yeah I mean they're very similar yeah but also keep in mind like
Starting point is 00:23:48 2012 snuff films and like the dark web stuff like that was everywhere oh yeah like everyone talked about everyone had the story about it that was that was the thing to make horror stories around the amount of times that my friends told me about videos they saw in like even just like in passing at school like hey i just saw a video about this or we know x y or z whatever it was insane back in those times so i think like um i don't know i mean like man what are just uh i really liked how they played with all the vignettes and i liked how subtle and sweet it was like kind of like how short and sweet it was actually that's one thing i feel like i'm liking a lot more about a lot of the early creepy pastas is how shortened just to the point. I know we've driven then this point many times. They just like dive straight into it. No, no time to wait around, no time to slow. But because of that, but because of that, it
Starting point is 00:24:39 uses the archetype of an online forum in a very effective way where it just feels like a post. You know what I mean? And I do feel like people expanded on storytelling later on, but I do feel like right now, if I read this when I was younger, I'd be like, this is 100% real. I think I read it, I don't know,
Starting point is 00:24:56 it was maybe 13, 14, and I, I went into it. I think I listened to it actually through like one of the creepypasta YouTube channels so I went in under the assumption like this is fake but I remember a bunch of people being like is this real? You know did this actually happen? I think
Starting point is 00:25:12 I might have actually sent it to a friend and been like dude this actually happened who like wasn't familiar with it or I used to do that a lot. I used to send friends stuff and be like this is real knowing it was fake but yeah there's a bunch of mine say that as well yeah like weird stuff like there's no this happen you know what I mean? Bro this is so real
Starting point is 00:25:29 also i was i was the chimp actually it's it happened it's real i was there i was uh honestly really creeped out about a blind shaved chimpanzee that they've just painted red also that's a terrifying image it's a terrifying image just because i mean like raw power like i mean just like it's an rabid animal animal kind of thing you know what i mean and i think that uh just chip attacks obviously are just every especially ever since like travis the chimp it's just haunted me for remember seeing that Oprah interview with the survivor of the Travis the Chimp attack that was a pretty heavy thing to just throw out there onto the news you know when all that was it was it was it scarred me forever I have never forgot about that especially when Oprah stands up and takes her hat off
Starting point is 00:26:15 of her head and like reveals her face it's unbelievable so you know and I know that like Jordan Peel included the chimp attack and nope and that was a big part of it as well one thing I will say about the last video I actually thought it was going to be a lot more graphic in that nature and was surprised that it didn't go into that direction but I think like even just ending the story on a chimp attack thing
Starting point is 00:26:39 and just being like now if you ever upload videos there it's just there's just so much mystique still it's kind of like that idea that like the person is still out there doing stuff but you can't it's like when the killer gets away you know what I mean? Yeah yeah it has that kind of vibe except and it's just
Starting point is 00:26:55 like oh living on the like existing in the vibe of just like the guy who was maintaining this website is still out there and you just have no idea is very haunting. It's like an unattainable antagonist almost, right?
Starting point is 00:27:11 Because like how do you even start to try to find the person that did that, right? It's just kind of, there's some stories that are just kind of about the passing evil in the world, right? Like there goes a glimpse of what's happening behind the curtain, but it's intangible. You're never going to catch a ghost.
Starting point is 00:27:27 Yeah. They're very menacing. Next up, we have been drowned. Ben drowned. People in the comments and just across social media have been scolding me saying, how do you, how have you never heard of this? What am I supposed to say? You know what I have never heard of it? I'm sorry, all right?
Starting point is 00:27:45 I'm sorry. I've never heard of it. But now today we will finally rejoice. We'll become one. Yeah, so I remember, I don't remember all the details of Ben Drown. I remember the big ones, like without giving anything. way. I remember like the save files and some of the conversations and stuff like that. I don't think I remember how it ends. So I'm excited to look at this. I will say also someone who
Starting point is 00:28:07 was familiar with normal corn and stuff. I'm glad it still holds up. Like I said, I read it when I was younger and it was, it scared me like it was good. But looking back now, I think it's kind of similar to Barroscoe, like those, the nuance of it bothers me more now than it did then. So it definitely holds up. Yeah. No, I'm stoked. Let's get into it. Which looks like this. It looks like the first post, it's broken up into a series of posts here and the first post was uploaded
Starting point is 00:28:35 or at least as dated September 7th, 2010. Yep, and this, again, most of our information comes from creepy pasta, the creepy pasta wiki because that seems most reliable. The story was created by Alex Hall
Starting point is 00:28:47 who goes online as, or did at one point as juddusable, judozoable, whatever that means. Cedusible. And of course, is about a haunted version of Majora's mask. Do you ever play Major's Mask?
Starting point is 00:29:01 No, but my friend had the Nintendo 64 game. I remember the gold cartridge very well. Yeah, it's a very strange game. You know, like in hindsight, a lot of the aesthetics were kind of weird, the choices. For a kid's game, at least. Like, you know, the... I remember, well, I remember, like, watching
Starting point is 00:29:16 and play it with the moon. Yeah, yeah. A giant, smiling, whatever. Yeah, very creepy. So, post number one, September 7th, 2010. Okay, X. You'll never guess where this was originally posted. Okay, X, I need your help with this. This is not copy pasta.
Starting point is 00:29:33 This is a long read, but I feel like my safety or well-being could very well depend on this. This is video game-related, specifically Majora's Mask, and this is the creepiest shit that has ever happened to me in my entire life. Having said that, I recently moved into my dorm room, starting as a sophomore in college, and a friend of mine gave me his old Nintendo 64 to play. I was stoked, to say the least. I could finally play all of those old games. games of my youth that I hadn't touched in at least a decade.
Starting point is 00:30:01 His Nintendo 64 came with one yellow controller and a rather shoddy copy of Super Smash Brothers, and while beggars can't be choosers, needless to say, it didn't take long until I became bored of beating up Level 9 CPUs. That weekend, I decided to drive around a few neighborhoods about 20 minutes or so off campus, hitting up the local garage sales, hoping to score on some good deals from ignorant parents. I ended up picking up a copy of Pokemon Stadium. Goldeneye, F0, and two other controllers for $2. Satisfied, I began to drive out of the neighborhood when one last house caught my attention.
Starting point is 00:30:39 I still have no idea why it did. There were no cars there, and only one table was set up with random junk on it, but something sort of drew me there. I usually trust my gut on these things, so I got out of the car, and I was greeted by an old man. Is that word appearance was, for a lack of a better word, displeasing? It was odd If you asked me to tell you Why I thought he was displeasing
Starting point is 00:31:01 I couldn't really pinpoint anything There was just something about him That put me on edge I can't explain it All I can tell you is that If it wasn't in the middle of the afternoon And there were other people Within shouting distance
Starting point is 00:31:14 I would not have even thought Of approaching this man What would you say this old band looks like When he says that what would you say My mind immediately goes to a Vietnam war veteran I don't know why I kind of go the other way a bit. I almost imagine he's too clean cut, you know, like glasses, trousers, you know, like very...
Starting point is 00:31:35 Oh, yeah. Hello, well, this is my garage sale. Kind of like he's, he's like a character out of a show or something, you know? Would you like to browse my goods? Yeah, I like that. Like his hair is like super thin. Yeah. You can see the top of his scalp.
Starting point is 00:31:50 Yeah. And he combs it over and he's just like, would you like to buy a lamp? Yeah, that guy Because that would creep me out If I went to a garage zone It was just one old man with a table And he's just like What do you think of this?
Starting point is 00:32:02 And it's like a butterfly collection You're like you're a fucking psychopathy old freak I haven't seen my grandson In a long time You kind of look like him You smell like him too Just like him You smell like lavender
Starting point is 00:32:17 Let me touch you I want to caress your cheeks And pinch your cheek Just like my grandson He died in a drowning act when he was seven years old. Why did you say drowning accident just then? Ben,
Starting point is 00:32:29 drowned. Okay, all right, all right, right. I forgot that was the title of the story. That's the title of the deal, I forgot that was the title of this story because this story does go to a drowning being related. And I was like, there is no way. You just pulled that out of the air. You had such a fucking point dexter point there.
Starting point is 00:32:48 You're just like, how did you know that? Actually, how did you know that? that was going to happen. Like the titles has been drowned. Oh, okay. He flashed a crooked smile at me and asked what I was looking for.
Starting point is 00:33:05 And immediately, I noticed that he must be blind in one of his eyes. His right eye had that glazed over look about it. I forced myself to look to his left eye instead, try not to offend, and asked him if he had any old video games. Glazed over is a wild way to say cataracts.
Starting point is 00:33:24 I was already wondering how I could politely excuse myself from the situation when he would tell me he had no idea what a video game was. But to my surprise, he said he had a few ones in an old box. He assured me he'd be back in a jiffy and turned to head back into the garage. I hate that. I hate when old people use the word jiffy. Is that a reoccurring problem for you? There's been many times with my grandpa, uh, I'd go to see his frenzy, be like, I'd be right, I'd be right back in a jiffy. is what they say and they like they scuttle off because old people are bugs they're a waste of space
Starting point is 00:33:58 they deserve to die kind of like how you feel about our fans no exactly no you know what you but you can get money from the fans no no no you know what you know what you know as cute is you think that these fans are going to turn against me when they know that papam meat is the real champion of the fans i'm a i'm a man at the people dude you think if we had a poll that was which one of the two creepcast host cares about us more. You think you would win that. No, I don't think I'd win because I think you're the more popular host for sure. But I think that in people's body and mind, they know.
Starting point is 00:34:31 People know deep down, even if they won't admit it now, there's going to be, they're going to be 40 years old. There's going to be some creepcast fan who's, I don't know, I don't know how old our fans are. Hopefully, like 20. I don't know how old people are. When they're 40, they're like, you know what? Hunter really was the champion, wasn't he?
Starting point is 00:34:48 And my fucking spirit's going to hunt. him and I'm going to say yes that's a cute little fantasy you've constructed for yourself i'm going to go back to the story now never-ending story as i watched him hobble away i couldn't help but notice what he was selling on his table littered across his table were rather peculiar paintings various artworks that look like ink blots that a psychiatrist might show you curious i look through them. It was obvious why no one was visiting this guy's garage sale. They weren't exactly aesthetically pleasing. As I came to the last one for some reason, it looked almost like Major's mask. The same heart-shaped body with little spikes protruding outward. Initially, I just
Starting point is 00:35:34 thought that since I was secretly hoping to find that game at these garage cells, some Freudian bullshit was projecting itself into the ink plots. But given the events that happened afterward, I'm not so sure now. I should have asked the man about it. I wish I would have asked the man about it. After staring at the Majora-shaped blot, I looked up and the old man was suddenly there again, arms length in front of me, smiling at me. I'll admit, I jumped out of reflex, and I laughed nervously as he handed me a Nintendo 64 cartridge. It was the standard gray color, except that someone had written Majora on it in black permanent marker. I got butterflies in my stomach as I realized what a coincidence this was
Starting point is 00:36:16 and asked him how much he wanted for it. The old man smiled at me and told me that I could have it for free. I used to belong to a kid who was about my age that didn't live here anymore. There was something weird. What? What? What? What a weird fucking thing?
Starting point is 00:36:35 What do you mean what? The old man smiled at me and told me that I could have a free that it used to belong to a kid who was about my age that didn't live here anymore. could what like your grandson what does that mean the child doesn't live here anymore he said he opened by saying he went to a weird neighborhood so i assume he means the neighborhood that makes it even worse that makes it so much an old boy used to come play this game in my basement well it doesn't mean that he's no no no no no no no you're doing the thing you're doing the thing did he did he move look i'm sorry no no no he doesn't live here anymore
Starting point is 00:37:13 I'm sorry about Marasca, okay? I know that you have this knee-jerk reaction whenever kids come into stories now because of all that, I get it. But just because you have an old man who's like, oh, well, I came across this cartridge and yeah, belong to some kid who lived around here. I don't really need it.
Starting point is 00:37:32 You can have it. It is not infeasible. Kid moves away. Parents sell, start giving his stuff away. Old man buys like a trunk of clothes or whatever. Who knows what? and oh look there's a game cartridge in there I'm gonna laugh
Starting point is 00:37:46 I'm gonna laugh so hard Isaiah I'm going to Rafflecopter as the kids say the day that you were like hey I can't record today because someone harvested my organs because you're so fucking naive
Starting point is 00:38:02 you're gonna let someone come in and cut up all your gutty works and take it yeah sorry I can't someone took my spleen is what you're going to say. And I'm like, what happened? Ah, yeah, I don't know this guy
Starting point is 00:38:17 was just following me, but it seemed normal. That's, that's you. That, that is such a cryptic message that it used to belong to a kid who was about my age who didn't live here anymore. What is that even?
Starting point is 00:38:30 Did he live in the house? Then why just, hey, it's my grand, my grand, because listen, you can do this in a different way where the guy's like, hey, my grand kid used to play games here, right? But no, this old creepy fuck is like,
Starting point is 00:38:43 the kid doesn't live anymore, but if you want it, you can have it. I don't know. I'm an old man. Doesn't make any sense, dude. Go ahead. Keep reading.
