Creepy - BEN Drowned

Episode Date: November 13, 2017

There's a strong draw to the nostalgia of old video games. But some games are nothing to play with. Jadusable learned this lesson the hard way and documented the downward spiral that followed his finding a strange copy of the Nintendo classic game "Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask"***Support this podcast and get rewards at Patreon.com/Creepypod***Sound Design by Steve Blizin***Title music by Alex Aldea***Intro/Outro Narration by Joe Stofko Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepypastas and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened, or our simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. listener discretion is advised. Credited to Alex Hall. To follow along and see the videos mentioned in this story, please visit creepypod.com slash creepypastas.

Post 1. September 7th, 2010. Okay, X, I need your help with this one. This is not a copy pasta. 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 those old games of my youth that I hadn't touched in at least a decade. This 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 with 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, Golden Eye, fuck yeah. F-0 and two other controllers for $2. Satisfied, I began to drive out of the neighborhood when one last house got my attention. I still have no idea why it did.

There were no cars there and only one table was set up with a 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. His outward appearance was, for lack of a better word, displeasing It was odd If you asked me to tell you why I thought he was displeasing

I couldn't really pinpoint anything It was just something about him that put me on edge 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 I would not have even thought of approaching this man He flashed a crooked smile at me and asked what I was looking for,

and I immediately 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 into his left eye instead, trying not to offend, and asked him if he had any old video games. I was already wondering how I could politely excuse myself from the situation when he would tell me that 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. As I watched him hobble away, I couldn't help but notice what he was selling on this table. Littered across his table were rather peculiar paintings. Various artwork that looked like inkblots

that a psychiatrist might show you. Curious, I looked through them. It was obvious why no one was visiting the guy's garage sale. They weren't exactly aesthetically pleasing. As I came to the last one, for some reason, it looked almost like Majora's mask. The same heart-shaped body with little spikes protruding outward. Initially, I just thought that since I was secretly hoping to find that game at these garage sales,

some Freudian bullshit was projecting itself into the inkblots. But given the events that happened afterwards, 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 a staring into 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 a reflex and I laughed nervously as he handed me a Nintendo 64 cartridge. It was a 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 and asked him how much you wanted for it. The old man smiled at me, told me that I could have it for free, that it used to belong to a kid who was about my age that didn't live here anymore. There was something weird about how the old man phrased that, but I didn't really pay any attention to it.

I was too caught up and not only finding the game, getting it for free. I reminded myself to be a bit skeptical since this looked like a pretty shoddy cartridge and there was no guarantee it would work. But then the optimist 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 me. doubt that the man had said something else. My fears were confirmed when they booted up the game.

To my surprise, it worked just fine. And there was one save file named simply Ben. Goodbye 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 me of his grandson Ben. But of curiosity, I looked at the save file. Eyeballing it, I could tell he was pretty far into the game. He had almost all the masks and three-quarter remains of the bosses. I noticed

that he'd used an old 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 it was a shame that he'd come so close to beating the game, but he never finished it. I made a new file named Link out of tradition and started the game, ready to relive my childhood. For such a shoddy-looking game cartridge, I was impressed at how smoothly I ran. Literally, just like a retail copy of the game, save for a few minor hiccups here and there, like textures being where they shouldn't be random flashes of cutscenes at odd 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 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 Woodfall Temple, and I regrettably went into the save files and deleted Ben. I had intended to preserve the file just out of respect to the game's original owner.

It's not like I needed two files anyway, hoping. that this would solve the problem. It did, and it didn't. Now, MPCs wouldn't call me anything. Where my name should be in the dialogue, there was just blank space. My save file name was still called Link, though. Frustrated and with homework to do, I put the game down for the 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 majority of the game-mask players know about the fourth-day glitch. For those who don't, you can Google it, but the gist of it is that right as the clock's about to hit zero hour, zero minutes, zero seconds on the final day, you talk to the astronomer and look through the telescope. If you time it right, the countdown disappears and you essentially have another day to finish whatever you were doing. Deciding to do the glitch and try to finish the Snowhead Temple, I happened to get it right on the first try and the time corner at the bottom disappeared. However, when I pressed B to exit the telescope, instead of being created by the astronomer,