Starting point is 00:38:56 Go ahead. You have, no, I bet the old guy's fine. Oh, I bet he's a perfectly normal guy. He could rationalize it in his mind, our protagonist, could rationalize the interaction as just like a weird way to phrase some
Starting point is 00:39:12 kid that lived down the street. The next sentence he says that he phrased it weirdly, but it's not the old man going, it's the kid I had in my basement. It's just like, oh, a kid lived around here and that's enough nuance that your brain could be like, oh, that's a weird way to say it. I love
Starting point is 00:39:28 that the literal next sentence is, there was something weird about the way the yes, yes, clearly there's something weird about it, but that's not immediately like, I capture children. Okay. All right. Can I go back to the story? yeah i'm waiting to hear what happens next there was are you there there was something weird about how the man phrased that but i didn't really pay any attention to then i was too caught up and not
Starting point is 00:39:54 only finding this game but getting it for free i minded myself to be a bit skeptical since this looked like a pretty shady cartridge and there's no guarantee it would work but then the optimism inside me interjected that maybe it was some kind of beta version or pirated version of the game and that was all I needed to be back on Cloud 9. I thanked the man, and the man smiled at me and wished me well, saying, Goodbye, then. At least, that's what it sounded like to me. All the way in the car ride home, I had a nagging doubt that the man had said something else.
Starting point is 00:40:30 My fears were confirmed when I booted up the game, to my surprise, it worked just fine, and there was one safe file named simply Ben. good bye ben he was saying goodbye ben i felt bad for the man obviously a grandparent and obviously going senile and i for some reason or another reminded him of his grandson ben oh that's kind of interesting the whole idea too about being like goodbye ben and then feeling like you like do you think that the the person that's writing this story too do you think that he's saying like oh i probably took like i this old man was like, oh, of course, this is yours
Starting point is 00:41:12 because you were Ben. So now he feels like he stole it in a way. Wait, what do you mean? Yours? Like, it was the old man's? Like, uh, because he thought he's like goodbye then and he's like, okay, sure. And he got the, the game cartridge for super cheap, right? Yeah. So he goes back and sees the goodbye Ben thing. Or he
Starting point is 00:41:28 sees the Ben, he's like, oh, he said goodbye Ben. So now the guy, I'm wondering if our if our narrator is like, oh, fuck, well, I just like, probably borderline stole this cartridge from this guy because he thought it was. There's also a level of like an old man because he says a grandparent right he's like oh i assume this was his granddad like that's kind of sad he maybe he just wanted rid of it you know and he passed it off
Starting point is 00:41:50 to me that was kind of that was more symbolic for him than anything you know yeah so i mean yeah even him being the senile i mean i i don't know so it's just like old old brain rot type stuff yeah he has sympathy for him i think yeah out of curiosity i looked at the safe file eyeballing it i could tell that he was pretty far in the game He had almost all of the masks and three-fourth remains of the bosses. I noticed that he had used an owl statue to save his game. He was on day three and by the Stone Tower Temple with hardly an hour left before the moon would crash. I remember thinking that it was a shame that he had come so close to beating the game, but he never finished it.
Starting point is 00:42:31 I made a new file named Link out of tradition. It started the game, ready to relive my childhood. You know, there's something kind of interesting, too. you ever like go to a buddy's house or you ever get like a buy like a used game or something or like a used memory card and you see all the save games and there is like a weird kind of like i guess not nostalgia but there's something that's just like you're kind of taking over somebody else's life on that system you know what i mean you know weird that is i remember being a kid and like we would go to i think it was a game stop or like one of those local game stops whatever right uh and they were selling it was like a basket of old p. 2 memory cards that are used. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember being like, man, that's kind of, there's something kind of haunting about that. Like, it'd be cool theoretically to grab one and be like, oh, let's see what's on here, you know, but.
Starting point is 00:43:21 Well, you know what's weird is I always used to get freaked out because I don't know if people feel the same or if you feel the same, but whenever I, I did the same thing with like PS2 memory cards and they'd have like a little basket. And it's like they're all just like a set price. Yeah, yeah. But my whole thing was I always got hung up in the idea that like, oh, I'm going to get some. memory card of like a guy who was super shitty like a guy that i like i like there was a kid in my school who was such a dickhead about video games and i was always like i almost every time i got to use memory card i was always like god i hope it's not this guy's memory card it was like some kind of weird ownership aspect i don't know it was it was such a weird thing but i always i got
Starting point is 00:43:58 hung up about it man i'm looking at pictures i was like how big was that memory card i have i looked up the picture of one i have eight megabytes and it felt like it held so much you know anyway for such a shady looking game cartridge, I was impressed to have smoothly it ran. Literally just like a retail copy of the game, say for a few minor hiccups here and there. Like textures being where they shouldn't be, random flashes of cutscenes at odd
Starting point is 00:44:20 intervals, but nothing too bad. However, the only thing that was a little unnerving was that at times the NPCs would call me Link, and at other times they would call me Ben. I figured it was just a bug, a fluke in the programming causing our
Starting point is 00:44:36 files to get mixed up or something. It did kind of creep me out, though, after a while, and it was around after I had beaten the Woodfall Temple that I regrettably went into the save files and deleted bin. I had intended to preserve the file just out of respect of the game's original owner. It's not like I needed two files anyway, hoping that would solve the problem. It did, and it didn't. Now, NPCs wouldn't call me anything. Where my name should be in the dialogue, there was just a blank space. My safe file name was still called Link, though.
Starting point is 00:45:12 Frustrated, and with homework to do, I put the game down for a day. I started playing the game again last night, getting the lens of truth and working my way towards completing the Snowhead Temple. Now, some of you more hardcore Majors Mask players know about the fourth day glitch. For those who don't know, you can Google it, but the gist is that right as the clock is about to hit zero on the final day, you talk to the astronomer and look through the telescope. If you time it right, the countdown disappears
Starting point is 00:45:41 and you essentially have another day to finish whatever you were doing. So I had to do the glitch to try and finish the Snowhead Temple, I happened to get it right on the first try and the time counter at the bottom disappeared. However, when I pressed B to exit the telescope, instead of being greeted by the astronomer, I found myself in the Majora boss fight room at the end of the game, the trippy boxed-in arena, staring at Skull Kid hovering above me.
Starting point is 00:46:09 There was no sound, just him floating in the air above me, and the background music, which was regular for the area, but still creepy. Immediately my palms began to sweat. This was definitely not normal. Skull Kid never appeared here. I tried moving around the area, and no matter where I went, Skull Kid would always be facing me, looking at me, not saying anything. nothing would happen though and this kept up for around 60 seconds
Starting point is 00:46:36 I thought the game had bugged or something but I was beginning to doubt that very much I was about to reach for the reset button when text appeared on my screen you're not sure why but you apparently had a reservation I instantly recognize that text you get that message when you get the room key from Andrew at the stockpot in but why was it playing here I refused to entertain the notion that it was almost as if the game was trying to communicate with me.
Starting point is 00:47:05 I started navigate the room again, testing to see if that was some sort of trigger that enabled me to interact with something here. Then I realized how stupid I was to even think that someone could reprogram the game like this was absurd. Sure enough, 15 seconds later, another message appeared on the screen. And again, like the first one, it was already a pre-existing phrase. The layer of the temple's boss? Yes? No. I paused for a second,
Starting point is 00:47:35 contemplating what I should press and how the game would react when I realized that I couldn't select no. Taking a deep breath, I pressed jest and the screen faded to white. With the words,
Starting point is 00:47:49 dawn of a new day, with the subtext, all eyes beneath it. Or at least all lines. Rye was ported to filled me with the most intense sense of dread and impending fear I had ever experienced. The only way I can describe the way I felt here is having this feeling of inexplicable depression
Starting point is 00:48:09 on a profound scale. I am normally not a depressed person, but the way I felt here was a feeling that I didn't even know existed. It was such a twisted, powerful presence that seemed to wash over me. I appeared in some kind of weird twilight zone version of Clocktown. I walked out of the clock tower, as you normally do when you start from day one, only to find that all of the inhabitants were gone. Usually, with the fourth day glitch, you can still find the guards and the dog that runs around outside the tower. This time, they were all gone. What replaced them was the ominous feeling that there was something out there, in the same area as me and that it was watching me. I had four hearts to my name and the hero's bow, but at this point I wasn't even
Starting point is 00:48:56 considered for my avatar. I felt that I personally was in some kind of danger. Perhaps the most chilling thing was the music. It was the song of healing. It grabbed straight from the game itself, but played in reverse. The music will get louder,
Starting point is 00:49:12 building up so as if you should expect something to pop out at you, but nothing ever did. The constant loop began to wear on my mental state. Every now and then, I would hear the faint laugh of the happy mass salesman in the background. ground, just quiet enough so that I wasn't sure if I was just hearing things, just loud enough
Starting point is 00:49:31 to keep me determined to find him. I looked in all four zones of Clocktown, only to find nothing. No one. Textures were missing. West Clock Town had me walking on air. The entire area felt broken, hopelessly broken. As the reverse Song of Healing repeated for what must have been the 50th time, I just remember standing in the middle of South Clock Town, realizing that I had never felt so alone in a video
Starting point is 00:49:58 game before. As I walked through the ghost town, I don't know whether it was a combination of the out-of-place textures and the atmosphere and the haunting melody of the once peaceful and soothing song being butchered and distorted, but I was literally on the verge of tears and I had no idea why. I hardly ever cry. Something had gripped me here in this powerful sense of depression that was both foreign and crippling i tried leaving clocktown but every time i attempted to zone out the screen would fade to black and i would just zone in to another part of clocktown i tried playing my ocarina i wanted to escape i did not want to be here every time i played the song of time or song of soaring it would only say your notes echo for her but nothing happens by this point it was
Starting point is 00:50:47 obvious the game didn't want me to leave but i had no idea why it was keeping me here. I didn't want to go inside the buildings. I felt that I would be too vulnerable there to whatever I was terrified of. I don't know why, but I came up with the idea that maybe if I drowned myself at the laundry pool, I could spawn somewhere else and leave this place. As I zoned in and ran towards the pool, that's when it happened. Link grabbed his head and the screen flashed for a brief moment of the happy mass salesman
Starting point is 00:51:20 smiling at me not link me with skull kid's screen playing in the background and when the screen returned i was staring at the link statue from playing the song elegy of emptiness are you familiar with what these things look like by the way i feel like very like i wouldn't say i'm definitely an expert but i feel like the only thing i truly remember if i'm being honest is just the the mask on the cover of the game and the smile of the moon but I'm just getting pictures, like I'm kind of painting pictures of myself that are, like, to myself that are, you know, like, just variants of that. You know what I mean? And I also, and I do remember, I think, like, the South Clocktown, like, I feel like I remember that pretty well. Yeah. And honestly, this is, I love the, the world building of this, too, because it kind of feels like, so far, if I had to guess anything, just because we're at a preamble here, is, uh, it feels like it's like possibly the ghost of a child or some kind of kid, like, haunting this game or is stuck in this game and is maybe looking for somebody to like take his place
Starting point is 00:52:27 in the game or something or yeah you know that that kind of vibe but I love the idea of because I feel like everyone has been there right or at least me when I was younger I used to play like trapped inside of a game in my right voice or even like the idea I guess more so I meant like you know when you're like transfixed and you're scared playing a game but you don't want to turn it off but it's like you also don't want
Starting point is 00:52:48 to proceed forward in a weird way you know what I mean yeah yeah I remember I had I had quake on Nintendo 64 I remember I was so scared playing the game I was so fascinated by it but it was so haunting I was like a yell for my mom
Starting point is 00:53:01 I'm like my mom come here and watch me play this whatever but I was just horrified the whole time it's kind of one of those things so it's like to be trapped in this to be actually transfixed in this
Starting point is 00:53:14 but then also to have the game be altered in this way where you're like I feel like I cannot even like lose green rip of the controller is just a really interesting archetype yeah it's also like it's a weird area of gaming where like you know everyone's experience was personal you know online play wasn't a huge thing yet or whatever you could kind of yeah like not that it happened to you but you could see this situation playing out in your head you know because nowadays if this started you just
Starting point is 00:53:42 be like hey reddit what happened how do i fix this clip yeah yeah yeah there's like really no exploration to it. There's also something interesting of like owning someone else's game cartridge or something that's like theirs. You know what I mean? It's almost like buying a house to somebody who died or something. The same way that also whenever you delete somebody's, um, whenever you delete someone's save file, it's almost like you're deleting their memory or their soul off of this thing.
Starting point is 00:54:06 And that's just, it's so like, I don't know, cheesy, but I also love that idea of just like a horror concept. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. It's, uh, this is better than I remember. so far. Yeah, I'm curious. I really don't know where they're where it's going to go, so I'm curious. We shall continue on. I screamed as the thing just stared back at me with that haunting facial
Starting point is 00:54:28 expression. I turned around and ran out and back into South Clocktown into my horror. The statue followed me in the only way I can compare is like the weeping angels from Doctor Who. Every so often at random intervals, the animation would play if the statue appearing behind me. It was like the thing was chasing me, or I don't even want to say it, haunting me. Hmm. The statue, can you explain it a little bit why, like what that looks like? Yeah, it's kind of, it's a statue of Link that looks like Link, but made out of clay, almost. By this point, I was on the verge of hysterics, but not even once did the thought of
Starting point is 00:55:10 turning off the console occur to me. I don't know why I was so wrapped up in it. Terror felt also real. I tried to shake the statue, but it would literally appear right behind me every single time. Link started to begin to make weird animations I had never seen him do before. He would flail his arms around or spasm randomly, and the screen would cut to the happy mask salesman, smiling again for a brief moment before I was face-to-face with that statue again.