I found myself in the Majora Boss Fight Room at the end of the game. That trippy boxed-in area, staring at Skull Kid hovering above me. There was no sound. Just him floating in the air above me, and the background music was irregular 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. I thought the game would 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 recognized that text. You get that message when you get the room key from Andrew at the Stockpot Inn. 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. I started to navigate the room again, testing to see if you're not going to see if it was. there was some sort of trigger that enabled me to interact with something here. And 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 like the first one, it was already a pre-existing phrase. Go to the layer of the temple's boss. Yes or no. I paused for a second. contemplating what I should press and how the game would react, when I realized I couldn't select no. Taking a deep breath, I pressed yes, and the screen faded to white,

with the words dawn of a new day beneath it, where I was ported to filled me with the most intense sense of tread and impending fear that I'd ever experienced. The only way I can describe the way I felt here is having this feeling of inexplicable depression 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 about the Clock Tower, as you normally do when you start from day one, only to find that all the inhabitants were gone. Usually with a 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 him 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 in the hero's bow, but at this point, I wasn't even concerned 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, ripped straight from the game itself, but played in reverse. The music would get louder, building up as if you should expect something to pop out at you. But nothing ever did, and the constant loop began to wear on my mental state.

Every now and then I would hear the faint laugh of the happy mask salesman in the background. Just quiet enough so that I wasn't sure if I was just hearing things, but just loud enough 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 area felt broken.

hopelessly broken. As a reverse song of healing repeated for what must have been the 50th time, I just remember standing in the middle of South Clocktown, realizing I'd never felt so alone in a video 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, 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, and this powerful sense of depression was both foreign and crippling. I tried leaving Clocktown, but every time I attempted to zone out, a screen would fade to black, and I would just zone in to another part of Clocktown.

I tried playing my Okarina. I wanted to escape, and I did not want to be here. But every time I played the song of time or song of soaring, it would only say, your notes echo far, but nothing happens. By this point, it was obvious the game didn't want me to leave. But I had no idea why I was keeping me here. I didn't want to go inside the building.

I felt that I'd 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 a pool, that's when it happened. Link grabbed his head, and the screen flashed for a brief moment of the happy mask salesman smiling at me, not Link.

Me, with Skull Kid's scream playing in the background. And when the screen returned, I was staring at the Link statue from playing the song Elegy of Emptiness. I screamed as this thing just stared back at me with that haunting facial expression. I turned around and ran out and back into South Clocktown. To my horror, that fucking statue followed me. The only way I can compare this is like the weeping angels from Doctor Who. Every so often at random intervals the animation would play of the statue appearing behind me.

It was like the thing was chasing me. Or, I don't even fucking want to say it. Haunting me. By this point I was on the verge of hysterics. But not even once did the thought of turning off the console ever occurred to me. I don't know why. I was so wrapped up in it. The terror felt all so 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'd never even 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 fucking statue again, 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. But as I turned to leave, the statue cornered me in the cubby in the back. I tried attacking the statue with my sword, but to no avail. 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 mask salesman and Link turned to face my screen, standing upright, mirroring the statue.

looking at me along with this copy, 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 was someone behind me again. I hardly made my way out of the tunnel and appeared in the southern clocktown. As I ran aimlessly, in a sheer panic, suddenly a reed had screamed and the screen faded to black as dawn of a new day appeared again. The screen faded in and I was standing on top of the 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 stood. stared at me, hauntingly with that fucking 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 a shot off 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 a text box appeared saying,

That won't do you any good. he he and I was picked up off the ground levitated upwards on my back and then Link screamed as he burst into flames instantly killing him I jumped when this happened I'd never seen this move used by anyone in the game and Skull Kid himself didn't have any moves as a desk 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 the 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. On my third and final try, I noticed there was no music

playing this time. That all there was was eerie silence. I remember that in the original encounter with a skull kid, you were supposed to use o'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, Link's body once again horrifically exploded into flames and he died. As a desk 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'd never seen in the game before. 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 was just stare at Link's dead body. After around 30 seconds at the second,

as the game simply fades out with the message, you've met with a terrible fate, haven't you? Before kicking me out to the title screen. 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 to our rooftop scene with my link dead and the skull kid hovering over. With the skull kid laughing, looping again and again. I quickly had the reset button and when the game booted up again, there was one more save file added. Below your turn, entitled Ben. Ben's save 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, but this is way too fucked 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 to explore on Clocktown. I drove back to the old man's house today to ask him some questions with a buddy of mine, only to find that there's a for-sale sign in the front yard. and when I rang the door, no one 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 all this down. But I feel like there's still more to it than meets the eye. And 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 old man, then I'd be able to find some answers.

I need another day or so to recoup rate before tackling this game again. It's already taken its 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 see the last few minutes of what I saw. including Skull Kid and Elegie statue, but it's on YouTube. 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 help me shed some light on 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 fucked up. But maybe this Ben guy is a really good hacker, programmer. I don't want to think about the alternatives if he isn't. That's the end of the copy paste.

I'm hoping that maybe this is some kind of running gig the developers had and that other people have gotten gag or hacked copies of the game like this. This just really scares me. Post number two. September 8th, 2010. 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 this thread.

Last night, that elegy of emptiness statue, 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 end. 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. And never before I had a dream I could remember so vividly. But the important thing is I had kids 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 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 there, to which he told me what I already knew. He was moving. Trying a different avenue, I asked 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, one that I should have asked from the beginning. Who was Ben? The man's expression turned grim, and I learned that four doors. down around eight years ago on April 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. 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. 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. I pressed start 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 Benfile earlier. It seemed to fluctuate between displaying the Owl Save and Not. I brought up the Benfile, hesitated for a moment, noticing that the stats were not the same as they originally were two days ago. It seemed like he'd already completed the Stone Tower Temple this time. Summending my courage, I selected it. Immediately, I was thrust into complete chaos.

Sure enough, I was outside Stone Tower Temple. But that's about all that was expected. The zone itself wasn't called Stone Tower Temple, but rather stone, with breaks. S-T-O-N-E. And immediately a dialogue box of complete gibberish that I couldn't make out greeted me. 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 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 that I had a C button item that I'd 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.

Almost demonic in nature. And there was some kind of high-pitched yip or some kind of laugh or something playing in the background. I had all of two minutes to take in the environment before another one of those fucking elegy of emptiness statues was summoned. And immediately after I was cut into the dawn of a new day screen, except this time it was without the subtext. I was a Deku scrub in Clocktown. This scene would normally play after the first time you travel back in time. Taddle would say,

What just happened? It's as if everything has. But instead of saying started over, she finished her remark in broken text as the laugh of the happy mask salesman played in the background. I was put back in control of my character, but from a fucked up camera angle. I was looking from behind the door at 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 begrudgeonly went inside the door. There I was greeted by the happy mask salesman who simply told me, you've met a terrible fate, haven't you? Before the screen whited out.

I was in term in a field as a human again. I might as well have not 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 a twisted version of the happy mask salesman theme was playing. I decided to run towards Woodfall before I noticed the gathering of three figures off to the side, one of them being a Pona.

As I approached them, to my horror, I saw the happy mask salesman, the Skull Kid, 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. Same with Epona. And the elegy of emptiness statue is doing what it had been doing all along. Just standing there eerily.

It was a happy mask 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. I'd not engage 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, I pulled out my ocarina, to which the game played the ding sound when you're supposed to play your ocarina, and tried a song that I hadn't played yet, the happy Masked Salesman's own song,

and the song that had been playing on Loopback in day four, the song of healing. I finished playing the song and as I did, an ear-splitting shriek blasted on my TV. This guy immediately started flashing. The happy mask salesman's twisted theme song sped up, intensifying the fear inside me. And like exploded into flames and died. The three figures stayed lit during my death screen as they watched my lifeless body burn. 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.

The same fear that caused me to lose sleep two days ago started to grit me again and 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 a little time to ponder, as I was immediately given another small cutscene of transforming into Zora and now I found myself in Great Temple Bay. Hesitent but curious to see what the game had in store for me. I made my way towards a beach, where I found Apona. 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 pony kept neighing, 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 band started swimming. Sure enough, I almost missed it. I found something at the bottom of the ocean. One last elegy of emptiness statue. I went down to examine it, and suddenly my Zora started doing a choking animation.

I'd never seen as Zora do before, which didn't even make sense because Zoras can breathe under water. Regardless, my character choked to death and died. And again, the statue was the only thing that was highlighted in my death. I didn't respawn 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. The new save files told me about Ben. Now it made sense why the statue appeared

when I tried to go to the laundry pool. The game must have anticipated how I would have tried to escape the day four o'clock town. The two save files told me his fate. As I suspected, Ben was dead. He drowned. The game obviously isn't through with me. It taunts me with the new save files.

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 believe in the paranormal. But I'm running out of explanations. Why would someone send me this message?

I don't understand it. I just get too depressed thinking about this. The footage is up here for those who want to see it and try to 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 fuck with it anymore. Post number three. September 10th, 2010.