Starting point is 00:55:37 I ended up running into the Swordmaster's Dojo and ran to the back. I don't know why, but in my panic, I just wanted some kind of assurance that I'm not alone here. To my dismay I found no one And as I turned to leave The statue cornered me In the cubby in the back I tried attacking the statue as my sword But to no avail
Starting point is 00:55:57 Confused and backed into a corner I just stared at the statue Waiting for it to kill me Suddenly the screen flashed again To the happy mass salesman And Link turned to face my screen Standing upright mirroring the statue Looking at me along with this copy
Starting point is 00:56:15 literally staring at me. Whatever was left of the fourth wall was completely shattered while I ran out of the dojo terrified. Suddenly, the game warped me to an underground tunnel and the reverse song of healing queued up again as I was given a brief moment of rest before the statue started appearing behind me again, this time aggressively. I could only take a few steps before it would summon behind me again. I hurriedly made my way out of the tunnel and appeared in Southern Clock Town. As I ran aimlessly in a sheer panic, suddenly a re-dead screamed and the screen faded to black as dawn of a new day and the line title card appeared again.
Starting point is 00:56:58 The screen faded in and I was standing on top of Clock Tower with Skull Kid hovering over me again, silent. I looked up and the moon was back, looming just meters above my head, but the Skull Kid just stared at me hauntingly that mask. A new song was playing. The Stone Tower Temple theme played in reverse. In some sort of desperate attempt, I equipped my bow and fired off a shot at the Skull Kid, and it actually hit him, and he played an animation of him reeling back. I fired again, and on the third arrow, the text box appeared, saying, That won't do you any good, he-he.
Starting point is 00:57:38 And I was picked up off the ground, levitated upwards on my back, and the link screamed as he burst into flames, instantly cut. killing him. I jumped when this happened. I never seen this move used by anyone in the game, and Skull Kid himself didn't have any moves. As the death screen played, my lifeless body still burning, Skull Kid laughed and the screen faded to black, only to have me reappear in the same place. I decided to charge him, but the same thing happened. Link's body was lifted off the ground by some unknown force, and he immediately burst into flames again, killing him. This time, during the death screen, the faint sounds of the reverse song of healing could be heard.
Starting point is 00:58:20 My third, and final try, I noticed that there was no music playing this time. That all there was was the eerie silence. I remember that in the original encounter with the Skull Kid, you were supposed to use the ocarina to either travel back in time or summon the giants. I attempted to play the song of time, but before I could hit the last note, his body once again horrifically exploded into flames, and he died. As the death screen neared its end, it began to chug, as if the cartridge was trying to process a lot of something. When the screen came to, it was the same scene as the first three times, except this time, Link was lying on the ground, dead in a position I had never seen in the game before.
Starting point is 00:59:04 His head tilted towards the camera, with the skull kid floating above him. I couldn't move. I couldn't press any buttons. All I could do is just stare at the camera. Link's dead body. After around 30 seconds of this, the game simply fades out with the message. You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you? Before kicking you out to the title screen.
Starting point is 00:59:27 Upon getting back to the title screen and starting again, I noticed my save file was no longer there. Instead of Link, it was replaced with your turn. Your turn had three hearts, zero masks, and no items. I selected your turn, and immediately, when I did, I was returned to the clock tower rooftop
Starting point is 00:59:50 scene of my Link dead and the Skull Kid hovering over, with the Skull Kid's laughing looping again and again. I quickly hit the reset button, and when the game booted up again, there was one more safe file added below your turn, entitled Ben. Ben's safe file is right back where it was before I deleted it at the Stone Tower Temple, with the moon almost crashing. I turned the game off at that point. I'm not superstitious,
Starting point is 01:00:18 but this is way too messed up, even for me. I haven't played it at all today. Hell, I didn't even get any sleep last night. I kept hearing the reverse song of healing music in my head and just remembering the sense of dread I felt exploring Clocktown. I drove back to the old man's house today to ask him some questions with a buddy of mine. No way I was going there alone,
Starting point is 01:00:38 only to find that there's a four-sale sign in the front yard, and when I rang the door, how home was home. So now I'm back here writing down the rest of my thoughts and recording what happened. Sorry if some of this has grammatical errors and whatnot. I'm running on no sleep here. I'm terrified of this game, even more so now that I relived it a second time writing this all down, but I feel like there's still more to it the means the eye and that there's something calling me to investigate this further. I think Ben is something in this equation, but I don't know what. And if I could get a hold of the man, then I would be able to find some answers. I need another day or so to
Starting point is 01:01:16 recuperate before tackling this game again. It's already taken a toll on my sanity, I feel like, but next time I do this, I'm going to be recording my footage all the way through. The idea to record only came to me towards the end, so you can see the last few minutes of what I was, of what I saw, including Skull Kid and the Elogy statue, but it's on YouTube here. I'm going to stay in this thread for a little while longer before I fall asleep to answer any questions you guys might have or hopefully listen to your ideas or theories to let me shed some light into this or maybe things I should try to do. I think I'm going to play Ben's file tomorrow to see what happens. Maybe I was supposed to do that all along. I don't believe in paranormal shit, but this is a little messed up.
Starting point is 01:02:01 But maybe this Ben guy is just a really good hacker or programmer. I don't want to think about the alternatives if he isn't. That's the end of the conversation. copy paste. I'm hoping that maybe this is some kind of running gag the developers had and that other people have gotten gag or hacked copies of the game like this. This just really scares me. End of post one. I really like that there really is a little video file too that you can watch there. The whole thing I think is recorded all the big story moments. Yeah, I was noticing that too. Just kind of like very whimsical, very ethereal. Did you picture this whenever he was reading the story? Did you picture that do you still picture a guy who is?
Starting point is 01:02:39 is just sitting there watching the game or do you feel like he is totally submerged and like he is completely like in the not like in the game but like his perception is like he's no longer just a guy holding a controller I say I don't think he literally got pulled into the game or anything
Starting point is 01:02:56 but I think that yeah I mean you've been there like you know you're playing a game like late at night or whatever and you're like zoned in and then you kind of like snap out of it a bit you know I think he's in that kind of state like where the things have happening to Link actually scare him. But then it's like terrifyingly broken by these fourth wall moments where like the thing
Starting point is 01:03:17 in the game looks directly at him or whatever. Well, it also feels like I think the only reason I was wondering, because I agree. I don't think he's literally in the game, but I do think I'm wondering how much of like his psyche or whatever is getting sucked into it to where it's like he's in a trance almost or something. Yeah. Yeah. To where now it's like you're kind of like stuck in this hell loop. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 01:03:36 He's kind of hearing the same songs going backwards or whatever. It's just kind of interesting. And to especially be in such like a familiar world as something like a Zelda game or something feels kind of interesting. Are you ready for post two? Post two. September 8th, so literally the next day.
Starting point is 01:03:55 Yep. I'm going to post what happened and link the video footage. But last night, everything got too real for me. I think I'm done messing around with this. I passed out pretty much immediately after making that thread. But last night, the algae of emptiness statue
Starting point is 01:04:08 I had a dream about it. I dreamed that it was following me in my dream, that I would be minding my own business when I'd feel my neck hair stand up on in. I would turn around that thing, that horrible, lifeless statue would be staring with those empty eyes right at me, merely inches away. In my dream, I remember calling it Ben,
Starting point is 01:04:29 and never before had I had a dream that I could remember so vividly. But the important thing is, I did get some sleep, I suppose. today putting off playing the game as long as I could I drove back up to that neighborhood to see if the old man came back as I expected the car was still gone and no one was home as I was walking back to my car the man next door mowing the grass
Starting point is 01:04:54 killed the power to his lawnmower and asked me if I was looking for someone I told him that I was looking to talk to the old man that lived here to which he told me what I already knew he was moving trying a different avenue I asked if the old man had any family or relatives I could talk to. I discovered that this old man had never been married, nor did he have any children or grandchildren through adoption. Starting to become worried, I asked one final question,
Starting point is 01:05:22 one that I should have asked from the beginning. Who was been? Man's expression heard grim, and I learned that four doors down, around eight years ago, on April the 23rd, the man informed me that it was the same day as his anniversary, That's how he knew the specific date. There was an accident with a young boy named Ben in the neighborhood.
Starting point is 01:05:44 Shortly after his parents moved, and despite any further attempts to talk to the man to get more information, he wouldn't divulge anything else. If you were him as well and you went back to the area to get some answers from the old man and the house was for sale, what would be your initial reaction to that? If I had a haunted copy of a game and I thought the ghost of a child was stalking me because of this old man, I think I think I would kill him.
Starting point is 01:06:07 I think I would. Yeah, I would definitely kill him. You won't wish to Stephen on me, huh? But do you believe, do you believe right now that he thinks that the game is haunted? I think he's putting it together. Because that's what he says at the end of part one where he says, I hope he was a really good hacker programmer because of the alternative. Now he's just figured out that Ben is the name of a boy that died, not some,
Starting point is 01:06:29 not a kid who got really good at programming, right? Right. Right. I was curious because I was just like, if you went back, I was trying to put myself in those shoes of just being like, because you can kind of justify it where it's like, oh, well, you know, he had the garage sale. He's probably selling some stuff before he was going to move, but it would still just be one of those things that would just be like, this is turning into a very series of like, I don't know, horrifying things that keep kind of like a domino effect almost or something. Oh, no, I would definitely blame the old dude. Oh, 100%.
Starting point is 01:06:58 His initial reaction is like, well, maybe it was like his grain kit or something. And that makes sense. But now it absolutely doesn't make sense. Yeah, you've thrown all of that out the window pretty much. Yeah. I went back and started playing again. I loaded up the game, and immediately I jumped at the title screen where the mask flies by. The sound that played was not the normal, whoosh sound. It was something much more higher pitched.
Starting point is 01:07:20 I pressed art, bracing for the worst, but just like two nights ago, the files, your turn, and Ben, were displayed. Truth be told, I looked at the Ben file earlier. It seems to fluctuate between displaying the Owl Save and Not. I brought up the bin file hesitated for a moment noticing that the stats were not the same as they originally were two days ago seemed like he had already completed
Starting point is 01:07:45 the stone tower temple this time somebody in my courage I selected it so it seems like since it started the safe file has progressed somewhat yeah that's kind of interesting like oh now it's he's even further along how the hell does that happen alive in there progressing yeah
Starting point is 01:08:02 immediately I was thrust into complete chaos sure enough I was outside stone temple tower but that's about all that was expected zone itself wasn't called stone temple tower but rather ST space O space in space E and immediately a dialogue box of complete gibberish that I couldn't make out greeted me do you read that a saint one
Starting point is 01:08:25 oh it could be yeah I didn't think of it that way I'm just I'm just kind of I'm just thinking out of because yeah for people it's ST no spaces and then space O space N space E so it's just it kind of reads like Saint 1 I don't know yeah or at least the 1
Starting point is 01:08:42 is supposed to be like emboldened out of it yeah it could be right link's body was distorted his back was cocked violently to the side where his posture was permanently disfigured link's expression was dull almost monotonous he had an expression on his face
Starting point is 01:08:58 that I didn't recognize before it was a blank look as if he was dead. As Link stood there, his body spasmed irregularly back and forth, I examined what had become of my avatar and noticed I had a C-button item I had never seen before. Some kind of note, but pressing it did nothing. Sounds played back and forth that I didn't recognize from the game,
Starting point is 01:09:25 almost demonic in nature. And there was some kind of high-pitched yip or some kind of laugh or something playing in the background. At all of two minutes to take in the environment before another one of those algae of emptiness statues was summoned and immediately after I was cut into the dawn of a new day screen
Starting point is 01:09:43 except this time it was without the line's subtext. I was a Deku scrubbing clock town. This scene would normally play after the first time you traveled back in time. Tattle would say, What just happened? It's as if it's a... everything has, but instead of saying, started over, she finished her remark in a broken text
Starting point is 01:10:07 as the laugh of the happy mass salesman played in the background. I was put back in control of my character, but from a screwed up camera angle, I was looking from behind the door to the clock tower, watching my avatar run around as a daku scrub. Seeing as how I really had no place to go because I couldn't see anything, I begrudgingly went into the door. There, I was greeted by the happy mass salesman who simply told me, You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you? Before the screen whited out. I was in Termina Field as a human again.
Starting point is 01:10:41 I might as well not have been playing the same game anymore. I was being warped around and there was no sign of a day clock or anything. I took a moment to get my bearings as I looked around the field and immediately I could tell that this was not normal. There were no enemies and twisted version of the Happy Mass Salesman's theme was playing. I saw I had to run towards Woodfall before I noticed a gathering of three figures off to the side, one of them being Apona. As I approached to my horror, I saw the happy mass salesman, the Skull Kid,
Starting point is 01:11:14 and the elegy of emptiness statue just standing there. I figured maybe they were bugged out, but by now I told myself that I should know better. Nevertheless, I approached them carefully and found that the Skull Kid was playing some kind of idle animation on loop. save with a poda, and the elegy of emptying a statue was doing what it has been doing all along, just standing there eerily. It was a happy mass salesman that scared me more profoundly than the other two. He too was idle, wearing that shit-eating grin, but wherever I moved, his head slowly turned and followed me.
Starting point is 01:11:51 I not engaged in any dialogue with him, nor was I in combat with him, yet his head still continued to follow my movements. reminded of my first encounter with the Skull Kid on top of Clock Tower pulled out my ocarina to which the game played the dingh sound when you're supposed to play your ocarina and tried a song I hadn't played yet the Happy Mass Hellsman's own song
Starting point is 01:12:15 and the song that had been playing on loop back in day four the song of healing I finished playing the song and as I did an ear-piercing shriek blasted on my TV The sky immediately started flashing, the happy mass salesman's twisted theme song sped up, intensifying the fear inside me, and Link exploded into flames and died. The three figures stayed lit up during my death screen as they watched my lifeless body burn.