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 spread so I don't suffer for nothing. I've lost the will to type 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 Ben Jesus Christ I can't 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 dream 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 blinds 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. It talked to me for the first time. Not just using text that's already in the game. It spoke to me. Talked to me. It referenced Ben. 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. It's not fair.

I want to go home. I want to see my parents again. I'm so away from home here at this school. I just want to hug my mom again. I just want to forget that statue. forget that statue's horrible plank face. My original game file's back, 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 what I keep telling myself, but every time I think about it, I'm not so sure. Post number four.

September 12th, 2010. Let me just clear things up. I know you guys are worried, but Judisible is okay. He finished moving out today, and he's going back home. He's just taking this semester off. I'm not sure what happened. I have a vague idea, but you guys probably know more than I do. I'm Judu Zabal's roommate, and obviously I knew something was.

wrong with him for a few days now. He stayed in his room all the time. Fell out of contact with literally all his friends. 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 at a buddy's place. I'm like coming into my room to get stuff that I need. I tried talking to him several times,

but you cut me off or keep the conversation brief when I asked him about his strange behavior. It's like he was convinced something It 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's been going on, gave me the account info to his YouTube account, and told me he's getting away from here, that it lured him to play it again instead of trying to change things and that he shouldn't have done that

and to upload the footage and inform people what happened. I told him that he could do it himself and he got this wild look in his eyes and told me that he is never looking at that game again. And that's the last thing he said to me. He never even said by when his parents came to pick him up.

I never even got to meet his parents. I honestly can't tell you what happened. When he spoke, it was kind of hard to understand him, and his fucked up appearance really distracted me. On the flash drive, there was the footage of the game last night, a text document with his name and password for YouTube, and a third document called the truth.txte containing what he told me were his notes that he'd taken. and he told me that this meant everything to him and that I follow his instructions exactly.

Normally I wouldn't be so to the letter for a quest over a fucking 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 I 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. The video I'm releasing tonight, the truth.txte 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 loaded the Ben file in the game. Looking back, I realized that Chiduosable left the save select screen and because it's a different name sometimes.

So my bad for that. But all it said this time was the same at the end of his screen. last video, Link and Ben. Nothing different. I wasn't there when he played it, 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, I just think the game got too personal for him. Post number 5. September 15th, 2010. Hey guys, Juduza will here. This will be the last time you'll be hearing from me, and this is my final gift to you.

These are the notes that I've taken and the realizations I've 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. But after spending four days with this maddening game, I have become to understand what's really a play here. And hopefully after reading this, we can ensure that this never happens again. There are things that I could not share with you while this was going on due to circumstances to which I'll explain. Was 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 and 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 Gossip Stone, or the lens of truth equipped at some point. 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 play 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 equipped 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. The Tegs followed suit too. I hope you guys paid attention. to those as well.

They were my little messages 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 hoped 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. I don't have time to proofread or make all my research pretty. But here it all is.

September 6th, 2000. 10. 11 p.m. I 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. Who or what is the 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. September 7th, 2010. 210 a.m. Summary was posted here, so you can go back and look at my first post for day 4.wm.v for that. 4.23 a.m. I can't sleep. I've been trying so hard, but the harder I try, I just get more restless. I just feel like the statue is appearing whenever I close my eyes. 8.20 a.m.

Didn't sleep at all. Just gonna start my day. I don't think I have the energy to go to class today. I'm gonna drive back down to talk to that old man, taking my buddy Tyler with me just in case. 1.18 p.m. Back home now. No sign of the old man.

Really weird that he appears to be moving the next day. But maybe the for sale sign was up there. yesterday and I just didn't notice it. Teller wants to know what's gotten me all worked up. I didn't tell him. Going to eat. I feel like death.

3.46 p.m. could have sworn driving back from subway that I saw the elegy statue buried in some shrubberies staring at me go by. Now I definitely, definitely need sleep. 5 p.m. Don't think a lot of people would believe

me if I told him about what's happening. I think I'm going to try posting this on the internet. Think I'll just use the summary. These notes are pretty sporadic. 6 p.m. 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.

Now it seems to be working fine again. My computer can't die on me now. 7 p.m. Footage is 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. 8.45 p.m.

Thought I saw an icon pop up on my desktop that looked like the statue's face for a split second. Gave me quite a scare. Getting really unnerved and delirious. I'm going to crash after this. 9 p.m. Begin uploading my YouTube video on an alternate account. 9.03 p.m. I don't remember having uploaded the Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines video last year.