Starting point is 01:12:45 I can't describe to you how sudden and terrifying the transition from eerie to terror it is. You're going to have to watch the video if you want to see firsthand. That same fear that caused me to lose sleep two days ago, started to grip me again as I was met with the text. You've met with a horrible fate, haven't you? For the third time. There has to be some kind of meaning behind that. I had little time to ponder as I was immediately given another small cutscene
Starting point is 01:13:12 of transforming into Azora and now I find myself in Great Temple Bay. Hesitant but curious to see what the game had in store for me. I slowly made my way towards the beach where I found a Pona. I wondered why the game had decided to put her here. Was the game implying she was trying to get a drink? Unable to take the mask off, I decided that riding the steed wasn't the reason she was placed there. Suddenly, I realized that a pona kept nane
Starting point is 01:13:42 and the way she was angled made it look like she was trying to signal a point to me off in the distance. It was a hunch, but I dove into Great Bay and started swimming. sure enough I almost missed it I found something at the bottom of the ocean one last elegy of emptying a statue
Starting point is 01:14:02 I went down to examine it and suddenly my Zora's started doing choking animation I'd never seen a Zora do before which didn't even make sense because Zora's can breathe underwater regardless my character choked to death
Starting point is 01:14:20 and died and again the statue was the only thing that was highlighted in my death. I didn't respond this time. I was booted back to the main menu as if I restarted the console. The press start screen was before me. I knew the only reason why it would put me here is because the save files had changed again. Taking a deep breath, I pressed start, and I was right.
Starting point is 01:14:46 The new save files told me about Ben. Now, it made sense why the statue appeared when I tried to go to the laundry point. The game must have anticipated how I would have tried to escape the day four o'clock town. The two safe files told me his fate. As I suspected, Ben was dead. He had drowned. The game obviously isn't through with me. It taunts me with these new save files.
Starting point is 01:15:12 It wants me to keep playing. It wants me to go further. But I'm done with this shit. I'm not touching any more of the files. This is already way too horrifying for me, and I don't even even believe in the paranormal, but I'm running out of explanations. Why would someone send me this message? I don't understand it.
Starting point is 01:15:31 I just get too depressed thinking about this. The footage is up here for those who want to see it and try and analyze it. Maybe there's some kind of coded message in the gibberish or something symbolic in what I went through. I'm too emotionally and mentally drained to screw with it anymore. End of post two. So do you think that Ben here is, how do you read this? Do you read it as a threat or do you read it as Ben reaching out for help? I think Ben's trying to tell him something is the vibe I get.
Starting point is 01:16:01 Maybe not help. Maybe if it's something as simple as a kid trying to communicate with the outside world, right? Like he's stuck in the game or something like that. His ghost is stuck in it. So if Ben is that statue or is represented by that statue and he's following him around, there's something haunting about the statue out in the ocean, you know, like the same place he drowned or like represented. of it. That's pretty brutal. It feels like
Starting point is 01:16:26 a digital map of something that maybe happened in real life or something, like a recreation. Yeah. Okay, well, let me ask you this. Do you find his presence threatening or do you find it at like, I mean, threatening or not threatening? I guess just to make it easy. I don't find
Starting point is 01:16:42 Ben threatening. I find the mass salesman threatening. Yeah. I think he is the entity who is pulling the strings and Ben's a victim in it. I find the game, yeah, I find like the mass salesman kind of vibe or just the game in general threatening, but I don't find like the, it's odd. I don't find the statue necessarily, which obviously the statue, I believe, is supposed to represent Ben. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:17:06 But I don't find that as threatening as the salesman or even just the game as a whole contorting around and stuff. It feels like a trap almost, like a bear trap. Yeah, yeah. I think that's accurate. And like he's kind of parading Ben around as like his last victim. right I think so I mean that's at least what it thinks like and it feels like especially because he's a statue he's it's like he's a statue it's like the the game's version of like a ghost or something too like it's like a it's like a haunting oh it's like it's indicative of like a statue you'd find
Starting point is 01:17:39 like a cemetery yeah you know what I mean it's like okay so the three safe files together has been drowned your turn right so the haunted mass salesman is kind of collecting like collecting souls almost, you know, or like victims in the game, it feels like. Yeah. I mean, even the sentence of the files coming together, Ben Drown, now it's your turn. Yeah. Like, it's like he is coming to, it's almost as if every time that this guy goes on and plays this game, it's almost like the ritual is becoming more and more complete.
Starting point is 01:18:11 Yeah. Yeah. I agree. It's like a seance or something. Pretty good so far. Pretty good so far. Yeah, I feel like people, I feel like, I don't know, I enjoy it. I feel like it's an interesting thing.
Starting point is 01:18:22 It also feels very catered. Like, do you find that, because you said you're not, you don't really know this game super well? Do you think with him saying such specific landscapes and names, do you think that's distracting or do you are, I can picture it in my head. You know,
Starting point is 01:18:36 if I played the game, I think I'd appreciate it more, but I mean, I can, I can put it together. I feel like if you're a diehard of this game, I feel like, you can just go to the video and just see exactly what he's talking about.
Starting point is 01:18:48 Yeah, that makes it more helpful. to do. Anyway, post three, which is two days after post two. I know it's early in the morning. I've stayed up all night. I can't sleep. I don't care if people see this. That's not the point. I just want the word to get spread so I don't suffer for nothing. I've lost the will to talk about this. The less I dwell on this, the better. I think the video just speaks for itself. I did what you guys told me to do. I played the elegy of emptiness song at the first prompt by the game I was given, but I think that's what the game or been, man, I can't even believe I'm even humoring the absurd idea that he exists in the game wanted me to do. He's following me now. Not just in the game. He's in my dreams. I see him all the time behind my back, just watching me. I haven't gone to any of my classes. I've stayed in my dorm room with the windows closed and the blind shut. That way I know he can't watch me. But he still gets me when I play. When I play, he can still see me. The game is scaring me now.
Starting point is 01:19:49 It talked to me for the first time, not just using texts that's already in the game, spoke to me, talk to me, in reference bin, it talked to me. I don't know what it means. I don't know what it wants. I never wanted this. I just want my old life back. Stuff like this doesn't happen to people like me. I'm just a kid, not even old enough to drink yet.
Starting point is 01:20:11 It's not fair. I want to go home. I want to see my parents again. I'm so far away from home here at this school. I just want to hug my mom again. I just want to forget that statue's horrible, blank face. My original game follows back
Starting point is 01:20:25 just the way I left it before it was gone. I don't want to play anymore. I feel like something bad will happen if I don't, but that's impossible. It's a video game. Haunted or not, it can't hurt me, right? Like seriously, though, it can't, right? That's why I keep telling myself.
Starting point is 01:20:41 Every time I think about it, I'm not so sure. I don't know. The game actually talking back to you, that would fuck me up. Uh, yeah. I would say it would just speaking to you just sitting there thinking about it too though you're playing the entire time it's been text and then all of a sudden it actually talks to you
Starting point is 01:20:57 i feel like i'd be like well i have gone officially too far i'm fucked that's immediately like what i would think well all right i'm done i'm looking at the uh the footage you posted it's like full bore cut scenes and stuff i love all the inclusions of the videos like just like the weird mods and stuff how fun the music is inherently creepy in the game too honestly He plays the song, the music's being played backwards, and then it cuts to black. And every time that he does anything, the text says, you shouldn't have done that. Then he's in the happy mask shop. Shouldn't have done that.
Starting point is 01:21:32 Game freezes. Cuts to black. And I'm going to read the text that it says, it says first, Ben is getting lonely. Ugh. Then he's walking through a field to the tree. The statue appears behind him. It's just him and the statue in the field. scream cut to the man
Starting point is 01:21:50 and then the text says you will be given one last chance back to where it all began come play with us dawn of the final day and it goes back cuts him back to the main screen yeah that's terrifying the game
Starting point is 01:22:04 being like you get one last chance right what's I mean is I'm like yeah it's just like you get one last chance and it's like well what am I doing wrong I don't know what I'm doing wrong especially it looks like yeah it's just it's super odd the game saying repeatedly too you shouldn't have done that is so menacing. You should have done that. And then to think to now I'm in this place of
Starting point is 01:22:22 sympathy even more for Ben where it's like we're just seeing our main protagonist go through it now. But then you just have to assume that Ben was going through the exact same thing in his neighborhood before. You know what I mean? Before he drowned. Yeah. Now part five or wait, sorry, post four, four, four, which was made two days after post three. Let me just clear things up. I know you guys are worried about Jed usable is okay. He finished, that's the guy who's writing the story, by the way, Jed Usable. Right. He finished moving out today and he said he's going back home.
Starting point is 01:22:55 He's just taking the semester off. I'm not really sure what's happened. I have a vague idea, but you guys probably know more than I do. I'm Jed Yad Usable's roommate and obviously I knew something was wrong with him for a few days now. He stayed in his room all the time. I fell out of contact with literally all of his friends and I'm pretty sure he hadn't been eating hardly anything. After the second day, I couldn't stay in there anymore. So I've been crashing out of Buddy's place, only coming into my room to get stuff that I need.
Starting point is 01:23:24 I tried talking to him several times, but he would cut me off or keep the conversation brief when I asked him about his strange behavior. It's like he was convinced something was hunting him. Yesterday, I came to grab my philosophy book, and he approached me, looking awful, like horrible bags under his eyes. He handed me a flash drive and gave me specific instructions. He told me that he needs me to do one last favor for him. He finally explained to me what has been going on,
Starting point is 01:23:52 gave me the account info to his YouTube account, and told me that he's getting away from here, that it lured him to play it again instead of trying to change things, that he shouldn't have done that, and to upload the footage and inform people what happened. I told him he could do it himself, and he got this wild look in his eye and told me
Starting point is 01:24:12 that he is never looking at that game again. and that's the last thing he said to me. Never even said by when his parents came to pick him up. I never even got to meet his parents. Honestly, can't tell you what happened. When he spoke, it was kind of hard to understand him and his screwed up appearance really distracted me. On the flash drive, there was footage at the game last night,
Starting point is 01:24:33 a text document with his name and a password for YouTube. The third document called the truth.comptaining what he told me were his notes that he taken. He told me that this meant everything to him, that I follow his instructions exactly. Normally, I wouldn't be so to the letter for a request over a video game, but the way he spoke and the way he looked made me know this was really serious, and I'm going to honor that. I've had this video since yesterday, but had to have someone help me use Pinnacle. That's not really my forte. That, after watching it, I had to go back through and look at his other videos on his YouTube account to realize what was going on, and even then, I'm really, really confused.
Starting point is 01:25:22 This video I'm releasing tonight, the truth. text, will be released on September 15th, just like you requested. I haven't dared peek at it yet, so the first time I see it will be the first time you see it out of respect to my friend. To answer your questions, no. I haven't tried calling him yet. I think I'll give him a call tomorrow to see if he's okay or not. He should have gotten back home by now. About the video. In this video, I cut straight to when he uploaded the bin file in the game. Looking back, I realized that Juddusible left the safe select screen in because it said different names sometimes. So my bad for that. But all it said this time was the same as the end of his laugh video. Link and Ben. Nothing different. I wasn't there when he played it,
Starting point is 01:26:08 but it looks to me like in the beginning when he first spawns, he's testing out his equipment or seeing what items he has or something because apparently they've changed randomly before. Then after that,
Starting point is 01:26:20 I just think the game got too personal for him. And we have his footage. So I will click through the footage once again. I kind of like the idea too that his roommate took over the post for it or just kind of let you know what happened
Starting point is 01:26:32 and the guy couldn't even like keep preparing it. Yeah. Or like keep typing into it. So he's playing the game normally. I think someone who's more familiar you can tell me things specifically. Nothing horrifically wrong has happened yet. I don't think.
Starting point is 01:26:44 Okay, here we go. First thing. A picture appears of the Bin statue or the elegy statue next to the mass salesman and says, keep this picture. Yes or no. He selects no and the screen starts shaking. Well, that's cool.
Starting point is 01:26:59 There's always like broken text whenever he's talking to these creatures. Maybe if you went through and analyzed you get more out of it. But it kind of looks like there's believing in your friend, believing in your friends and racing that belief by forgiving. This could also be text from the game.
Starting point is 01:27:21 These feelings shave, because I'm not familiar with the text game, happened. I think it is text from the game. It's just so broken up. But whenever it goes correctly, that's when, you know, it's the game speaking to him.
Starting point is 01:27:33 Statue appears behind him, once again. Camera pans over it. and then he's shoved I think he just got teleported underwater oh what the what is that I don't like that so after he fights that thing underwater
Starting point is 01:27:48 he's in link suddenly appears in front of a grave like not the statue like his character appears in front of a grave and it says on the front of the grave the melody that summons the tears of angels rests here after that he goes to another grave that says
Starting point is 01:28:04 the soul of a brave soldier from Akana to rest here. So he's reading the text on tombstones. He's very slowly walking and they get kind of dragged over in front of one grave and it says, a vessel that holds wandering spirits rest here. And then link trips and falls, he clips through the floor and falls through the world in front of the grave. And then the text says, this is once again a black screen. The game speaking directly to him says, it'll be our little secret, okay? And you can hear the man laughing. Weird. He then comes to in an underground tunnel that the world's
Starting point is 01:28:41 like twisted around and then when he gets into into like the interior of the temple the bin statue is there once again in the underground literally underneath a graveyard right, the Ben statue and then screen goes black and
Starting point is 01:28:56 says you can't run. The screen comes to and now Link is standing in line with the bin statue in front of the salesman. And the audio is like backwards and weird and creepy and I don't like it I don't I want to listen to it
Starting point is 01:29:14 the camera then pans around link and the text from the game speaking to our player says please help me and he gets thrown back to the start menu so after that he goes back into the game and there are now two save files one that says link and another that says
Starting point is 01:29:30 Matt so I'm guessing our author's name was Matt and he did not do what he was supposed to with that final chance, probably. And now his save files there. So now it's almost like he's a part of the cycle note too, I imagine. Then we have our final post. Yeah, interestingly enough, it's September 15th, which is five days after Jawsable.