This is probably the account that I shared with a friend of mine last summer. But he doesn't mind me using it to upload this. 9.55 p.m. Posting my summary of day 4 with a link to the YouTube video. I'm going to try and stay awake, but I am so tired right now. September 8th, 2010, 1048 a.m. I had a dream about the statue. I dreamed that it was following me in my dream.

That I would be minding my own business when I would feel my neck hair stand up on end. I would turn around that thing, that horrible, lifeless statue would be staring with those empty eyes. eyes right at me, merely inches away. In my dream, I remember calling it Ben. Power of suggestion, most likely. And never before had I had a dream I could remember so vividly. 11.21 a.m. I really don't want to play this game again.

I think I'm going to go back to see if that old man's there instead. 1.35 p.m. No old man, but I had an interesting conversation with his neighbor. I'll post the full thing with my summary of tonight's attempt at playing the game. Gonna wait for a bit though and see if I can't take up any information on this Ben guy, 2.45 p.m. I've been getting random, inexplicable headaches due to lack of sleep and keep hearing that song in my head. Also, it's flu season, so I need to be careful not to get sick. My immune system is going to be shit right now because of that all nighter.

3 p.m., 302 p.m. My computer just, on its own, opened up a text document and wrote the words, hi, and www. cleverbought.com by itself. What the fuck? 3.46 p.m. 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, forgot. You're a bot. Do you really think that? Listen, I know whoever's fucking with my computer can see my screen right now.

Yes. Yeah, and I'll wager you're one of those IT kids who thinks he's tough shit. You know what you're doing now is he leaves. legal, right? Is it? No shit. Are you familiar with the term invasion of privacy? Get the fuck off my computer, kid.

I am your computer. Cool story. Anyway, I'm calling DPS. You picked a bad time to fuck with me, kid. Should I wait until you play the game then? What? That game. Majura's Mask?

Yes. How did you know about that? Because. Because what? I did it. Did what? I played with you. The fuck?

Were you scared? Who the fuck is this? Ben. The statue? You're inside my computer now? Yes. How? You connected me.

How the hell did I connect you? Cables and cords. How? Tell me about yourself. What? Tell me about yourself. What do you mean? What is it that really scares you?

What the fuck? Answer. No. Answer. What the fuck? How the fuck did you just open that by yourself? I am your computer now. How much can you control?

All. What do you want from me? To entertain. You're stuck inside there. You can't hurt me. Go play. No. You can't hurt me.

Took you longer to type that. So? You're not sure. If you're so powerful, why use a ridiculous website like this to chat with me? Less messy. More structured. Fun. Fun? Yes. Tradition. I like it.

You think it's funny? Amusing. And my notes? notes? You may write them down. Why are you letting me? It is amusing to see what you think of me. 3.50 PM.

What have I done? I've invited it into my computer. I continue to write these notes, write my summary. I feel like I'm a prisoner in my one place of security. I don't know. I don't know if I'm a whole. I'm hallucinating or not. I feel like I'm fucking 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?

I know Ben drowned, but why these hauntings? What the fuck am I even doing? It can probably We see this right now. 4.35 p.m. Summary of the Ben.wm.wm. 7.18 p.m.

Ben called me to Cleverbot again. He tells me that he's sorry and wants to be free. And that I can free him. And just like how he got on my computer from the capture card, he can spread. But he needs my help. He says I'm special because I can help. him. That's the first nice thing he said. He promises to leave me alone if I do it. He swears he will. I don't know what to think right now. How can I even trust this thing? 7.20 p.m. I'm terrified of it.

But now it's saying that it was just having fun. It's twisted and fucked 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 and my computer and he wants to be freed. I don't want to have to deal with this shit. I don't know how long I can 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 if it wanted to, it could do horrible things to me, but it hasn't, so I should trust it. 8.01 p.m. Something tells me that I'm being played again. Just like in the game. 9.29 p.m. 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 to him.

9.44 p.m. Fuck you, Ben. I'm not talking to you. 9.56 p.m. Fuck you, Ben. I'm not talking. 10.06 p.m. Fuck you, Ben. I'm not talking to you. 10.12 p.m. Fuck you, Ben. I'm not talking to you.