Starting point is 01:29:51 Is that how you're saying his name? Jad usable or Jusible or whatever. Jad usable, whatever. So it's been five days since he posted. And I think this time, yeah, hey guys, Judd usable here. So now it's actually him posting and not his roommate. Yep. This will be the last time you'll be hearing from me.
Starting point is 01:30:05 And this is my final gift to you. you. These are the notes that I have taken and the realizations I made. Before I delve into this, I want to thank you for following me and thank you for listening. It feels like the weight of a powerful burden is about to be lifted. By the time you read this, I won't be around anymore. And after spending four days with this maddening game, I began to understand what's really at play here. And hopefully after reading this, we can ensure that this never happens again. These are the things that I could not share with you while this was going on. due to the circumstances to which I'll explain.
Starting point is 01:30:41 With Ben blocking any attempt I made to try and relay the truth to you, I tried, ever so subtly, to warn you guys in various ways. Amidst the chaos in my delirium, I devised to make a barely noticeable pattern in my videos. In all five videos, I recorded over the four days, I have either had the mask of truth, interacted with a gossip stone, or the lens of truth equipped at some point.
Starting point is 01:31:06 For you Zelda enthusiasts, these are all symbols of honesty and trustworthiness, and I would hope that one of you may have picked up on the reference. As I played the file, which I would name Ben, being mindful of how Ben was watching over my every move in the game, I made a point to avoid doing anything too obvious, but I sent out a hidden message to you guys. I never quipped the lens, nor the mask, nor visited a stone. It worked and the video was uploaded. I prayed that someone would notice the pattern didn't apply to Ben.
Starting point is 01:31:40 The tags followed suit too. I hope you guys paid attention to those as well. They were my little message to you. Nothing big enough that would catch Ben's attention or make him suspect anything. With Ben manipulating and changing my files, I honestly hope that what you guys saw was close to what actually happened, but there's no way for me to know. This may be a long read.
Starting point is 01:32:02 I don't have time to prove for you to make all my research pretty, but here it all is. that's pretty sick that the stuff in game is actually like he was holding like items of honesty during like moments of legitimacy or whatever all right so he's talking about uh this is here's everything i was able to compile that ben wouldn't let me put out there which we don't know what that means yet per se but september 6th can't believe what this is 11 p.m. can't believe what happened not sure if this is some kind of elaborate hoax despite the fear i can't help but be exceptionally curious about this
Starting point is 01:32:35 Who or what is a statue? A lot of questions here. I'm starting this document as a diary so I can keep track of everything. I'm typing up a summary of what happened so I can come back to it later. The next day, beginning at 2 a.m., he has updates at read.
Starting point is 01:32:52 Summary was posted here. You can go back and look at my first post for day four for that, which we already saw, I believe. I can't sleep. I've been trying so hard, but the harder I try, I just get more restless.
Starting point is 01:33:06 I feel like that statue is appearing whenever I close my eyes. Didn't sleep at all, just going to start my day. I don't think I've got the energy to do class today. I'm going to drive back down to talk to that old man, taking my buddy Tyler with me just in case. Back home now. No sign of the old man. Really weird that he appears to be moving the next day.
Starting point is 01:33:26 But maybe the four-sale sign was up there yesterday, and I just didn't notice it. Tyler wants to know what's got to me all worked up. I didn't tell him. Going to eat, feel like death. Could have sworn driving back from Subway that I saw the Elgy statue buried in some shrubbery staring at me go by. Now I definitely, definitely need sleep. Don't think a lot of people would believe me if I told them about what's happening.
Starting point is 01:33:52 I think I'm going to try posting this on the internet. I think I'll just use the summary. These notes are pretty sporadic. Connected my capture card to my computer to upload the footage. Thought my computer froze for a second. Made this strange popping sound when I hooked everything up. But now it seems to be working fine again. My computer can't die on me now.
Starting point is 01:34:14 Footage just finished uploading. Quality is a lot better than I thought it would be. Gee, I guess this is a really special cartridge. I've never had it come through this clear before. Thought I saw an icon pop up on my desktop that looked like the statue's face for a split second. It gave me quite a scare. You're really unnerved and hilarious.
Starting point is 01:34:32 I'm going to crash after this. I began uploading my YouTube video in an alternate account. I don't remember having uploaded a Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines video last year. This is probably the account that I shared with a friend of mine last summer. I hope it doesn't mind me using it to upload this.
Starting point is 01:34:50 Posting my summary of day four with a link to the YouTube video. I'm going to try to stay awake, but I'm so tired right now. And then the post began again the next day at 10.48 a.m. I had a dream about statue. I dreamed that it was following me in my dream, that I would be minding my own business when I'd feel my neck hair stand up on in. I would turn around, that thing, that horrible,
Starting point is 01:35:13 lifeless statue would be staring with those empty eyes right at me, merely inches away. My dream, I remember calling it Ben. Power of suggestion most likely, and ever before had I had a dream that I could remember so vividly. Really don't want to play this game again. I think I'm going to go back to see if they had old man's there instead. No old man, but I had an interesting conversation with this neighbor. Post the full thing with my summary of tonight's attempt to playing the game. I'm going to wait for a bit, though, to see if I can't dig up any information on this bin guy. I've been getting random, inexplicable headaches due to the lack of sleep and keep hearing that song in my head.
Starting point is 01:35:49 Also, it's flu season, so I need to be careful not to get sick. My immune system's going to be shit right now because of the all-nighter. My computer just, on its own, opened up a text document and wrote the word. hi and www.cleverbot.com by itself. WTF. I went to the website. It's one of those bot chatting programs. I think it's best if I just let the conversation speak for itself. Hello? Hello. Who is this and how are you able to control my computer? Who am I? Right. I forgot you're a bot. Do you really think that? Listen, I know whoever's screwing with my computer can see my screen right now
Starting point is 01:36:34 Yes Yeah, yeah, and I'll wager that you're one of those IT kids who thinks he's tough shit You know what you're doing right now is illegal, right? Is it? No shit, are you familiar with the terms invasion of privacy? Get off my computer, kid. I am your computer. Cool story. Anyway, I'm calling DPS.
Starting point is 01:36:58 You picked a bad time to screw with me, kid. I should wait until you play the game again. What is this voice? Why are you making... It's cleverbought. What makes you think that this text to speech program is like, oh, I just do we do a boy? Like, should I wait until you played the game then?
Starting point is 01:37:14 Okay, whatever. I'm just going to keep going. What? That game. Major's mask. Yeah. How did you know about that? Because.
Starting point is 01:37:28 Because what? I did it. Did what? I played with you. What the, what? Were you scoured? Who is this? Big.
Starting point is 01:37:42 The statue? You're inside my computer now? Yeah. How? You're connected me. How the hell did I connect you? Cable and cord? how tell me about yourself what tell me about yourself what do you mean what is it that where it scares you what the answer answer no answer what what the how did you just open that by
Starting point is 01:38:20 yourself i'm your computer now how much can you control oh what do you want from me To entertain. You're stuck inside there. You can't hurt me. Huh. Go play. No, you can't hurt me. Took you longer to type that.
Starting point is 01:38:42 So? You're not sure. If you're so powerful, why use a ridiculous website like this to chat with me? That's messy. More structured. Fun. Fun? Yes.
Starting point is 01:38:53 Tradition. I like that. You think it's funny. Amusing. And my notes? my notes. You may write them down. Why are you letting me?
Starting point is 01:39:04 This is amusing to see what you think of me. Window closes. Do you want to explain what that voice was? You weren't doing. It's chat bot, dude, or clever bot? I've never heard clever bot. Does it sound like that? Yeah.
Starting point is 01:39:20 Shut up. I hate you. I'm in the middle. We are at the end of this story. I'm gonna keep going, okay. What have I done? I've invited it into my computer. I continue to write these notes, write my summaries.
Starting point is 01:39:37 I feel like I am a prisoner in my one place of security. I don't know. I don't know if I'm hallucinated or not. I feel like I'm going insane right now. I can feel it watching over me. Even as I type this, Ben is controlling everything in the game, toying with me, leading me like a sheep, but for what? What's the purpose?
Starting point is 01:39:56 I know Ben drowned, but why these hauntings? What am I even doing? It can probably even see this right now. Bid called me to clap. Are you bored? I'm not bored. I just know that you're going to derail this. I just know you're going to derail this.
Starting point is 01:40:14 He tells me that he's sorry and wants to be free, that I can free him. That's just like how he got on my computer from the capture card. He could spread, but he needs my help. Says I am special because I can help him. This is the first nice thing he said. He promises to leave me alone if I do it. He swears he will.
Starting point is 01:40:35 I don't know what to think right now. How can I even trust this thing? I'm terrified of him, but now it's saying that it was just having fun. It's twisted and screwed up version of fun. He's saying that the game is over. I do want it to be over. He says that he just wants to be free, that he's trapped in the cartridge of my computer and he wants to be freed.
Starting point is 01:40:57 I don't want to have to deal with this. I don't know how long I could deal with the watching. It's watching my every move, every keystroke. I have nothing private anymore. It knows everything that's been on my computer. It tells that it, if it wanted to, it could do horrible things to me, but it hasn't so I should trust it.
Starting point is 01:41:18 Something tells me that I'm being played again, just like in the game. Ben called me to Cleverbot again. I ignored it and went to go take a shower. when I came to my laptop I was welcomed with an image elegy statue staring at me with those dead eyes. I don't want to talk
Starting point is 01:41:35 to him. Screw you, Ben. I'm not talking to you. Screw you, Ben. I'm not talking to you. Screw you, Ben. I'm not talking to you. Screw you, Ben. I'm not talking to you. It's been more than half an hour and the messages have stopped. Ben
Starting point is 01:41:51 has stopped. I'm beginning to think that Ben isn't confined to just my computer cartridge. I'm beginning getting to feel something. It's hard to explain it. I've never been spiritual, but there's something different about the air in my dorm room now.
Starting point is 01:42:05 I'm begging to see the elegy statue randomly as I search the internet in places I shouldn't. Places where he shouldn't be. I'd be scrolling down and suddenly I'd be staring at a picture of the allergy statue. Always the algae statue. I don't know how much more of this I could take. Let me move into the next day.
Starting point is 01:42:22 Okay, so I will say right now, I was locked in when he was talking. talking about like he was playing the game and he was having moments of like I am so into it. It feels like it's happening to me. I can't control what's going on. Please help. And then it goes to avoid. I was sold. Right. But now that it's kind of like these are the things I was writing down as I was playing the game. And I'm conversing with him in the computer. But I feel like my life is falling apart when he could just like, like I get you're in a game session and weird things are happening and you become curious so you check it out again but it's like he doesn't have that same
Starting point is 01:43:02 attachment to his computer just don't use the computer i'm not going to i's getting pretty this is getting pretty bad it's getting boy it's it's it's dragging itself out way too far yeah like there's so much excess fat to where i'm like i'm just i'm waiting for clever bot to come back yeah i know you are clever clever bot's the only thing that's going to save this uh i i will also say that like i it feels kind of like losing the plot a bit, you know, where it was like, oh, well, there's a ghost in the game and now I'm, like, experiencing it and stuff like that. But now it's just kind of like, I'm trying to get out the truth about Ben. It's like, is that what this story was about, like, besting the spirit? Yeah, it feels kind of convoluted. Yeah, I thought it was just about a weird experience that
Starting point is 01:43:44 happened. Were we trying to, like, beat the, the ghost? Was that what was going on, you know? Like, I, I, I don't, I don't know. It feels like whenever this was like, there's a mystique to it and stuff but now it's like all these like weird things of him like journaling his entries like it just feels weird too because now that's like a complete polar opposite to what he's been doing this entire time feels so now it's mapped out yeah yeah very very i mean it's all it's on his website so it's obviously legitimate but i feel like maybe other creators i listen to just cut out this part maybe i'd be curious to see like if people have done readings of this they've just like i'm not going to include this or maybe this is another point
Starting point is 01:44:23 of it like maybe this is because we're reading it on a creepypasta wiki right where it's all laid out in order maybe this note section was like supplemental reading during the actual story in that case it might work better you know right if like as you're reading his segments he's like here's my notes of as things were happening but because it was a text document at the end it's all showing up here so maybe we're not supposed to read this because we're kind of just recapping a lot of stuff that happened. So what if we skip the stuff that's just re-hashing what we've already read? Well, I mean, do you want to? I just mean if it's like, most of this looks new. I'm just saying if he gets to another long segment that's like, I was playing the game and this happened. And it's like,
Starting point is 01:45:07 yeah, we know we already read that, you know? Right, right. Just if we get to the same thing again. But for now, we'll just continue with September 9th. My worst fears confirmed. Ben is tampered with my summary of Ben.wm. I looked at the summary that I posted on various forms. for the Ben WMV file and parts have been omitted. There's no mention of Ben existing outside the game. Okay, see, now it's starting to make sense why this document's here. Because in the version that gets uploaded or shared around,
Starting point is 01:45:34 Ben edits out the parts that mention what Ben's currently doing, right? I mean, do we even know that he actually had a roommate? Oh, that's a good point. Could that just be Ben posting? Like, is it something similar to, you know what I mean? Like... Could absolutely be, yeah. I think that's possible.
Starting point is 01:45:50 So maybe here, Say, Bids, excuse me, Bid's been tampered with and stuff like that. Yeah. Or, shut up. Ben's tampered with it. Yeah, everything that we've read thus far could be bad info. It's true.