10.45 p.m. It's been more than a half hour and the messages have stopped. Ben has stopped. I'm beginning to think that Ben isn't confined to my computer cartridge. I'm beginning to feel something. It's hard to explain it. Never been spiritual, but there's something different about the air in my dorm room now. 11.42 p.m.

I'm beginning to see the elegy statue randomly as I searched 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 elegy statue. Always, the elegy statue. I don't know how much more of this I can take. September 9th, 2010. 12.35 a.m. Whores spheres confirmed.

Ben is tampered with my summary of ben.wm.v. I looked at the summary that I posted on various forums for the ben.wmv file on parts of Ben. 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 his own censored version. I'm going to ask Ben why he did it.

10.50 a.m. He isn't responding to me on Cleverbot. It's just giving the generic responses it usually does. I'm just talking to a bot this time. In 24 a.m. I think Ben is mad at me. 10.43 a.m. The moon children appeared in my dreams last night.

They lifted up their masks to reveal their hideous disfigured faces. Magids crawling out of their orifices. Sunk in black holes where their eyes should be. A yellow smile that slowly grew bigger and bigger as they came closer to me. They told me they just wanted to play, cried to run from them, but the four children pinned me down to the ground with surprising strength. Over them stood the happy mask salesman, announcing that he had a new mask that he wanted me to try. In his spastic sudden movements matching his in-game appearance, he took out a mask of modeled off with someone's face that I couldn't recognize. A younger looking face

And handed it to the moon children Giggling they latched it to my face A 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 My shrieks and screams Cause the happy mask salesman's face To turn into the most horrific smile I'd ever seen

He sporadically moved around examining this procedure like a curious doctor. That impossible movement flailed around, but it was no use. My eyes 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, I couldn't wake up. After the mask was melded onto my face, flesh that began sewing my legs together and then my arms. The horrific feeling of a needle puncturing your legs and 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. It didn't make a sound. I tried telling myself my head that I was dreaming. Tried telling myself again and again. Suddenly the moon children stopped. And looked at me. They just stared.

And the happy mask salesman slowly bent down and stared at me. Inches away from my face. 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. I couldn't wake up. It wouldn't let me wake up until they crafted me into another allergy statue.

I woke up sweating, crying, and shaking uncontrollably. I immediately ran to my computer and went for Ben. 9.9.10. Conversation 1. Answer me, Ben. Welcome back. What's a point of doing this? Why?

Amusing to see. How? Fun to play. Fun to toy 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. out your windows, turn off your computer, move your mouse by itself. Little things make you wonder if I am there, but you never know. Give you little hints that I am. I wanted to do something different with you. You did this before? Yes, and I will do it again.

To who? Ben? Hmm. Did you know Ben? Won't tell that information to you. How did Ben die? You know. No, but how did he drown? Won't tell that to you.

Why? It is reserved for another. Who? Another who asks. When? Later. I'm beginning to think that this thing maybe isn't Ben at all. In its sadistic nature, I wouldn't be surprised if it took the boy's name after it killed him.

12.04 p.m. My room is beginning to feel different again. There's something out there. I feel really threatened. There's something that's trying to reach out to me and strangle me, but it can't quite get there. At 12.46 p.m. I think Ben doesn't. want to play with me anymore.

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. 41 p.m. I'm going insane, trying to decide what's real and what isn't.

Is Ben just playing a trick on me, or is this for real? Is Ben generating these replies or people actually posting them? Did I just see this screen flicker? Was that my imagination? Imagine depending on the internet and trusting your eyes for your entire life and then being blinded. You can't reply on it anymore. You second-guess everything. 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. And there's literally no way for me to know if Ben changed something on purpose or to try and shut me up. Or if maybe those replies were just constructed by Ben to try and discourage me from even reaching out. See, I get fucking caught in an infinite mind-fuck loop like this, and this is what has been wearing on my sanity, pushing me to the edge. As I'm writing this, there's no way to even tell if anyone even cares as much as I think they do. Just another fucking trick. Does this whole document even exist?

Am I writing nothing? 9.910. Conversation 2. 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? Thematic.

What the fuck are you talking about? Their beauty in your suffering. 4.09 p.m. Ben is making me play the game again. It tells me it has something very important to show me. It's 23 p.m. Summary of the drowned.wm.wm. 909 p.m.

Summary of children.wm. September 10th, 2010. 11.52 a.m. The drowned.wm.v playthrough was up when I woke up today. I remember typing it up, but I don't. I don't ever remember posting it. He censored it again. There's no mention of the old man.

I have no voice anymore. I'm only posting what he wants me to. I am the mask he uses to disguise himself as he lies. 11.55 a.m. There's an entire video summary of a video that I don't remember doing. Reading through the summary, it sounds morbid, resembling my dream from two nights ago except on a far more sadistic scale. These moon children, there's 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 forms now. Shadow of my chair moved. 12 p.m. visit me on YouTube. I can browse the rest of the sites, but he keeps on exiting the window when I go to YouTube. Why? 2.0.2 p.m.

I'm feeling the air start to constrict. I don't think I'm a little... Whatever aura has been here is getting more violent. 244 p.m. I'm trying to contact Ben on Cleverbodies, not responding. I just get the AI. 3.51 p.m. My ears aren't fooling me.

I'm hearing the reverse song of healing. I keep hearing it, 4.23 p.m. 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 ground level, I saw 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. If any students took notice from them, they didn't seem to acknowledge it. That's where my notes end. 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 out these last details. It's been roughly two days since then. This is my last summary and service to you of the final video you guys saw. The last video entry I made, mat.wmv, 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 of the clock tower on the fourth day, I prepared myself.

I sped 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 it would be cheating and that I should follow the rules. Despite my repeated efforts, the game would not let me do the fourth-day glitch, no 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 the illusion of free will in prior games, this time the game became more aggressive than anything I've ever seen. It eventually told me to go to a county canyon, where the game would end and it would stop haunting me. anxious and desperate to end this nightmare, I played the song of Soaring and ended up there.

I was told to check my inventory and I would find the answers there to end the game. I arrive at a Cana Canyon and saved my progress at the Owl Statue. As I searched through my inventory, I finally noticed that I was missing a reoccurring song. The allergy of emptiness. Obviously, once I traveled there and learned the song, I suppose that the last thing I needed before Ben decided it had had enough fun playing with me. Ben is a manipulator. He tries to fool his victims into security and makes you drop your guard like a Venus fly trap.

He ensnars them. I'm nothing but a puppet to him. He enjoys seeing what kind of human emotions he can tap into by doing different things. There's still some things about this whole experience that still don't make sense. But then again, I was never going to. at figuring out these things and I'm not exactly in the right state of mind too. I'm giving you all the pieces of the puzzle for you to analyze and piece together the missing links. I'm typing these closing thoughts on the library computer on campus and I've emailed

myself the notes I stored on my infected computer from the last four days. I'm then going to combine those, copy paste those notes with the closing openings that I've typed here on the safe public computer into one text document. I'm not taking any chance to spreading Ben. I would not wish this horrible torment on anyone, and I've made sure to have my bases covered here. I didn't run in any problems with Ben when I was back on my computer trying to email myself the notes.

Went right under his fucking nose. He had no idea what he just let me do. I had no problems opening the text document from my infected computer and my email either. I can't describe you how it feels to finally be able to get the word out in this post. The nightmare ends here. That said, do not download any of my videos or anything about my videos. Through a YouTube video, audio ripper, screen grab, whatever.

I don't know how he can spread, but I know that just watching them on YouTube, reading my text, won't be able to allow him to spread. Otherwise, you wouldn't have needed my help in the first place. But I strongly recommend that you do not take anything you see streaming online onto your own personal computer. This will be my last posting. I'm putting up on this forum here for the world. If you see any further posts from me after today's current date, September 12th, and after the current time, 1208am, discredit them.

It already's proven to me that Ben can access my account. count and password 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. To ensure your safety,

just forget about me. Please. And obviously, this goes without saying, but from here on out, do not download any images I may have put up, any files, any, anything. This fifth day will be my last day. I'm going to burn the cartridge and then come back to destroy my laptop.

Again, even though I don't even know you, this is sort of bittersweet for me. This 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'm the genius who picked to live in a single. I suppose someone to get a hold of me and save me before I get too immersed into this game would have literally saved my life. However, it proved too much for me. I'm just glad it happened to me and I could get the warning out so that Ben 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. You shouldn't have. Your support this entire time has kept me gone. Finally free of this. Thanks again. deducible. For more information, including pictures and videos of the stories told on this podcast, or to suggest stories for future episodes, please visit us at CreepyPod on Twitter,

Instagram and Facebook, or email us at Creepypod at Gmail. All stories told on this podcast can be found at Facebook. creepypasta wikia.com and are protected by a creative commons license. Some rights reserved unless otherwise stated.