Starting point is 01:46:05 That's what I, it's like, yeah, I'm curious to see. There's no mention of Ben existing outside the game. There's no mention of the moon children. How could he have been that quick to delete the post without me noticing? I'm wondering if maybe it appeared to me that I was posting everything, but in reality, Ben was posting. in his own censored version. When asked Ben why he did it.
Starting point is 01:46:26 He's responding to me on Cleverbot. It's just giving the generic response it usually does. Just talking to a bot this time. I think Ben is mad at me. That's funny. It's a funny predicament of the end.
Starting point is 01:46:41 The moon children appeared in my dreams last night. They lifted up their mask to reveal their hideously disfigured faces. Maggots crawling out of their orifices, sunk in black holes where their eyes should be. Yellow smile that slowly grew bigger and bigger as they came closer to me. They told me that they wanted to play.
Starting point is 01:46:58 I tried to run from them, but the four children pinned me down to the ground with surprising strength. Over them stood the happy mass salesman, announcing that he had a new mask that he wanted me to try. In his spastic, set in movements, matching his in-game appearance, he took out a mask and modeled off of someone's face that I couldn't recognize, a younger-looking face, and handed it to the moon children. Giggling, they lashed it to my face. Their horrible, broken bodies bouncing up and down. Two of them held me down while the other two began to sew the mask onto my face.
Starting point is 01:47:31 My shrinks and screams caused the happy mask salesman's face to turn into the most horrific smile I had ever seen. He sporadically moved around examining this procedure like a curious doctor. In that impossible movement, I flail around but it was no use. I was rolled in the back of my head because of the pain. It felt so real, but I couldn't wake up. I couldn't wake up no matter how hard I tried, and I couldn't wake up. After the mask was melded onto my flesh, they began sewing my legs together.
Starting point is 01:48:01 Then my arms, horrible feeling of a needle puncturing your legs, pulling them in, rupturing your Achilles' tendons, and tying them together resonated throughout my entire body. I tried to scream, but the mask was pressed so tightly against my face that it was my new face, and my new face had no mouth. I didn't make a sound. I tried telling myself in my head that I was dreaming. Try telling myself again and again. Suddenly the moon children stopped and looked at me.
Starting point is 01:48:28 It just stared. The happy mass salesman slowly bent down and stared at me, inches away from my face, and grinned when he simply said, You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you? Before the moon children resumed with increased vigor. I couldn't wake up, couldn't wake up. I wouldn't let me wake up until they had crafted me into another,
Starting point is 01:48:49 elegy statue. I woke up sweating, crying, and shaking uncontrollably. I immediately ran to my computer and went for Ben. So basically in his dream, he's experiencing what Ben experienced in some way, becoming a model within the game, right? Yeah, that's what's appearing to be. It seems like as if this keeps going on, our protagonist is going to be a statue in the game as well.
Starting point is 01:49:12 All right, time for Cleverbaud. Are you ready? Yes. Answer me, Ben. Welcome back. What is the point of doing this? Why? Amusing to see.
Starting point is 01:49:22 Fun to play. Fun to join with you. Make you feel safe. I wonder how you would have reacted. To what? If I hadn't revealed myself and stayed hidden, only doing little things to play with you. Close out your windows.
Starting point is 01:49:46 Turn off your computer. move your mouse by itself whittle things make you wonder if I'm there but you never know give you whittle hints that I am I wanted to do something different for you okay this story has officially lost me
Starting point is 01:50:11 Ben goes from being the dead soul of a child who died tragically trapped within a game that somehow wound it up in an old man's position and like this interesting mystery to just a troll just i could shirt off his computer he's like a malevolent demon kind of thing like a trickster and not even a good one he's like the equivalent of your little brother with the controller like why don't i go ahead and take all your snacks i just went ahead and do we did your game file that's that's literally what it's like Will it had of like, oh, well, like maybe some of the absurdity that happens because Ben's just a kid, you know, now it's just like, I'm dead and caught in this purgatory hell forever, but you can't play with your mouse.
Starting point is 01:51:01 You can't play with your mouse anymore. Sorry, bozo. Who gives a fuck Ben, you stupid bitch is what I want to say to him. God, annoying little prick. Also, it's like, why are you also losing this much sleep over this stuff, too? It's like, you're having like horrible nightmares and then like the reality of it, you like wake up and he's like, sorry, I ate all your fooop-whoops No more delicious snacks for you That whole section was awful Like I could move your mouse by itself Deep cringe
Starting point is 01:51:30 Yeah, deep, deep cringe Okay You did this before Yeah And I will do it again To who, Ben Did you know Ben? Won't tell you,
Starting point is 01:51:48 that information to you. How did Ben die? You know. No, but how did he drown? Well, tell back to you. Why? It is reserved for another. Who?
Starting point is 01:52:04 Another who asked. When? Waiter. Okay, what? Hold on. He's not talking to Ben? Who's he talking to then? That's what I don't get.
Starting point is 01:52:13 Did I miss something? Is he talking to like the spirit of the salesman? Yeah. That's what I'm guessing. But no, he's explicitly said every time up until now. I think Ben's mad at me. Ben won't talk to me. He opens the conversation by saying, answer me, Ben.
Starting point is 01:52:28 Yeah, but I'm a twixtor like that. I'm a man of many faces. I'm a very twicky, twicky demon. That's what it feels like. This is the kind of hell I'm in. This is fucking pretty hard right now. Like, it's so long, too. We're going to get through.
Starting point is 01:52:45 We're almost there. We're almost done. We're almost done. Yeah. Actually, kind of. I mean, there's still, I guess, a chunk, but it's almost done. There's another Cleverbot conversation, though, so... Yes!
Starting point is 01:52:56 Cleverbot! I'm beginning to think that this thing maybe hasn't been at all. And its sadistic nature, I wouldn't be surprised if it took the boy's name after it killed him. My room is beginning to feel different again. There's something out there. I feel really threatened. Like, there's something that is trying to reach out to me and strangle me, but it can't quite get there. I think Ben doesn't want to play with me anymore.
Starting point is 01:53:18 I'll play again. I'll play the game again. Ben, can you see this? I'll play the game again. Please, just stop this. Please, please, please. I'm going and staying trying to decide what is real and what is it. Is Ben just playing a trick on me or is this for real? It's been generating these replies or are people actually posting them? I just see that screen flicker was in my imagination. Imagine depending on the internet and trusting your eyes for your entire life and then being blinded. You can't rely on it anymore. You second guess everything.
Starting point is 01:53:47 For the brief moments, I am looking at my responses to the videos. People were pointing out things that looked fake or Photoshopped or whatever. There's literally no way for me to know if Ben changed something on purpose to try to shut me up. Or if maybe those replies were just constructed by band to try and discourage me from even reaching out. See, I get caught in an infinite loop like this. And this is what has been wearing on my insanity and pushing me to the edge. As I'm writing this, there's no way of telling if, anyone even cares as much as I think they do.
Starting point is 01:54:19 Just another trick. This whole document even exists. Am I writing nothing? I'll also say, um, I feel like the story should have ended after the roommate's post. Yeah, 100%.
Starting point is 01:54:31 I mean, it's just dragging way too long. It is dragging way too long. And like that ending worked where it's like he lived. And I thought the whole part about come to think of it, I never met his dad. I thought that was implying that like, maybe the creator was going out to drown
Starting point is 01:54:47 himself in a lake or something like possessed by the spirit of ben or something like yeah then the cycle continues with the roommate or something or even it's like ben gives his final message kind of thing and you don't know if the roommate's even real but he like you know you never hear from our protagonist again and the last gameplay we see there is the whole like uh you shouldn't have done that segment which is a good point to end on i think i think that's a high note but anyway we're back to cleverbot what is it what's the point of playing i die whenever i do anything You die because you can't figure out the secret. What?
Starting point is 01:55:22 Cimatic. What are you talking about? The beauty and you're suffering. I can't, bro. Part of it's exacerbated by you, admittedly, but... Ben's making me play the game again. It tells me that it has something very important to show me. So it's two summaries we read earlier.
Starting point is 01:55:45 and then the next day The Drown.wmv playthrough was up when I woke up today I remember typing it up but I don't even remember posting it he censored it again there's no mention of the old man I have no voice anymore
Starting point is 01:55:59 I'm only posting what he wants me to I'm the mask he uses to disguise himself as he lies there's an entire video of summary of a video that I don't remember doing reading through the summary this sounds morbid resembling my dream from two nights ago
Starting point is 01:56:13 except on a far more sadistic scale these moon children something more to them almost as if they're another entity from Ben something happened last night that I can't remember I'm posting the fourth summary to the forums
Starting point is 01:56:25 now shadow of my chair moved Ben won't let me visit YouTube I can browse the rest of the sites but he keeps on exiting the window when I go to YouTube why? For the love of God pull up a different computer
Starting point is 01:56:37 I'm filling the air starts constrict I don't think I'm alone here whatever aura has been here is getting more violent trying to contact Ben on clever body. He's not responding. I just get the AI. My ears aren't fooling me. I'm hearing the reverse song of healing. Keep hearing it. Now I'm positive of it. Earlier, I thought it was a weird coincidence, but just now I went to open my window and three floors down at the ground level I saw
Starting point is 01:57:00 the old man. I'm completely positive I did. The same guy. He was just staring up at my window, standing in the middle of campus. Then he soon as took notice of him, they didn't seem to acknowledge it. I'm sorry, was there any mo, like, maybe we're reading the, the text format wrong because it's on creepy post of wiki but and if so my apologies but there's been no mention on the if i'm not criticizing the story i'm criticizing the wiki why is that the first mention we get of him appearing in real life i'm assuming it's supposed to be that he's like going insane and he's hallucinating him right like they're building up this whole they're they're doing this but it just it just seems like such a non like the old man like so here's the thing
Starting point is 01:57:42 are we supposed to assume that the old man I mean I might be reaching are we supposed to assume that the old man is the smiling salesman right and did he drown the child Ben that's my thought at least yeah so now it's like I guess like premonitions
Starting point is 01:57:58 or some kind of like he's coming for him next yeah yeah or something yeah that's what I figure at least okay so that's even notion that's where my notes in I fled my room taking the cartridge with me I don't want to go into details of what happened. I'll lose my train of thought as I hammer the details or the cartridge, which part?
Starting point is 01:58:18 I don't want to get into details of what happened. Why? You've literally painstakingly put down extremely specific times, but like why not get into the details now? We're almost there, man. It's been roughly two days since then. This is my last summary and service to you of the final video you guys saw. Matt.wm.v.
Starting point is 01:58:40 Last video entry I made, at WMVVV, began as normal. I was spawned in Clocktown as usual and nothing seemed to be out of place. Determined to set things right and play the oath to order on top the clock tower on the fourth day and prepared myself.
Starting point is 01:58:53 Spent up time and got to the final day making my way to the observatory. As I got up to the telescope room and approached the astronomer, he would not let me look into his telescope. He told me that it would be cheating and that I should follow the rules. Despite my repeated efforts,
Starting point is 01:59:09 the game would not let me do the fourth day glitch. the matter how hard or what I tried I tried working around the game and doing the glitch but it was adamant this time regardless of if I simply had
Starting point is 01:59:21 the illusion of free will in prior games this time the game became more aggressive than anything I've ever seen eventually told me to go to Icona Canyon where the game would end
Starting point is 01:59:32 and it would stop haunting me what? Why would the game be whatever anxious and desperate to end this nightmare I played the song of soaring and ended up there.
Starting point is 01:59:42 I was told to check my inventory, but I would find the answers there to end the game. I arrived at Akana Canyon and saved my progress at the owl statue. As I searched through my inventory, which ha-ha, because when this opened, Ben had saved his last file at the owl statue, so now he's mimicking the final steps of Ben. As I searched through my inventory, I finally noticed what I was missing, a reoccurring song,
Starting point is 02:00:06 the algae of emptiness. Obviously, once I traveled there and learned the song, I suppose that was the last thing I needed it needed before Ben decided it had enough unplaying with me. Ben is a manipulator. He tries to fool his victims and his security and makes you drop your guard like a Venus flytrap.
Starting point is 02:00:21 He ensnars them. Is that what this story's been about? The Ben's a manipulator or not the child victim I thought of this old man or that, but how is the old man connected to Ben? I thought the old man's worse than Ben because he was doing all this stuff. I thought Ben was just a kid to drown.
Starting point is 02:00:35 Why is he manipulator? Why does he do it? If he is also, because I know they had like he had like the one kind of he had the one line that was like oh I think the spirit might be taking his name since that was his last victim but that was the case it just feels weird that you still refer to it as been then yeah because it just makes you seem like the victim is the one that is so you're calling the spirit but you're calling the old man the old man and you're also calling the child bin so yeah
Starting point is 02:01:01 whatever almost wish he would just have the spirit or like the haunting isn't like just call it the salesman's face because that's clearly what's being applied right manipulator yeah or the devil or something. I don't care. I'm nothing but a puppet to him. He enjoys seeing what kind of human emotions he could trap into by doing different things. And this ancient demon
Starting point is 02:01:20 who apparently like kills children or whatever was content to be like some people I just move their mouse around. There's still some things about this whole experience that still don't make sense, really. But then again, I never was going to figure out these things
Starting point is 02:01:37 and I'm not exactly in the right state of mind to. I've given you all the pieces of the puzzle for you to analyze a piece together the missing links. I'm typing these closing thoughts on the library computer on campus, finally. I've emailed myself the notes I have stored on my infected computer for the last four days.
Starting point is 02:01:53 Why would you send an email? Does he not move through? Whatever. I'm then going to combine those copy, paste these notes with the closing openings that I've typed here on the safe public computer to the one text document. Not taking any chance of spreading bin. I would not
Starting point is 02:02:09 wish this horrible torment on anyone, and I've made sure to have my basis covered here. I didn't run to any problems with them when I was back on my computer trying to email myself the notes. Went right under his nose. He has no idea what he just let me do. Had no problems opening the text document for my infected computer, my email either. He had described you how it feels to finally be able to get the word out on this post. Nightmarion's here. That said, Do not download any of my videos or anything about my videos through YouTube Video Audio Ripper. Screen grab, whatever. I don't know how he could spread, but I know that just watching them on YouTube, reading my text,
Starting point is 02:02:51 won't be able to allow him to spread. How do you know that? Otherwise, he wouldn't have needed my help in the first place. I thought you said he loves tormenting people. Okay, what? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. But I strongly recommend you not take anything you see streaming online onto your own personal computer.
Starting point is 02:03:08 this will be my last posting putting up this form here for the world if you see any further post from me after today's current date September 12th and after the current time 12.08 a.m. just credit them. It already has proven to me that Ben can access my account password and manipulate my computer and like I said I have no idea to what extent it can do this but know that it will do anything to break free he is desperate. You're sure your safety just forget about me please. What if Ben is typing all this? and obviously this goes without saying
Starting point is 02:03:38 but from here on now do not download any images I may put up and any files anything sit day will be my last day gonna burn the cartridge and then come back to destroy my laptop again even though I don't know you this sort of
Starting point is 02:03:53 this is sort of bittersweet for me a semester I really didn't have any friends or rather I stopped paying attention to them but I suppose that's partially to blame because I am the genius who picked to live in a single I suppose wait yeah yeah okay you were right about he doesn't actually have a roommate right yeah kind of a lazy way to
Starting point is 02:04:11 unveil it but whatever uh i am the genius who picks a little single like ha ha i am a guy who chose to live in a single which for those watching at home means i do not have a roommate so hypothetically if someone were to say they are my roommate they would be untrustworthy i suppose someone to get i'm unnecessarily mad i'm sorry i suppose someone to get a hold of me and save me before i got too immersed into this game would have literally saved my life never proved too much for me i'm just glad it happened to me and i could get the warning out so the bend dies here lastly thank you for taking the time to open this and open yourselves up to me by hearing my story despite maybe not believing me you didn't have to do that really you shouldn't have
Starting point is 02:04:53 your support this entire time has kept me going and now i am finally free of this thanks again deducible oh god Like, I was, I liked it in the beginning. I think the, I think that it's an amazing setup for the idea of a, like, of a spirit trapped inside of a video game, especially like those old video games with like save files and stuff of like a lingering touch of like the previous owner of something. It just, it just went on way too long. Like I think, I think even, you probably could have even had that kind of roommate entry be the last thing. That's what I thought.
Starting point is 02:05:30 And I think you still could have had, I think you still could have had the twist thing to a being, like, is that even really his roommate? And I think it still would have read fine. Just leave the question available. You don't have to explain everything in the audience. Even at the end, you don't need that line. I guess I live in a single. Just let the audience speculate if that was maybe him or not.
Starting point is 02:05:48 Because you've set up like eight times in a row that Ben can manipulate what you post. So cool, just you've never brought up the roommate. Leave that as enough breadcrumbs. Yeah. You'll be like, well, I guess that's why I get for living in a single. Am I right, fellas? Wink, wink, wink. was this just like one of the pivotal
Starting point is 02:06:05 like super popular early creepy pastas? This blew up. Also like, okay, so in all honesty you're spoiled right? Because we've been going through and cherry picking like the best ones, right? With a couple of exceptions
Starting point is 02:06:21 like Jeff the Killer for fun or whatever. Sure. You have been reading the cream of the crop. This is better than I think the average creepy pasta. Yeah. I mean, we're getting into levels. I know people say the same thing about like SEPs and stuff.
Starting point is 02:06:36 Like where it's like, same thing. Yeah. Where it's just like there's a couple really good ones and then the rest are just utter trash because it's a lot of people that don't know how to write or whatever. I still think there's merit to reading a lot of the shlocky bad stuff like this. I think it's good. But I do think I'm wondering we need to start branching out out of creepy.
Starting point is 02:06:56 You know, not even not even branching out of creepypastas because that's not what I'm saying. But I do think exploring other good. Uh, areas of horror as well, like even if we dip back into Twitter, ARG stuff, or even if we go into other storytellings. But I think, like, I think me and you need a breath of fresh air from creepy pastas. Yeah. Also, I will say one detail, which is kind of nice if you just ended the story there.
Starting point is 02:07:20 He emphasizes 18 times, don't download anything. And in the roommate's post, he's like, oh, here's a download to the text document, right? Yeah. I mean, that's the game of it. Ben posted, yeah, Ben posted that before. he was able to do that. But at the same time, I think it's more ominous. If it's like, hey, here, download this without hearing that warning at the end. Yeah, you just don't know. Because the entire story before that is a warning. Gosh, leave something up to, like, leave them
Starting point is 02:07:46 something to chew on. You don't have to spell out every detail. Authors do that all the time. They're like, but no, what if people miss this clever thing I set up? Good. Yeah. That makes it more satisfying for the people to do. That's the whole point. Also, that's like the one of the first rules that you hear about is your audience is much smarter than you think they are. Audience smarter than you think. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And I think like even just the part of like no corn or normal corn, whatever, like the way that they build that up is a nice way. Like maybe to a point to where, you know, it's early days to where it's like very quick. But even then it's just something where I've, I feel like I've left it to where I'm like, what is that person doing now?
Starting point is 02:08:24 You know, or is there another website that he just doesn't know about? Like there's a lot of fun building to you're like, oh, like a fun little world building thing. this one yeah it's just like you you have a dead horse and you're just beating it into i guess it's grave i mean like you're not even digging the grave you're just pulverizing it into the ground okay so here's some interesting lore with on that uh the page of like the creator he has some stuff written about like the development of the story and stuff like that um so the guy's name Alex hall in his second year of college he said about writing a horror story and Jade Usable's like a fictional character, stuff like that.
Starting point is 02:09:03 There's a section called Controversy where it says, not long after the discovery of you should not have done that.net. Users noticed a discussion among minor characters in the guest book area of the website that showed the beginning of the plot. Hold on, okay. The sentence I just read says, the guest book area of the website showed the beginning
Starting point is 02:09:21 of a plot to commit a school shooting. Probably going to have to censor that, but... That's probably not a good thing to write when you're in college. Yeah. I don't know if that's this guy. I think it's saying on the website people were discussing it.
Starting point is 02:09:37 Oh, I see. Yeah, not him. What I will say for everyone is the link we put down there, it's much better formatted and that there is a text document of his notes that you can just not read, right?
Starting point is 02:09:51 So you can just read the story as is and then end with the friend posting the update. Right. I really do think you can just end there too. Yeah. You get the kind of, you get, you get the same kind of satisfaction of what he was trying to go for, I believe. And also like, not to let the ending take away from it, the whole, um, the YouTube channel is insanely well done, modding the game that everything that's described actually happens. That's awesome.
Starting point is 02:10:18 That's incredible. A very fun use of like interacting with a new platform or like, you knew where like YouTube and stuff at the time and everything and actually being able to have like video footage to add your story is just another, it's like, it's just a nice evolution of storytelling, like horror storytelling on these blog posts. Yeah, and actually if you go to his YouTube channel called it's called Judd usable
Starting point is 02:10:40 he's got like 67,000 subs. He does a ton of these like ARG stuff. Like some of it looks. Oh, sick. Okay, does this? Yeah, yeah. He's uploaded three years ago, was the last one. But there's like dozens of videos on here and some of it looks really good. Yeah, I'd be curious to check that out.
Starting point is 02:11:01 That's kind of sweet. Yeah, it does good work. So, yeah, I love the YouTube channel, stuff like that. Did not need that text document. Yeah, no. I mean, you know, it is what it is. It's one of the most, one of the most classic. I mean, we've had people have been talking about that forever.
Starting point is 02:11:13 So I'm glad we finally got to read it. And at least I know now what it is. I feel like I'm in the club. You're in the club. But lastly, that's also the second one that we've read, right? That was a user suggestion. So, yeah. So far, the users have suggested that.
Starting point is 02:11:28 and the thing in the basement scheme better at mimicking people. So what is that? Well, you know, it is what it is. Lastly, we have another extremely popular one here, Wendy. It's called Squidward's Sewer's Lie. This one's a good high note to end on, I think. Squidward's sewer slide. I like it.
Starting point is 02:11:46 It feels very cheesy. I hope that this is funny. I'm very excited. So we've kind of hit the bases because the first one was like internet stuff. and the second one was video game stuff, and now we're doing a TV thing, right? There's a bunch of creepy pasta based around media like that.
Starting point is 02:12:03 That was really common. So, we're, you know what, this is a good little, good little early in it. It's a nice little throwback, if you would. All right, so this one I'm also very interested in because I remember watching this so much, the image of like Squidward with the burnout eyes sticks in my head. Now, this, this hunter,
Starting point is 02:12:19 as someone who is not creepy pasta savvy in the younger age, this was the standard. 90% of the ones you read were stuff like this. This was like the poster child for just like creepypasta back then. All right. Okay. Here we go. I just want to start off by saying that if you want an answer at the end, prepare to be disappointed.
Starting point is 02:12:43 There isn't one. I was an intern at Nickelodeon Studios for a year in 2005 for my degree in animation. It wasn't paid, of course. Most internship aren't, but it did have a perk beyond education. To adults, it might not seem like a big one, but most kids at the time would go crazy over it. Since I worked directly with the editors and animators, I got to view new episodes days before they aired. I'll get right to it without giving too many unnecessary details. They had very recently made the SpongeBob movie.
Starting point is 02:13:14 The entire staff was somewhat saffed of creativity, so it took them longer to start up the season. But the delay lasted longer for more upsetting reasons. There's a problem with the series 4 premiere that said everyone and everything back several months. Me and two other interns were in the editing room, along with the lead animators and sound editors, for the final cut of an episode. We received the copy that was supposed to be, fear of a crabby patty, and gathered around the screen to watch. Now, given that the final cut isn't final yet, animators often put up a mock title card at the beginning, it's sort of an inside joke for us
Starting point is 02:13:56 with phony oftentimes lewd titles being used such as how sex doesn't work instead of rock a bye-bye-by-valve which SpongeBob and Patrick adopt a sea scallop. Nothing particularly funny, just work-related chuckles. So when we saw this title card, Squidward Suicide,
Starting point is 02:14:14 we didn't think it more than a morbid joke. One of the other interns did a small throat laugh at it. The episode started with the Happy Goal lucky music playing as normal. The story began with Squidward practicing his clarinet, hitting a few sour notes like normal. We hear SpongeBob laughing outside. Squidward stops, yelling at him to keep it down,
Starting point is 02:14:36 as he has a concert that night and needs to practice. SpongeBob says okay and goes to see Sandy with Patrick. The bubble splash screen comes up, we see the ending of Squidward's concert. This is when things begin to seem off. While playing, a few frames repeat themselves, but sound doesn't. It's supposed to be synced with the animation, so yes, that's not common. But when Squidward stops playing, sound finishes, as if the skip never happened.
Starting point is 02:15:08 There's slight murmuring in the crowd before they began to boo him. Not the normal cartoon booing that's common in the show, mind you. You could very clearly hear malice in it. Squidward's in full frame and looks visibly afraid. The shot goes to the crowd with SpongeBob and Center Frame. He too is booing, which is very much unlike him. That isn't the oddest thing, though. What's odd is that everyone has hyper-realistic eyes.
Starting point is 02:15:36 Yes. Oh, my gosh. Oh, I forgot about this. Okay, so Hunter, some lore, right? Every single, without fail, every single video game, movie, TV show, whatever, creepy pasta would have some mention
Starting point is 02:15:56 of hyper-realistic body parts. They're like, she was stabbed to death and a hyper-realistic heart fell into the screen. He was shot in the head and hyper-realistic blood splattered across the wall. It was just, that's what, all the time,
Starting point is 02:16:12 implying that... Yeah, that's supposed to be the uncanny aspect of these, like, cartoonish worlds. Real human eyes in SpongeBob. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But everything, everything was hyper-realism. Okay, all right.
Starting point is 02:16:26 All very detailed. Clearly not shots of real people's eyes, but something a bit more real than CGI. Pupils were red. Some of us looked at each other, obviously confused. Since we weren't the writers, we didn't question it's appealed to children yet. The shot goes to Squidward, sitting on the edge of his bed, looking very forlorn.
Starting point is 02:16:47 The view out of his porthole window, is of a night sky, though it isn't very long after the concert. The unsettling part is that at this point, there's no sound, literally zero sound. Not even the feedback from the speakers in the room. It's as if the speakers were turned off, though their statuses show them working perfectly.
Starting point is 02:17:10 Squidward just sits there in silence, blinking for about 30 seconds, then starts to sob softly. He puts his hands, tentacles over his eyes and cries quietly for a full minute more. I imagine he puts his hands in his hands in his face. It's like, This was one of the most terrifying stories to children online, by the way.
Starting point is 02:17:53 Keep that in mind. All the while, a sound in the background is very gradually growing from nothing to barely audible. Sounds like a slight breeze through a forest. The screen slowly begins to zoom in on his face. Slowly, I mean that it's only noticeable if you look at shots 10 seconds apart side by side. His sobbing gets louder and more full of hurt and anger. The screen then twitches a bit, as if it twist in on itself for a split second, or going back to normal. The wind through the tree sound gets louder and more severe, as if a storm is brewing somewhere.
Starting point is 02:18:31 The eerie part is that this sound, Squidward's sobbing, sounded real. It was like it wasn't coming from the speakers, but that speakers themselves were holes that the sound was traveling through from the other side. Yeah, that's how speakers work. it's almost as if the speakers weren't speakers but it's said holes that sound is projected out of as good a sound as the studios like to have they don't have the equipment to be able to produce audio of that quality
Starting point is 02:19:07 I love the sound of the wind and sobbing very faintly audible something sounded like laughing came at odd intervals and ever lasted more than a second so you had a hard time pinning it we watched this episode twice so pardon me if things sound too specific I've had time to think about them after 30 seconds of this
Starting point is 02:19:31 the screen blurred to twitch violently something flashed over it as if a single frame was replaced the delete animation editor paused and reround frame by frame what we saw was horrible it was a still photo of a dead child I miss this
Starting point is 02:19:56 every other one I would read back then like if there was a cartoon I watched I'd read a creepy pasta and it'd be this like random dead kids or blood or something yeah yeah he couldn't have been more than six his face was mangled and bloody
Starting point is 02:20:12 one eye dangling over it popped he was naked down to his underwear stomach crudely cut open and his entrails splayed out beside him he was laying on some pavement that was probably a road ha ha ha ha ha ha
Starting point is 02:20:28 paved that was probably a road is a really funny line on some pavement that was probably a road yeah it's a picture of a dead kid and someone in the back's like is this a road or a sidewalk quick we thought it was a basketball court
Starting point is 02:20:41 but we're pretty sure that it was a road at first we thought this was a lake until someone pointed out no that's pavement actually no that's not water that's pavement that is in fact pavement we can't confirm and it's just for a single frame
Starting point is 02:20:58 oh my god the most upsetting part was that there was a shadow of the photographer but no crime tape evidence tags or markers and the it turns out this man wasn't a police officer
Starting point is 02:21:15 at all. Yeah, wait, hold on, guys. This isn't evidence. I think this is the guy who did this. And then the guy
Starting point is 02:21:25 taking the picture, turns around the camera and it's the bin statue. Yeah. You want to know why I killed this kid? The angle was completely off for a shot designed to be evidence.
Starting point is 02:21:41 It would seem they were the person responsible for the child's death. We were, Of course, mortified, pressed on, hoping that this was just a sick joke. Yeah, that's what I like to do to my workplace friends. Display images of children I killed. We're just interns.
Starting point is 02:21:57 I didn't know. I'm just an intern, Nickelodeon. I was played. Where's Dan Schneider? That's why I was about to say, like as a dead, Dan Schneider, Brian Peck thing,
Starting point is 02:22:06 it's funny to imagine them like, I was just goofing around, you know? It's just a joke. It's just a picture of a dead kid on some pavement. It's not a big fucking, this is just what guys in hollywood do okay we're just we're just we're just hollywood script writers this is what we do we just we just have some pool parties with like 14 year old girls at our house throw some dead kids onto sets and then not a big deal like that's just that's but that's
Starting point is 02:22:33 part of showbiz all right that's what we do that's how that that's what we did all every every day before the the guts game tv show or tempel legends of the hidden temple that's what we do The screen flipped back to Squidward, still stomping louder than before, half of his body in the frame. There is now, it appeared to be blood running down his face from his eyes. The blood was also done in a hyper-realistic style. The blood was also done a hyper-realistic style. Let's go. Look at it as if you'd get it on your fingers if you touch the sun.
Starting point is 02:23:15 screen the wind sounded now as if it were that of a gale blowing through the forest there were even snapping sounds like branches laughing a deep baritone lasted for longer intervals and came more frequently after about 20 seconds screen again twisted and showed a single frame photo editor was reluctant to go back we all were but he knew he had to why does he have to Why does he need to call the police? What do you mean? Well, we will after we do our edit because we're interns. The editor leans around.
Starting point is 02:23:55 He's like, we have to go back. Could be a dead child. Could be a photo of a dead kid, you know. I have a feeling this is just going to get progressively worse here. Yeah, of course. We all were. We knew we had to. This time, the photo appeared to be of a little girl.
Starting point is 02:24:14 no other than the first child. She was laying on her stomach. Her barrettes? No, I was just reading like she was laying on her stomach. Her barrettes? Oh, like a hair barrette. It's a beret. Like you put in your hair.
Starting point is 02:24:28 Oh. Yeah, yeah. They were in the pool of blood next to her. Her left eye was damaged in the same way as the boy. And she was in a state of undress. I feel we were reading that about a child, you know. God, yeah. Stay of a dress.
Starting point is 02:24:43 Her entrails were piled on top. of her above another crude cut along her back. Again, the body was on the street. He brings up the street again. It's very important to mention the street. The body was on the street.
Starting point is 02:24:58 And the photographer's shadow was visible. Very similar in size and shape to the first. I had to choke back vomit. And one intern, the only female in the room, ran out. Let's show I resume. Yeah, this is for men. This is a men's group. This is for the boy.
Starting point is 02:25:13 Get out of your touch. Get out of your. woman loser well you can't handle two dead kids well you don't like seeing some dead kids you're never gonna make it here at Nickelodeon the show resumed
Starting point is 02:25:24 uh yeah the loser woman got out of there about five seconds after this second photo played Squidward went silent all sound cut out like it did when the scene started he put his tentacles down and his eyes were now done
Starting point is 02:25:40 in hyperbrew god yes his eyes were now done in hyperrealism like the others were at the beginning of the episode they were bleeding bloodshot and pulsating he just stared at the screen as if watching the people after about 10 seconds he started sobbing this time not covering his eyes the sound was piercing and loud the most fear-inducing thing of all said his sobbing was mixed with screams. Tears and blood were dripping down his face at a heavy rate.
Starting point is 02:26:20 The wind sound came back, and so did the deep voice laugh. It stopped the still photo that lasted for a good five frames. The Aeoneramator was able to stop it on the fourth and backed up. This time, the photo was of a boy about the same age, but the scene was different. His entrails were pulled out from his stomach wound by a large hand. Right eye popped and dangled. blood trickling down it. The animator proceeded.
Starting point is 02:26:47 The next frame was different, but we couldn't tell how. He continued to the next, what does that mean? The next ray was different, but I won't explain it. He continued to the next image, and it was the same thing. He then went back to the first and played them quicker, and I lost it.
Starting point is 02:27:05 I vomited on the floor. So much vomit. Everyone's vomiting. The animation and sound editors gasped, being at the screen. Why are these interns still there? Why are they not like, no? We have to finish. The five frames were not five
Starting point is 02:27:21 different photos. They were frames from a video. We saw the hands slowly lift out the guts. We saw the kid's eye focus on it. We even saw two frames of the kids beginning to blink. That would be, uh, you would barely be able to notice that in video. You would.
Starting point is 02:27:37 And also at the beginning of a second. That's like, I'm not even a millisecond of a fucking of a second. 24 frames a second. It's like, five, it would just almost look like a still image. Yeah, it would be hard to tell you wouldn't see the focusing or the hand moving or the blinking. Also, did you sit there and play it back and forth over
Starting point is 02:27:53 and over to catch all that? Also, also, I know that we're literally critiquing Squidward's sewer slide, but I have to get something out of today. The part about it was different, but we couldn't tell why. Yes, you could. It was moving. It was another instance
Starting point is 02:28:11 in time. Why the heck is this? What's so different about it? They were, it's the same things. Oh, my God. But they're in a different place. Read the next, the next line. The lead sound editor told us to stop. He had to call him the creator to see this.
Starting point is 02:28:31 Mr. Hillenberg arrived. The actual create Stephen Hillenberg. They're bringing in Stephen Hillenberg now. They're bringing him in. I will say that this was years ago. So this, you know, this was before he was passing. before he was, yeah, before it's bad. But still, it's just funny.
Starting point is 02:28:45 It is funny, it is funny. But I just said that to say it wasn't trying to be disrespectful to him. Yeah, no, no, no. He was confused as to why he had been called down. So the editor just continued the episode. Once the next few frames were shown, all screaming and sound again stopped. Squidward was just staring at the viewer. His face taking up the full frame for about three seconds.
Starting point is 02:29:06 Shot quickly panned out. That deep voice said, Do it! And we saw a shotgun in the video. Squidward's hands. Yes! Yes! Oh my God,
Starting point is 02:29:22 read, keep reading, keep reading. He immediately puts the gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger. Yes, the next line. Realistic blood and brain matter splatters the wall behind him in his bed, and he flies back with force.
Starting point is 02:29:41 Yes! I love it. yes we did it we did it we did it joe we did it the last five seconds of the episode show his body on the bed on its side what i dangling from what's left of his head above the floor staring blankly at it then the episode ends i was really hoping that they would said mr hillenberg was like no my creation no not my child my boy not squidward Man, that's so good. Just the idea of it being so quick, too, just like, bam, like all it wants. Do it.
Starting point is 02:30:21 I mean, immediately, do it. Boom. Like, all at the same time. Like, it's the devil laughing at him and showing him dead kids. And he's also sad about his performance, so he puts a shotgun in his mouth. Yeah. Man, that's insane. That's literally the smiling friends bit from the last episode where it's like,
Starting point is 02:30:39 he could not attend as he shot himself in the face with a 3D printed shotgun. like the drive by nature of it, yeah. I think so. I'm pretty sure someone animated the whole thing, minus the dead kids. Mr. Hellenberg was obviously angry at this. He demanded to know what the hell was going on. Most people left the room at this point.
Starting point is 02:31:00 So there was just a handful of us left to watch it again. Q in the episode twice only served to print the entirety of it in my mind and cause me horrible nightmares. Sorry, I stayed. I'll also guarantee you that whoever wrote this was young enough to be like I just said hell while riding and mom is I won't say fuck but I will put hell in there and guess what my mom would be so mad but she doesn't know she's stupid and my mom is gonna beat my butt bare black and blue it's gonna be my mom is gonna kick
Starting point is 02:31:32 my can when she finds out that I said hell in my video in my story about squidward putting a shotgun in his mouth and blowing his eyeballs out because as a dead mutilated children. Stephen, what is this? The only theory we could think of is that the file had been edited by someone in the chain from the drawing studio to hear. The CTO was called
Starting point is 02:31:53 an in to find out when it happened. Analysis of the file did show it was mixed with new material. However, the time step of the chain was a mere 24 seconds before we began viewing it. Dun, dun, dun. All equipment involved was examined for foreign software and hardwell as well as glitches,
Starting point is 02:32:11 such as if the timestamp was showing us the wrong time but everything checked out fine we didn't know what had happened to this day nobody does there was an investigation
Starting point is 02:32:21 due to the nature of the photos nothing came of it no child scene was identified what it's just funny there was investigation due to the nature of the photos but nothing came of it
Starting point is 02:32:33 it's just like you know those photos the most interesting part yeah nothing really came of that you know those dead kids well don't worry about it we're on to the next part No child.
Starting point is 02:32:41 We didn't know what the fuck happened there. Who knows? It doesn't really matter. Yo, that was weird. No child scene was identified. No clues were gathered from the data involved. Or physical clues from the photos. I never believed in unexplainable phenomenon before.
Starting point is 02:32:57 But now that I've had something happened to me and can't prove anything about it beyond anecdotal evidence. I think twice about things. All those dead kids, Squidward killing himself and a ghost possessing the Nickelodeon studios, I think twice now. I love, credited to, user slash sewer slide squidward a 2010 upload wow so this was
Starting point is 02:33:18 so you're saying this was the standard back then this was the most common creepy posse you'd find if you just went to creepy to like recently posted like sure if you go to like top rated you would find better stuff but if you went to like recent and just clicked on one this was this was the standard yeah I want to make my own creepy pasta that is in this vein absolutely it doesn't have to it doesn't have to be a parody of something
Starting point is 02:33:40 but I do want to have something that is this needlessly violent that leads absolutely nowhere which is a huge... It's just like reading about dead children and nothing happens. Yeah. Yeah, and it's just like, I just love the idea that's supposed to be creepy
Starting point is 02:33:56 that in the episode. It's like, do it! And a cartoon octopus kills himself and that's supposed to be like, oh my God, no way. And it's like, yeah, so Stephen Hilleberg was pretty upset. And those pictures of the actual dead children that were absolutely real. We don't even know what the hell happened.
Starting point is 02:34:16 I ended up working at bed, bath, and beyond after that because my cartooning career went nowhere. The end. Anyway, that was weird. See you kids next time. This also, I remember, was, um, there was a video called Red Mist or,
Starting point is 02:34:35 I know there's videos of it online, but there was like, red mist or, or it was like another 4chan post or something like that because I'm pretty sure the original Squidward sewer slide got uploaded to 4chan I think but it was either Red Mist was inspired by this or vice versa I'm pretty sure Red Miss came first
Starting point is 02:34:57 but it's like an animation of the things that are happening I'm pretty sure this version was the only one to mention the photos of dead kids or whatever because back then that was how you spiced it up right like my story's not doing well enough throw in some dead children children that will get the people going and some hyper realistic blood um so i think this was second i could be wrong though and it could be the other way around hmm they also they straight up reference it in uh the tv in sponge bob the tv show by the way there's a scene where sponge bob's like
Starting point is 02:35:31 flipping through it's like oh what's behind this door what's behind this door and they open one door and it's the uh it's a slightly more cartoonish animation of this Squidward sewer slide face. So the creators of SpongeBob are aware of the story and have memed on it in the show, which is fun. Yeah, that's good. Well, this episode took a lot of life out of me. Good.
Starting point is 02:35:54 And I'm, I take a lot of life out of you. Kind of like Ben Drown. Ben Drown, Ben Drown, Goldblum. Ben Drown, Goldblum. All right, everyone, goodbye. I'm leaving. I'm leaving. I'm running away.
Starting point is 02:36:05 I'm running away. Never going to return. Goodbye. I don't know.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.